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| MMM.. Good! |
Now on the surface, these two don't seem to have much in common. Rape of the Lock is a mock epic written by Alexander Pope, about, what is essentially, a haircut. A modest proposal is a leaflet written by Jonathan Swift, about eating children (no, I'm not making this up). But both are satire of the cleverest kind, aimed at making fun of the wealthy (WE ARE THE 99%!). Now Pope chooses to satirize how the rich made things that really weren't that important, really important (oh my God guys, she's TOTALLY wore that dress to Lord Pompous' ball too), that there might actually be things more useful to life than how many petticoats one's wearing. Swift takes a meaner, or if your prefer the actual term Juevenalian, satire, to display how the poverty and overpopulation is a true problem, and needs to be fixed by the English. But you have to admit, he makes a damn logical argument for eating children. Baby back ribs anyone? Now I must say, as an English snob, Rape of the Lock is written in a much more interesting way, with whole parodying of Paradise Lost thing (even if Rape of the Lock has a much different context today that it did when it was written....). But, the subject matter of A Modest Proposal is both astonishing and utterly brilliant so...
Who would win?
A Modest Proposal
Which would you prefer to read about? A really dramatic haircut? Or solving the worlds problems by eating excess babies?
All right lets do it! Lets get down to it! If you have somehow been living without the unicorn English Literature textbook (Gasp! Blasphemy!), you might not realize that I am of course talking about the Mariner from Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Coleridge, and the Baron ( no, not the Bloody Baron, although you have no idea how much I wish that were true), the Baron from Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope. Now these two have some similarities: both did something to make other blame their back luck on them, both of them are nameless, both are characters created to prove a point. Although to be fair, the Mariner shot a bird, and is used to help explain to readers that nature is precious, and the Baron just gave someone a bad haircut, and proves that coffee isn't for everyone. But the Baron is armed and dangerous, ready and willing to cut up the Mariner's sea snake army at the slightest indication from his accomplice, Clarissa. Don't call it a match yet though! The Mariner retaliates by commanding his zombie crew to attack, if only they listened.... Maybe the Baron's muse can help him out here, maybe Life-in Death will lend a helping hand. The Mariner does earn brownie points for the use of internal rhyme in his tale; but will the mock epic writing of Pope ensure that the Baron comes up on top? Both earn my full support as excellent, and exciting pieces of writing (they do make a nice break from LOVE and DEATH- the 2 most cliche themes of writing. Ever.)
And the winner is....
The Mariner
While the Baron was distracted by the Starbucks vendor, the Mariner pulled out his trusty friend, his crossbow, and shot the Baron. Don't worry though, he was put in the heavens as a star, right next to the constellation of the Sirens, while the Mariner was doomed to wander to Earth indefinitely and tell people how he's reformed from his murderous past. That's right-he became a motivational speaker.
This might just be the strangest, most peculiar match-up of the whole tournament.... In one corner we have the mighty Geats, the anglo-saxon army, and in the other, we have one of the most famous examples of satire, the infanticide-promoting A Modest Proposal. Well, how should I compare thee? Certainly not to a summer's day. While I do believe that A Modest Proposal would win in a battle of wits, in a test of shear cleverness, that the Geats wouldn't even be able to spell their own name, it is an entire army trying to fight one, well-spoken man. Unless the speaker could convince the Geats that eating their children would be the best way to combat their problems.... Which is entirely possible, but remains unlikely, they were anglo-saxons not cannibalistic neanderthals. And the Geats didn't even speak the same language as the speaker, so persuasive powers mean nothing if you can't be understood so....
The winner is....
THE GEATS
I was rooting for the projector of A Modest Proposal, but lets be as realistic as possible (if thats even achievable?), if he was transported to the homeland of the Geats, he would be slaughtered by the war-like nation before he even had a chance to suggest that eating children was a viable option for overpopulation problems.
This might just be the strangest, most peculiar match-up of the whole tournament.... In one corner we have the mighty Geats, the anglo-saxon army, and in the other, we have one of the most famous examples of satire, the infanticide-promoting A Modest Proposal. Well, how should I compare thee? Certainly not to a summer's day. While I do believe that A Modest Proposal would win in a battle of wits, in a test of shear cleverness, that the Geats wouldn't even be able to spell their own name, it is an entire army trying to fight one, well-spoken man. Unless the speaker could convince the Geats that eating their children would be the best way to combat their problems.... Which is entirely possible, but remains unlikely, they were anglo-saxons not cannibalistic neanderthals. And the Geats didn't even speak the same language as the speaker, so persuasive powers mean nothing if you can't be understood so....