Description
A work of bizarre parody and countless literary magic tricks, Jonathan Swift’s 1704 work A Tale of a Tub is a witty religious treatise disguised as the simple fable of three brothers. Peter, Martin, and Jack are all born to the same family. When their father dies, the three brothers each inherit a special coat, with express instructions in their father’s will never to change the coats’ appearances. As Peter, Martin, and Jack make their way in the world, however, they defy their father’s dying wishes and alter and embellish their coats. In Swift’s brilliant satire, the brothers’ three different paths come to represent the various directions into which the Christian church had split by the eighteenth century. Parody builds upon parody in this work, however, as a strange and rebellious narrator cannot help himself from interrupting his own tale to explore many bizarre and hilarious tangents. One of the most bewildering and dazzling literary feats ever accomplished, A Tale of a Tub will take any reader on a wild ride they won’t forget.
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Opening Lines (Experimental)
THE PREFACE.
The wits of the present age being so very numerous and penetrating, it seems the grandees of Church and State begin to fall under horrible apprehensions lest these gentlemen, during the intervals of a long peace, should find leisure to pick holes in the weak sides of religion and ...
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A Tale of a Tub
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