Resumo de The Drapier's Letters

Write your abstract

here.

A book whose plotline evolved as it was written, in
fact a

book which owes its existence to the protracted
character

of the dispute it engages, DRAPIER'S LETTERS is

simultaneously a masterpiece of fact and fiction. The

Drapier, Swift's persona through most of the letters,
is a

masterpiece of characterization, as are all Swift's
voices.

(How good was Swift at assuming voices not his own? A

professor I know once demonstrated to a class, by every

available method of textual analysis and scansion, that

five passages from Swift with different narrators were

written by five different people. Computer analysis I'm

certain would tell you the same.) The facts exposed in
the

letters, on the other hand, are as rigorously and

meticulously factual as is humanly possible---certainly

Swift observes a far higher standard than is common in

comparably polemical works. (To recognize what a
creation

is the downright, honest (not always grammatically or

syntactically pinpoint) voice of the Drapier, simply

contrast it with Swift writing in his own voice in A
Letter

to the Lord Chancellor Middleton.)

the first point at issue in the Drapier's Letters was a

request made in Ireland to the Crown in England to coin
a

new issue of farthings and halfpence. England's Crown
(and

Parliament) were pleased to award the commission to an

Englishman, William Wood, whom the Irish Parliament

promptly complained of since nobody in Ireland knew or

trusted him, and there were Irish candidates eager to
serve

at a less rate of profit. Besides it soon appeared that

Wood's coins were seriously underweight and easy to

counterfeit. Swift made no doubt Wood, who was
guaranteed a

gouging profit simply on the short weights, would not
fall

behind others in counterfeiting his own coins. Such a
flood

of these undervalued coins and their raps would soon
strip

Ireland of every gold and silver coin that could be
offered

in exchange, plus its wool and other goods. Ireland,
whose

economy was already depressed, would be ruined in

perpetuity.

The second point became more crucial to Swift as the

campaign went on and he saw what lengths the English
were

prepared to go to force Wood's halfpence on a nation
united

in its determination not to have them. It was Ireland's

status, in English eyes, as a 'depending kingdom'---in
all

but name, a nation of slaves. England saw a real risk
of

its supremacy over Ireland slipping to a mere equality
if

resistance on a point such as this could be sustained

against it---therefore it was declared treasonous to
oppose

Wood's halfpence and farthings further. This was the
moment

to pull back if you feared the hangman's noose. It was
the

moment to stand forth more boldly than ever if you
wanted

to help Ireland (should it wish) reclaim its
independence.

This was the moment when Swift spoke out most boldly;

stepped out from behind the Drapier's mask, to speak in
his

own voice unmistakably. (This is a work Canada's own

Northrop Frye repeatedly declared a dated and
negligible

piece of propaganda.)

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