A Modest Proposal...

关于a modest proposal 的讽刺有哪些~

这是两百多年前，爱尔兰著名的讽刺作家斯威夫特写过一篇文章题为 a modest proposal《一个温和的建议》他建议爱尔兰的穷人把刚满一周岁的孩子卖给富人。
关于建议吃婴儿的这个提议本身就荒谬之极，关键是斯威夫特在描述这个规划的时候用的是相当一本正经的腔调，几乎是以科学的研究态度来探讨这种课题。
这个proposal的荒唐与讲述这个proposal的严肃的语调两相相比，造成尖锐的冲突，从而形成了极为激烈的讽刺意味。事实上，这篇文章的调侃讽刺意味之浓，你只要看过文章就应该很能明白的。斯威夫特选择了拿Irish Catholics开刀。
一方面点出了Irish人爱偷窃的stereotype。
一方面抨击了天主教对于异教徒的偏见排挤。
他揭露了当时英格兰人们对于异国者，即Irish和Americans的傲慢高人一等的态度。
偏偏他又选了Modest作为题目，以一种漫不经心貌似谦逊的态度来衬托当时社会很多主流观点的可笑荒唐之处。
扩展资料：


讽刺小说家乔纳森·斯威夫特（有译为江奈生·斯威夫特）是英国启蒙运动中激进民主派的创始人。
在世期间写了很多具有代表性的讽刺文章，他被称为英国十八世纪杰出的政论家和讽刺小说家。
他出生于爱尔兰首都都柏林一个贫困家庭，由叔父抚养成人，
六岁上学，在基尔凯尼学校读了八年。
1682年进都柏林著名的三一学院学习，他除了对历史和诗歌有兴趣外，别的一概不喜欢。还是学校“特别通融”才拿到学位。
之后，他在三一学院继续读硕士，一直到一六八六年。1688年，爱尔兰面临英侵，他前往英国寻找出路。
参考资料：百度百科-斯威夫特

一个中肯的提议，或者可以翻译成一个有建设性的提议

A MODEST PROPOSAL

FOR PREVENTING THE CHILDREN OF POOR PEOPLE IN IRELAND FROM BEING A BURDEN TO THEIR PARENTS OR COUNTRY, AND FOR MAKING THEM BENEFICIAL TO THE PUBLIC

By Jonathan Swift, 1729

It is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great town or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin doors, crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags and importuning every passenger for an alms. These mothers, instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in strolling to beg sustenance for their helpless infants: who as they grow up either turn thieves for want of work, or leave their dear native country to fight for the Pretender in Spain, or sell themselves to the Barbadoes.

I think it is agreed by all parties that this prodigious number of children in the arms, or on the backs, or at the heels of their mothers, and frequently of their fathers, is in the present deplorable state of the kingdom a very great additional grievance; and, therefore, whoever could find out a fair, cheap, and easy method of making these children sound, useful members of the commonwealth, would deserve so well of the public as to have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation.

But my intention is very far from being confined to provide only for the children of professed beggars; it is of a much greater extent, and shall take in the whole number of infants at a certain age who are born of parents in effect as little able to support them as those who demand our charity in the streets.

As to my own part, having turned my thoughts for many years upon this important subject, and maturely weighed the several schemes of other projectors, I have always found them grossly mistaken in the computation. It is true, a child just dropped from its dam may be supported by her milk for a solar year, with little other nourishment; at most not above the value of 2s., which the mother may certainly get, or the value in scraps, by her lawful occupation of begging; and it is exactly at one year old that I propose to provide for them in such a manner as instead of being a charge upon their parents or the parish, or wanting food and raiment for the rest of their lives, they shall on the contrary contribute to the feeding, and partly to the clothing, of many thousands.

There is likewise another great advantage in my scheme, that it will prevent those voluntary abortions, and that horrid practice of women murdering their bastard children, alas! too frequent among us! sacrificing the poor innocent babes I doubt more to avoid the expense than the shame, which would move tears and pity in the most savage and inhuman breast.

