Kent-Drury
English 422 Roadmap to Tale of the Tub

• Title Page
• An Apology
• The apology responds to criticisms raised by religious leaders about the possibility the Tale of the Tub is an inappropriate work for a clergyman to write because it appears to attack the clergy and possibly the church itself
• Dedication to John, Lord Somers
• The dedication is a satire on dedications. The second paragraph (p. 254) gives an indication of what most dedications do, although of course they are usually not as blunt about it. Swift then jokes that he is unable to fulfill this obligation because he doesn't understand a Latin phrase in the 200 dedications he was about to peruse to create his unoriginal dedication. This is absurd; any educated writer would understand the latin. The idea that the writer must employ others to write the dedication (p. 255) is also absurd. The upshot is that this writer is obviously a Grub Street hack.
• Bookseller to the Reader
• Swift pretends (as other works of the time do) that there is some mystery about how these papers got to the printer and that the meaning is unclear, requiring use of a "key" to point out what the writer means.
• Epistle Dedicatory to Prince Posterity
• Another joke, it goes without saying.
• The Preface
• The commonwealth is at peace, which gives people leisure to poke holes in institutions such as government and religion
• The purpose of this work is to divert those people until an Academy can be erected for 9743 people
• The academy will permit the study of topics important to the nation by including schools of Italian and French culture, spelling, looking glasses, swearing, criticism, salivation, hobby-horses, poetry, tops, spleen, gaming, and many others.
• Section 1. The Introduction
• A speaker must rise above the crowd (physically and metaphorically) to be heard, and there are several "machines" that will allow him/her to do this:
• The pulpit (to give a sermon in church)--these are made of Caledonian wood (wood from Scotland--referring to Calvinist preaching), which is rotten and therefore resonates all the more with sound
• The ladder (to reach the gallows and give a final speech before being hung)
• The stage-itinerant (includes performance in the theatre as well as publishing plays)
• The bar (acting as a lawyer--inferior because one is interrupted or talks "while others sleep")
• The bench (acting as a judge--who "sleeps while others talk" with a joke on "bench" as a place to sleep)
• The speaker decides not to cover the bar and the bench because he needs to achieve "the profound number three" (after all, this is an essay about religion)
• All of the machines are designed to ensure that all sounds emitted by orators will be collected by the people listening, who stand with their mouths open to gather in the sounds
• Certain things make it impossible for knowledge to be exchanged
• The slightness of modern writing makes it difficult for people to get knowledge, however (investigations are "husks" [i.e., empty] and plays are "harlots" [i.e., immoral]) (p. 276)
• People lack the interest and ability to seek out true learning and have become satisfied with the merely superficial.
• Examples of the "great works" written to appeal to this superficiality are listed on p. 278 (all are chapbooks, which were about as respected by scholars of the time as comic books are today.
• The writer announces his intention of writing 40 sections dedicated to 40 lords (p. 280), which luckily he foregoes
• Section 2. The beginning of the Tale of the Tub (an allegory about the evolution of religion)

 

Page	The story	What it represents
280	The father who leaves his will	God/Christ providing mankind with the New Testament
	The coats left to the sons	Christianity
281	1st seven years after the fathers will	1st 7 centuries of the Christian Era
	The sons fall in love with 3 women	covetousness, ambition, pride
	The sons' activities (all popular activities in the 18th century)	corruption of churches
282	Discussion of new religion that worships a tailor and believes the universe is a "large suit of clothes" and that man is "a microcoat"	Comment on focus of modern culture on appearances, but also a parody of the idea of the universe as macrocosm/man as microcosm
283	Extends the allegory of clothing; natural suit (body) and celestial suit (soul)	Christian idea of body and soul, but suggests the trivialness of a culture that would fixate on appearances (clothing)
285	Brothers discover they can't get into society because they aren't properly dressed; they want to be in fashion, but have to find justification in their father's will to decorate their coats; they do this by taking letters at random and spelling out what they want to do, which is to add shoulder knots..	Satire on biblical explication and tendency to use religious authority to justify what one wants to do, rather than to follow what the bible actually says
286-290	Peter, the oldest brother, begins invents flame colored satin, begins to add codicils to the father's will, says the will is allegorical rather than literal. He justifies adding silver fringe, silver points, and images to his coat. Eventually, he locks away the father's will so it can't be seen. He then gets a job as a tutor in a rich man's house; he gets a deed and turns out the children when their father dies.	Satire on Catholic Church (which Peter represents), its belief in purgatory, its addition of extra texts appended to what Swift and other protestants believe is the basic text of the Bible, its use of allegorical (versus literal) interpretation, the numerous treatises on religion written by church fathers,  uses of images rather than biblical text, and the church's acquisition of property.

