A Tale Of A Tub

“I do here make bold to present your Highness with a faithful abstract drawn from the universal body of all arts and sciences, intended wholly for your service and instruction.”

The narrator (or Swift) writes to the King to tell him about his book. He states that it is about all subjects meant for the King to learn from. Indeed, A Tale of a Tub has much for the King to process, but perhaps Swift is being facetious when he says that it is meant to benefit the King because it seems that the King will either fail to understand the allegories, or have Swift’s head.

“To this end, at a grand committee some days ago, this important discovery was made by a certain curious and refined observer, that seamen have a custom when they meet a Whale to fling him out an empty Tub, by way of amusement, to divert him from laying violent hands upon the Ship.”

Seamen use a tub in order to push a whale away from the ship. Swift compares this whale to Hobbes’s Leviathan, which was a critique of religion and government. In this way, the ship represents the hefty status quo and the whale new ideas that are trying to move that status quo. The three brothers in the tale are all whales trying to rock the boat, whether it is for power or to garner followers to their respective ideas.

“No, though it sometimes tenderly affects me to consider that all the towardly passages I shall deliver in the following treatise will grow quite out of date and relish with the first shifting of the present scene, yet I must need subscribe to the justice of this proceeding, because I cannot imagine why we should be at expense to furnish wit for succeeding ages, when the former have made no sort of provision for ours; wherein I speak the sentiment of the very newest, and consequently the most orthodox refiners, as well as my own.”

Throughout the treatise, Swift discusses ancient versus modern practices. Sometimes the ancients are portrayed as having just as much foresight as the moderns, such as when they established the practice of critique. Sometimes moderns are cleverer and have accomplished more. Here, Swift jokingly writes about the propensity of writing to go out of date, but he doesn’t see why he should look ahead to the future and make them laugh. The preceding generation didn’t do that for him. He also refers to the newest as the most orthodox, in that people tend to be more zealous when they first become attached to a movement.

“Whatever reader desires to have a thorough comprehension of an author’s thoughts, cannot take a better method than by putting himself into the circumstances and posture of life that the writer was in upon every important passage as it flowed from his pen, for this will introduce a parity and strict correspondence of ideas between the reader and the author.”

The reader and author can commune most effectively when they are in lockstep. To do this, the readers must put themselves in the writer’s place in order to understand where the writer’s ideas are coming from.

“There are certain common privileges of a writer, the benefit whereof I hope there will be no reason to doubt; particularly, that where I am not understood, it shall be concluded that something very useful and profound is couched underneath; and again, that whatever word or sentence is printed in a different character shall be judged to contain something extraordinary either of wit or sublime.”

Even if readers fail to understand what a writer is saying, they assume that there is something deep underneath. This perception underscores the belief that writers are supposed to have something to say, so if they didn’t have a unique idea to put into words, they wouldn’t write in the first place.

“It is a great ease to my conscience that I have written so elaborate and useful a discourse without one grain of satire intermixed, which is the sole point wherein I have taken leave to dissent from the famous originals of our age and country.”

Swift playfully leads readers to believe that his work is not a satire. He then ironically goes after his writer predecessors by suggesting their works are full of satire and are not serious. He asserts that his work is the most straightforward discourse, when, in fact, he goes on many digressions and constantly employs humor.

“Indeed, Nature herself has taken order that fame and honour should be purchased at a better pennyworth by satire than by any other productions of the brain, the world being soonest provoked to praise by lashes, as men are to love.”

Swift suggests that satire garners its users notoriety. The brain is attracted to it because it thrives upon the denigration of others. It also will take criticism more easily if it is couched in humor. Indeed, people are prone to flock to criticism if it is sugarcoated.

“Whoever has an ambition to be heard in a crowd must press, and squeeze, and thrust, and climb with indefatigable pains, till he has exalted himself to a certain degree of altitude above them.”

In order to make one’s opinion known, one has to be seen and heard. The best way to do this is by getting up high above a crowd. The best orators do this to quickly gain attention.

“I confess to have been somewhat liberal in the business of titles, having observed the humour of multiplying them, to bear great vogue among certain writers, whom I exceedingly reverence. And indeed it seems not unreasonable that books, the children of the brain, should have the honour to be christened with variety of names, as well as other infants of quality.”

Swift explains why he has so many headings and titles in his book. Books are the creations—the children—of writers, so they should be bestowed with proper names like children are given.

“Others of these professors, though agreeing in the main system, were yet more refined upon certain branches of it; and held that man was an animal compounded of two dresses, the natural and the celestial suit, which were the body and the soul; that the soul was the outward, and the body the inward clothing; that the latter was ex traduce, but the former of daily creation and circumfusion.”

Some scholars say that man is an animal with two sides to him. In this theory, the soul is outside, and the body is hidden. The soul is created and molded every day; it is fluid. This means that the soul is actually the functioning part of the body. Without it, the body is just a useless pile of bones and liquid. The soul guides the body’s purpose and function.

“These reasonings will furnish us with an adequate definition of a true critic: that he is a discoverer and collector of writers’ faults."

Swift defines the best type of critic. The critic is someone who investigates a work or an author and finds its idiosyncrasies and flaws. They collect these and present them to the world.

“But besides these omissions in Homer already mentioned, the curious reader will also observe several defects in that author’s writings for which he is not altogether so accountable. For whereas every branch of knowledge has received such wonderful acquirements since his age, especially within these last three years or thereabouts, it is almost impossible he could be so very perfect in modern discoveries as his advocates pretend.”