The number of souls in this kingdom being usually reckoned one million and a half, of these I calculate there may be about two hundred thousand couple whose wives are breeders; from which number I subtract thirty thousand couples who are able to maintain their own children, although I apprehend there cannot be so many, under the present distresses of the kingdom; but this being granted, there will remain an hundred and seventy thousand breeders. I again subtract fifty thousand for those women who miscarry, or whose children die by accident or disease within the year. There only remains one hundred and twenty thousand children of poor parents annually born. The question therefore is, how this number shall be reared and provided for, which, as I have already said, under the present situation of affairs, is utterly impossible by all the methods hitherto proposed. For we can neither employ them in handicraft or agriculture; we neither build houses (I mean in the country) nor cultivate land: they can very seldom pick up a livelihood by stealing, till they arrive at six years old, except where they are of towardly parts, although I confess they learn the rudiments much earlier, during which time, they can however be properly looked upon only as probationers, as I have been informed by a principal gentleman in the county of Cavan, who protested to me that he never knew above one or two instances under the age of six, even in a part of the kingdom so renowned for the quickest proficiency in that art.

I am assured by our merchants, that a boy or a girl before twelve years old is no salable commodity; and even when they come to this age they will not yield above three pounds, or three pounds and half-a-crown at most on the exchange; which cannot turn to account either to the parents or kingdom, the charge of nutriment and rags having been at least four times that value.

I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection.

I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.

I do therefore humbly offer it to public consideration that of the hundred and twenty thousand children already computed, twenty thousand may be reserved for breed, whereof only one-fourth part to be males; which is more than we allow to sheep, black cattle or swine; and my reason is, that these children are seldom the fruits of marriage, a circumstance not much regarded by our savages, therefore one male will be sufficient to serve four females. That the remaining hundred thousand may, at a year old, be offered in the sale to the persons of quality and fortune through the kingdom; always advising the mother to let them suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render them plump and fat for a good table. A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends; and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish, and seasoned with a little pepper or salt will be very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in winter.

I have reckoned upon a medium that a child just born will weigh 12 pounds, and in a solar year, if tolerably nursed, increaseth to 28 pounds.

I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children.

Infant's flesh will be in season throughout the year, but more plentiful in March, and a little before and after; for we are told by a grave author, an eminent French physician, that fish being a prolific diet, there are more children born in Roman Catholic countries about nine months after Lent than at any other season; therefore, reckoning a year after Lent, the markets will be more glutted than usual, because the number of popish infants is at least three to one in this kingdom: and therefore it will have one other collateral advantage, by lessening the number of papists among us.

I have already computed the charge of nursing a beggar's child (in which list I reckon all cottagers, laborers, and four-fifths of the farmers) to be about two shillings per annum, rags included; and I believe no gentleman would repine to give ten shillings for the carcass of a good fat child, which, as I have said, will make four dishes of excellent nutritive meat, when he hath only some particular friend or his own family to dine with him. Thus the squire will learn to be a good landlord, and grow popular among his tenants; the mother will have eight shillings net profit, and be fit for work till she produces another child.

Those who are more thrifty (as I must confess the times require) may flay the carcass; the skin of which artificially dressed will make admirable gloves for ladies, and summer boots for fine gentlemen.

As to our city of Dublin, shambles may be appointed for this purpose in the most convenient parts of it, and butchers we may be assured will not be wanting; although I rather recommend buying the children alive, and dressing them hot from the knife, as we do roasting pigs.

A very worthy person, a true lover of his country, and whose virtues I highly esteem, was lately pleased in discoursing on this matter to offer a refinement upon my scheme. He said that many gentlemen of this kingdom, having of late destroyed their deer, he conceived that the want of venison might be well supplied by the bodies of young lads and maidens, not exceeding fourteen years of age nor under twelve; so great a number of both sexes in every country being now ready to starve for want of work and service; and these to be disposed of by their parents, if alive, or otherwise by their nearest relations. But with due deference to so excellent a friend and so deserving a patriot, I cannot be altogether in his sentiments; for as to the males, my American acquaintance assured me, from frequent experience, that their flesh was generally tough and lean, like that of our schoolboys by continual exercise, and their taste disagreeable; and to fatten them would not answer the charge. Then as to the females, it would, I think, with humble submission be a loss to the public, because they soon would become breeders themselves; and besides, it is not improbable that some scrupulous people might be apt to censure such a practice (although indeed very unjustly), as a little bordering upon cruelty; which, I confess, hath always been with me the strongest objection against any project, however so well intended.