• Section 3. A Digression on Critics
• An account of the moderns is incomplete without mentioning critics, people who set themselves up to judge the works of others by inventing rules.
• They single out the bad things about books without finding the good things
• Critics restore ancient learning from "the worms, and graves, and dust of manuscripts
• True critics descend through a particular line (p. 291). Note: These were all considered bad critics by Swift.
• Once a critic has achieved his or her task, the critic has outlived his or her usefulness and should end it all.
• True critics are discovers and collectors of writers' faults. But they become infected with those faults through contact (292)
• Critics focus on the goodness of the moderns over the ancients (a position opposite Swift's).
• Critics are snakes addicted to their own vomit. Critics are ASSES (by analogy in a story Swift tells on p. 294).
• Critics are junior scholars (295)
• We must have critics because we need jobs for people who can't be creative otherwise.
• Three maxims of cricitism (297)
• "...criticism, contrary to all other faculties of the intellect, is ever held the truest and best, when it is the very first results of the critic's mind..."
• "...the true critics are known by their talent of swarming about the noblest writers...as a rat to the best  cheese..."
• "...a true critic, in the perusal of a book, is like a dog at a feast, whose thoughts and stomach are wholly set upon what the guests fling away, and consequently is apt to snarl most when there are the fewest bones.
• Section 4. A Tale of a Tub (continued) (Peter turns projector)

Page	Story	Allegory
298	Peter begins a number of projects
299-301	He names purgatory (Swift says jokingly this is Australia)
	He invents a cure for the worms and the spleen	Penance and absolution for sins
	He erects a "whispering office" to cure disease	Confession
	He provides "insurance" to loyal followers	Indulgences
	He creates puppets and raree shows (popular in 18th century)	Processions and ritual
	He invents "his famous universal pickle" for preserving the faithful	Holy water
	He favors a set of bulls as sacred and uses them -to frighten kings into submission -to get money	Papal proclamations
	He offers pardons from prison for crimes before they are permitted if the person is willing to pay enough	General pardons
302	Peter begins to go mad; his clothing becomes more elaborate	Papal vestments
303	He tries to convince his brothers that bread is meat, but they don't believe him	Communion (Catholics believe in transubstantiation, or that the communion wafer actually becomes the body of Christ during the Eucharist)
305	The brothers finally leave Peter and demand a copy of his will, which they have to steal.	The Protestant Reformation, begun by Martin Luther.

• Section 6. A Tale of the Tub (continued) (Martin [high church] and Jack [low church]) go out on their own.

Page	Story	Allegory
312	The brothers are named (Martin and Jack). Both realize after reading will that their coats can no longer be seen	Martin=Martin Luther, Jack=John Calvin
313	Martin removes the outward trappings from his coat, but stops short of removing any decoration that might damage the basic coat itself	High church maintained much of the ritual while stripping what were seen as rituals added by the Catholic church that were extraneous
314	Jack is so angry that in his "zeal" (strong belief) and "enthusiasm" (expression of feeling in religion) he tears his coat to shreds, damaging it materially	Low church (Calvinist, especially Presbyterians) went too far in altering high church trappings to the point that Christianity was no longer recognizable (Anglican view). Zeal was viewed as religious feeling that was too unrestrained and hypocritical to be appropriate
315	Jack becomes angry at Martin's restraint and breaks with him	Presbyterian (Scots protestantism) resentment of Anglicans (English protestantism)
316	Jack goes by several different names	Calvinist sects splinter

