''A Meditation Upon a Broomstick'' is a

satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming o ...

and

parody A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its sub ...

written by

Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet, and Anglican cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Du ...

in 1701. Edmund Curll, in an attempt to antagonize and siphon off money from Swift, published it in 1710 from a manuscript stolen from Swift (which forced Swift to publish a corrected and authorized version that he also had to write from memory), but the satire's origins lie in Swift's time at Moor Park, Surrey, when he acted as Secretary to William Temple. While in the household, Swift would read passages from

Robert Boyle Robert Boyle (; 25 January 1627 – 31 December 1691) was an Anglo-Irish natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, alchemist and inventor. Boyle is largely regarded today as the first modern chemist, and therefore one of the founders ...

's '' Occasional Reflections upon Several Subjects'' (1665) for the young Esther Johnson ("Stella" to Swift). Boyle's Reflections took the form of meditations on everyday subjects, where they were likened to religious themes. Boyle would consider a fire, or house cleaning, and see in it a reflection of God's relationship to man, or man to his soul. These reflections were very popular in the Temple household. One day, Swift, being bored with the predictability of Boyle's points, wrote his own ''Meditation'' and put it into the book. When the time came to read for the day, he read, instead of Boyle, his own ''Meditation Upon a Broomstick.'' The ladies of the house did not catch on until near the end of the meditation that it was absurd. Swift later wrote up the Meditation in a more formal manner and published it to counteract Curll's piracy. To get a flavor of the ''Meditation,'' consider the last paragraph: The Meditation begins with a rational moral comparison and proceeds to a frenzy of increasingly unlikely comparisons. While the satire begins with a pitch-perfect imitation of the kindly Boyle's tone, it ends in a frantic, misanthropic and misogynistic note of despair and nihilism. Also, while it begins with a hopeful call to self-examination, it moves eventually into a condemnation of all efforts at improvement.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Meditation Upon A Broomstick Satirical books 1701 books 1710 books Works by Jonathan Swift