But in order to justify my friend, he confessed that this expedient was put into his head by the famous Psalmanazar, a native of the island Formosa, who came from thence to London above twenty years ago, and in conversation told my friend, that in his country when any young person happened to be put to death, the executioner sold the carcass to persons of quality as a prime dainty; and that in his time the body of a plump girl of fifteen, who was crucified for an attempt to poison the emperor, was sold to his imperial majesty's prime minister of state, and other great mandarins of the court, in joints from the gibbet, at four hundred crowns. Neither indeed can I deny, that if the same use were made of several plump young girls in this town, who without one single groat to their fortunes cannot stir abroad without a chair, and appear at playhouse and assemblies in foreign fineries which they never will pay for, the kingdom would not be the worse.

Some persons of a desponding spirit are in great concern about that vast number of poor people, who are aged, diseased, or maimed, and I have been desired to employ my thoughts what course may be taken to ease the nation of so grievous an encumbrance. But I am not in the least pain upon that matter, because it is very well known that they are every day dying and rotting by cold and famine, and filth and vermin, as fast as can be reasonably expected. And as to the young laborers, they are now in as hopeful a condition; they cannot get work, and consequently pine away for want of nourishment, to a degree that if at any time they are accidentally hired to common labor, they have not strength to perform it; and thus the country and themselves are happily delivered from the evils to come.

I have too long digressed, and therefore shall return to my subject. I think the advantages by the proposal which I have made are obvious and many, as well as of the highest importance.

For first, as I have already observed, it would greatly lessen the number of papists, with whom we are yearly overrun, being the principal breeders of the nation as well as our most dangerous enemies; and who stay at home on purpose with a design to deliver the kingdom to the Pretender, hoping to take their advantage by the absence of so many good protestants, who have chosen rather to leave their country than stay at home and pay tithes against their conscience to an episcopal curate.

Secondly, The poorer tenants will have something valuable of their own, which by law may be made liable to distress and help to pay their landlord's rent, their corn and cattle being already seized, and money a thing unknown.

Thirdly, Whereas the maintenance of an hundred thousand children, from two years old and upward, cannot be computed at less than ten shillings a-piece per annum, the nation's stock will be thereby increased fifty thousand pounds per annum, beside the profit of a new dish introduced to the tables of all gentlemen of fortune in the kingdom who have any refinement in taste. And the money will circulate among ourselves, the goods being entirely of our own growth and manufacture.

Fourthly, The constant breeders, beside the gain of eight shillings sterling per annum by the sale of their children, will be rid of the charge of maintaining them after the first year.

Fifthly, This food would likewise bring great custom to taverns; where the vintners will certainly be so prudent as to procure the best receipts for dressing it to perfection, and consequently have their houses frequented by all the fine gentlemen, who justly value themselves upon their knowledge in good eating: and a skilful cook, who understands how to oblige his guests, will contrive to make it as expensive as they please.

Sixthly, This would be a great inducement to marriage, which all wise nations have either encouraged by rewards or enforced by laws and penalties. It would increase the care and tenderness of mothers toward their children, when they were sure of a settlement for life to the poor babes, provided in some sort by the public, to their annual profit instead of expense. We should see an honest emulation among the married women, which of them could bring the fattest child to the market. Men would become as fond of their wives during the time of their pregnancy as they are now of their mares in foal, their cows in calf, their sows when they are ready to farrow; nor offer to beat or kick them (as is too frequent a practice) for fear of a miscarriage.

Many other advantages might be enumerated. For instance, the addition of some thousand carcasses in our exportation of barreled beef, the propagation of swine's flesh, and improvement in the art of making good bacon, so much wanted among us by the great destruction of pigs, too frequent at our tables; which are no way comparable in taste or magnificence to a well-grown, fat, yearling child, which roasted whole will make a considerable figure at a lord mayor's feast or any other public entertainment. But this and many others I omit, being studious of brevity.

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After all, I am not so violently bent upon my own opinion as to reject any offer proposed by wise men, which shall be found equally innocent, cheap, easy, and effectual. But before something of that kind shall be advanced in contradiction to my scheme, and offering a better, I desire the author or authors will be pleased maturely to consider two points. First, as things now stand, how they will be able to find food and raiment for an hundred thousand useless mouths and backs. And secondly, there being a round million of creatures in human figure throughout this kingdom, whose whole subsistence put into a common stock would leave them in debt two millions of pounds sterling, adding those who are beggars by profession to the bulk of farmers, cottagers, and laborers, with their wives and children who are beggars in effect: I desire those politicians who dislike my overture, and may perhaps be so bold as to attempt an answer, that they will first ask the parents of these mortals, whether they would not at this day think it a great happiness to have been sold for food, at a year old in the manner I prescribe, and thereby have avoided such a perpetual scene of misfortunes as they have since gone through by the oppression of landlords, the impossibility of paying rent without money or trade, the want of common sustenance, with neither house nor clothes to cover them from the inclemencies of the weather, and the most inevitable prospect of entailing the like or greater miseries upon their breed for ever.

