Analyzing and Interpreting Literature / Unit 5 AIL 0425 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Swift's Persona Revisited
Captions available
The idea
Swift's proposer is a persona in the strict sense: a constructed speaker whose views are not the author's. He is reasonable, statistical and monstrous. Reading his proposal as Swift's opinion is the same error as reading the Duke as Browning, and it is an error the exam can test.
In practice
The proposer is not Swift.
Where people slip
Same error, prose instead of verse.
Your place on the trail
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Builds on
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