Literature Network » Jonathan Swift

New Yorker's satire startling, but off the mark.(Opinion)(Column)

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From: The Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY)
Date: 20080720
Author:

In 1729, the essayist Jonathan Swift caused a sensation in literate circles by suggesting the "Irish question" be resolved by eating up all the Irish babies.

In 1938, impresario Orson Welles nearly created a national panic with a phony radio broadcast announcing an invasion from Mars.

These imaginative flights far surpass The New Yorker magazine's cover illustration for its current issue. But they are in the same category of social satire and commentary that edges right up to the border of taste, propriety and social responsibility.

If you weren't spirited away by ...

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