• Section 7. A Digression in priase of digressions
• Modern learning has improved digressions over past digressions
• Most topics for writing have already been covered in the past, leading to a lack of subject matter
• With less to write about, writers would have to find other work if they didn't have digressions to fill up their books.
• The ancients didn't need as many digressions because they had "more fruit to harvest"
• Moderns have less fruit, so they must roam farther afield to find something to write about.
• Among the few fields that are left to write about, "deducing similitudes, allusions, and applications, very surprising, agreeable, and apposite, from the pudenda of either sex, together with their proper uses"
• Other fields of endeavour for moderns include indexes, compendiums, collections of quotations (i.e., the unoriginal work of classifying the work and thought of others)
• Section 8. A Tale of the Tub--the most offensive of the sections, labeled "impious" and "immodest" by Wotton, a contemporary
• Aeolists (Calvinists, associated with Jack, based on Aeolis, god of the wind) are a sect that believe that wind is the primary origin of all things (p. 321).  "Words are but wind; and learning is nothing but words; ergo, learning is nothing but wind (322)
• Consequently, the best way to express knowledge is through belching (i.e., delivering sermons)
• Groups of Aeolists can induce the expression of knowledge by applying bellows to one another's posteriors and pumping one another up (322)
• "Enthusiasm" is described as flatulence conveyed into barrels and then delivered to followers
• Sometimes female preachers  (Quakers) are even used for this.
• Calvinist concepts of hell are described on 325.
• Section 9. Digression on Madness
• Jack (Calvinists) have had their learning turned upside down and their brains shaken out of position. This causes them to act as if they are frenzied or mad (326).
• The greatest actions of civilization were perpetrated by madmen.(discussion on p. 327 goes into Medieval/Renaissance conceptions of how the body worked physiologically. If you are interested, see me and I'll point you to a source to explain it).
• If the greatest kings and philosophers of the past showed up today, they'd be locked up and subjected to treatment for madness (329)
• People can get followers by succeeding in striking the correct note in the right company (metaphorically), and this is done by  luck or skill. Wotton (who criticized Swift) is one such person.
• In religion, enthusiasm is in this position. Swift describes it in the final paragraph on p. 331--enthusiasm has followers, but in reality it is based upon "fancy" getting "astride" of reason. This is an important paragraph.
• If credulousness is easier than curiosity, then surface wisdom will be preferred.The senses will not go deeper than the surface to search for knowledge.
• Being labeled mad is a matter of chance--one madman might be labeled savior of the country; another might be reproached for it.
• Section 10. Author's Compliment to the Readers
• Section 11. Tale of a Tub
• Jack's madness strikes a chord and gives rise to "that epidemic sect of Aeolists" and to many strange ideas purely the product of the imagination.
• Jack's beliefs (hence, Calvinist or dissenters' beliefs)(see 342-346)
• Jack became fixated on his father's will, but he began to see meanings within it that aren't there (342). This led him to use it to govern even the smallest parts of life and developed the ability to interpret it to mean whatever he wanted (probably Swift is referring to typological interpretation). All of his conversation began to sound like the will.
• He began to believe that everything in life was preordained (predestination)
• His became dedicated to chaos (dissenters' religious services looked disorganized to Anglicans)
• He came to dislike all ornamentation (dissenters did not have music in their services and distrusted use of any images whatsoever)
• He kept washing himself from head to foot (baptism by immersion), but came out dirtier than he went in
• He tended to rant ("fanatic preaching, composed of hell and damnation" delivered in an indecorous style)
• He sought out persecution
• In short, he began to look and act a lot like his brother Peter
• Such is the history of our ancestors, and an account of the History of Ears