I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have not the least personal interest in endeavoring to promote this necessary work, having no other motive than the public good of my country, by advancing our trade, providing for infants, relieving the poor, and giving some pleasure to the rich. I have no children by which I can propose to get a single penny; the youngest being nine years old, and my wife past child-bearing.

楼主也太懒了吧？原文很好找的~~
不知谁有译文没有？我找了好久都没找到...
或者哪位有兴趣帮忙翻译一下，顺便练练英语翻译^^
有中英文对照的就更好了！

还有...这问题是不是分错类了？怎么发到体育类了？

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淮阴区18060718536： a modest proposal讲的什么内容 - ？
运段盐酸： 一个中肯的提议,或者可以翻译成一个有建设性的提议

淮阴区18060718536： 谁有a modest proposal中文翻译 - ？
运段盐酸： 一个小小的建议 从此他的事业一帆风顺,又于1729出版了《一个小小的建议》(A Modest Proposal)这部具有强烈讽刺意味的小说.但是,他的晚年生活是悲惨的,由于他内心过于孤独,只限于和屈指可数的几个朋友交往. 基于108

淮阴区18060718536： A Modest Proposal / 一个小小的建议 的中文版谁有啊 急急急! - ？
运段盐酸： 一个小小的建议 (节选)在此请允许我冒昧的提出我的拙见,希望不会遭到异议.我在伦敦结识的一个博学的美国朋友曾经向我保证,一个被细心的看护至一岁大的年幼的健康的小孩是最美味、滋补和健康的食品,无论是用炖、烘烤或是煮的...

淮阴区18060718536： a modest proposal 的全文翻译？
运段盐酸： 世间有了伯乐,然后才有千里马.千里马经常有,可是伯乐不会经常有.所以即使有出名的马,也只是辱没在仆役的马夫的手里,和普通的马一起死在马厩的里面,不因为日行千里而出名. 日行千里的马,吃一顿有时吃完粮食一石.喂马的人不知道它能够日行千里,而没有喂养.所以这样的马,虽然有日行千里的才能,但是吃不饱,力气不足,才能和优点不能从外面表现.尚且想要和普通的马一样都做不到,怎么能要求它能够日行千里呢? 策之不以其方法,喂养它不能够充分发挥它的才能,千里马嘶鸣,却不能懂得它的意思,只是握着马鞭站到它的跟前,说:“天下没有千里马!”唉,难道是真的没有千里马吗?恐怕是真的不认识千里马啊!

淮阴区18060718536： a modest proposal除了讽刺还用了什么修辞啊,急急急 - ？
运段盐酸： irony and innuendo

淮阴区18060718536： jonathan swift - --a modest proposal的中文译文 - ？
运段盐酸： 乔纳森·斯威夫待---一个温和的建议.

淮阴区18060718536： a modest proposal中文译文要完整的 - ？
运段盐酸：[答案] 一项温和的议案 《一个小小的建议》(A Modest Proposal:For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country,and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick)为爱尔兰18世纪知名社会作家乔纳森·...

淮阴区18060718536： 乔纳生斯威夫特作者简介 - ？
运段盐酸： 乔纳森·斯威夫特(Jonathan Swift),1667年11月30日出生于爱尔兰都柏林,英国作家、政论家,讽刺文学大师,以著名的《格列佛游记》和《一只桶的故事》等作品闻名于世. 乔纳森·斯威夫特是英国启蒙主义时期的作家,但却不同于大多...

淮阴区18060718536： 看过a modest proposal 后的读后感,很急用. - ？
运段盐酸： 买2个种子就OK了.........到网站去买哦```

淮阴区18060718536： 哪套高级英语教材难度最大?词汇量最大? - ？
运段盐酸： 李观仪的《新编英语教程》5-8册.如果把里面正附课文都算上,阅读量和词汇量都很大,有的课文难度也很高.有的课文语言比较老,比如说第八册中的《A Modest Proposal》语言就很老,是十八世纪上半叶的文字.不太喜欢第五第六册中老是出现的以英语写作为主题的课文.喜欢第七第八册中的题材.