Receiver

Published in Ireland in 1729, the essay “A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift targets the Irish public in general and Irish and English policymakers in particular.

Although the essay is about the poor in Ireland, they are not the target receivers as most of the poor people were illiterate back then. Consequently, the essay targets the educated public. The language of the text indicates specific categories of people in Ireland and Britain: “the projectors” (p. 2, l. 5) or policymakers, the “merchants” (p. 3, l. 3), “the persons of quality and fortune” (p. 3, l. 23), the landlords (who often abused their tenants), the Protestants (who were in conflict with Roman Catholics), as well as statisticians, economists, and other government and administrative ...