Three literary comparisons for Trump’s cabinet: Twain’s jumping frog, Lear’s elder daughters, Swift’s Lilliputians
Tag Archives: Jonathan Swift
DJT’s Cabinet: Jumping Frogs, Lilliputians
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, Department of Justice, Donald Trump, Gulliver’s Travels, King Lear, Mark Twain, Pam Bondi, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Anti-Vaxxers, Today’s Modest Proposers
Satirist Alexandra Petri channels Dickens and Swift as she goes after Florida for not backing away from childhood vaccines.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Alexandra Petri, anti-vaxxers, Charles Dickens, childhood illnesses, Modest Proposal, Oliver Twist, satire Comments closed
Newsom, Swift, and Parody’s Power
Gavin Newsom’s parodies of Donald Trump tweets are reminiscent of Swift’s attack on an 18th century fortuneteller in “The Bickerstaff Papers.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Bickerstaff Papers, Donald Trump, Gavin Newsom, Isaac Bickerstaff, Mark Twain, Mysterious Stranger, parody Comments closed
Classics to the Rescue in Dark Times
In Trump’s first 100 days, Jill Lepore turned to 100 classics to survive.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "1914", "Fears in Solitude", "Nightingales Are Drunk", "Nose", "Story of the Bad Little Boy", "With Antecedents", Aesop, Antigone, classic literature, Dante, Eclogue II, Edith Wharton, Figure in the Carpet, Frogs Who Demanded a King, Grimm Brothers, Hafez, Henry James, Homer, Inferno, Jill Lepore, Mark Twain, Matsuo Basho, Modest Proposal, Nikolai Gogol, Odyssey, Reckoning, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Six Servants, Sophocles, Virgil, Walt Whitman, Wilfred Owen, Yoshido Kenkō Comments closed
How Swift Would Respond to Trump
Think of Trump trying to impress the giant king in “Gulliver’s Travels” by talking big–and note how the king, rather than impressed, is horrified.
Swift on Media Sane-Washing
Jonathan Swift would have something to say about how the corporate media continues to sane-wash Donald Trump.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged bothsiderism, corporate media, Donald Trump, Journalism, Modest Proposal, sane-washing, Tale of a Tub Comments closed
Trump’s Debate and Swift’s City Shower
Trump’s torrent of lies in Thursday’s debate brings to mind Swift’s poem “Description of a City Shower.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Description of a City Shower", Bertolt Brecht, Biden-Trump debate, Donald Trump, Galileo, Heather Cox Richardson, Joe Biden, John Stoehr, Ruth Ben-Ghiat Comments closed
Gulliver Reminds Us of Civic Virtue
Is civic virtue becoming a relic of the past? Gullliver’s Travels can help keep it alive.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged civic virtue, Donald Trump, GOP, Gulliver's Travels Comments closed
Swift Foresaw ChatGPT’s Problems
Swift anticipated ChatGPT in “Gulliver’s Travels,” along with the problems that have arisen.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged artificial intelligence, ChatGPT, Gulliver's Travels, technolog Comments closed
