The classical idea that satire can reform the polity has even less purchase now than it had in Swift’s 18th century. His short, sharp satire on Brexit is not going to stop it, or to change the mind of any reader who supports it. It seems safe to assume that Ian McEwan does not suffer from Gulliver’s delusions. When did its mockery ever put a full stop to the abuses it attacks? His chief complaint was that his book had failed to change anything: “instead of seeing a full stop put to all abuses and corruptions, at least in this little island, as I had reason to expect: behold, after above six months warning, I cannot learn that my book hath produced one single effect according to mine intentions…” The joke is not just on Gulliver, but on Swift himself and indeed on the art of satire. W hen he published the second edition of the greatest of political satires, Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift prefaced it with an outraged letter from Gulliver himself.
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