Jonathan Swift 
A Tale of a Tub 

‘A Tale of a Tub’ was the first major work written by Jonathan Swift. It is arguably his most difficult satire, and perhaps his best. The Tale is a prose parody divided into sections of ‘digression’ and a ‘tale’ of three brothers, each representing one of the main branches of western Christianity. A satire on the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches and English Dissenters, it was famously attacked for its profanity and irreligion and the practice continued well into the nineteenth century. Despite this, The Tale was enormously popular, presenting both a satire of religious excess and a parody of contemporary writing in literature, politics, theology, Biblical exegesis, and medicine through its comically excessive front matter and series of digressions throughout. The overarching parody is of enthusiasm, pride, and credulity. At the time it was written, politics and religion were still closely linked in England, and the religious and political aspects of the satire can often hardly be separated.