Swift satirically attributes modern discoveries to Homer, an ancient writer. He seems to think that Homer has invented gunpowder and the compass, as well as discovered the circulation of blood. He gets back to the idea that the ancients did not tell us what was coming. Homer was so learned that his followers want to say that he accomplished even more than he did. Swift shows readers the pitfalls of being enamored with a figure so much that one begins to believe that their accomplishments have no bounds. He also gets in an embedded critique of those who didn’t think that the ancients were worth reading by satirizing modernists’ reactions to an ancient like Homer. If he couldn’t invent modern implements, the modernists say, he isn’t worth reading. Swift uses satire to make this seem ridiculous.

“We left Lord Peter in open rupture with his two brethren, both for ever discarded from his house, and resigned to the wide world with little or nothing to trust to. Which are circumstances that render them proper subjects for the charity of a writer’s pen to work on, scenes of misery ever affording the fairest harvest for great adventures.”

The chapters entitled “A Tale of a Tub” are about how Peter, Martin, and Jack’s lives are shifting and falling apart. However, Swift says that misery is a boon for writers because it makes for the most exciting stories. It is true that when a reader does not know what will happen next, they are more apt to keep reading to find out. 

“I have sometimes heard of an Iliad in a nut-shell, but is has been my fortune to have much oftener seen a nut-shell in an Iliad.”

Swift is being humorous again. The phrase “in a nut-shell” refers to the theme or summation of a piece. He makes a satirical play on words to say that he’s seen more nut-shells in the Iliad. Although this may not possess a literal meaning, it is an example of his off-hand sarcasm and wordplay.

“For to enter the palace of learning at the great gate requires an expense of time and forms, therefore men of much haste and little ceremony are content to get in by the back-door. For the arts are all in a flying march, and therefore more easily subdued by attacking them in the rear.”

It is easier to get into “the palace of learning” through the back way, which requires less education and connections. The arts are always changing anyway, he suggests, so it may be better to get in at the back. Then one can learn and leap up to the front when they are ready.

“At other times were to be seen several hundreds [priests] linked together in a circular chain, with every man a pair of bellows applied to his neighbor, by which they blew up each other to the shape and size of a tun; and for that reason with great propriety of speech did usually call their bodies their vessels.”

Swift’s critique of religion often turns satirical. He suggests that priests belch out vapor in order to communicate their teachings to one another. The more hot air inside of a priest (in this case Puritan or Presbyterian), the wiser they are. These bellows puff them up—the better for getting ideas out of them. This is why their bodies are vessels. They contain their teachings and gas for inspiration.

“Whether a tincture of malice in our natures makes us fond of furnishing every bright idea with its revers, or whether reason, reflecting upon the sum of things, can, like the sun, serve only to enlighten one half of the globe, leaving the other half by necessity under shade and darkness.”

Swift basically presents a yin and a yang. For every positive idea, there is a negative one. Part of the world is dark when the other half is light. Every good idea has a bad idea as its inverse. This keeps the balance of the universe in check.

“For great turns are not always given by strong hands, but by lucky adaptation and at proper seasons, and it is of no import where the fire was kindled if the vapour has once got up into the brain.”

Sometimes good ideas are inspired by luck and the right environment. It doesn’t matter how the idea came to fruition as long as it took hold. In the case of religion, it seems that popular followings begin locally and then spread. Whoever is in power also has a great deal of influence on whether new ideas flounder or succeed.

“Having, therefore, so narrowly passed through this intricate difficulty, the reader will, I am sure, agree with me in the conclusion that, if the moderns mean by madness only a disturbance or transposition of the brain, by force of certain vapours issuing up from the lower faculties, then has this madness been the parent of all those mighty revolutions that have happened in empire, in philosophy, and in religion.”

Madness sometimes allows people to look at life in a different way. This makes nontraditional thoughts occur. Sometimes those thoughts turn out to be the seeds of something brave and new that can inspire others to revolt or to follow a movement or idea.

“But when a man’s fancy gets astride on his reason, when imagination is at cuffs with the senses, and common understanding as well as common sense is kicked out of doors, the first proselyte he makes is himself; and when that is once compassed, the difficulty is not so great in bringing over others, a strong delusion always operating from without as vigorously as from within.”

A person first must convince himself of some idea. If he is convinced of an idea from within, then he can more easily preach to others. People will follow those who believe in what they are saying because they can see their conviction and belief, and witness that the idea has worked for them.

“It is true, indeed, the republic of dark authors, after they once found out this excellent expedient of dying, have been peculiarly happy in the variety as well as extent of their reputation.”

It is true that authors or artists become more popular after they die. Something about the possibility of their absence makes their value go up. Swift is reflecting on this idea while also joking that authors know this and want to die so that their stock will rise.

“Yet after all he could do of this kind, the success continued still to disappoint his expectation, for as it is the nature of rags to bear a kind of mock resemblance to finery, there being a sort of fluttering appearance in both, which is not to be distinguished at a distance in the dark or by short-sighted eyes, so in those junctures it fared with Jack and his tatters, that they offered to the first view a ridiculous flaunting, which, assisting the resemblance in person and air, thwarted all his projects of separation, and left so near a similitude between them as frequently deceived the very disciples and followers of both.”

It is easy to trick from far away. Rags do not look as shabby at a distance. Also, sometimes they can take on a sort of flair of their own, looking like an intentional design. Therefore, Jack may not have looked as careworn. Appearances can also be deceiving. Since both Jack and Martin dressed in coats that were nearly rags, it would be difficult to tell them apart.

“By this handle [curiosity] it is that an author should seize upon his readers; which as soon as he hath once compassed, all resistance and struggling are in vain, and they become his prisoners as close as he pleases, till weariness or dullness force him to let go his grip.”

Curiosity is why readers read. Once readers are hooked, they will come back. Only a digression into something dull or repetitive will cause a lapse in their attention.