Polite Conversation

by Jonathan Swift, Lynne Truss (Foreword by)

A companion piece to the popular Directions to Servants, Polite Conversation is a witty, brilliantly conceived treatise on manners and small talk from the master of English satire. Beginning with an "expert" introduction to the perils of ill-educated discourse, Swift seeks to offer a remedy for conversational disasters. His aim: to ensure one is always equipped with the correct response, no matter the situation, and the means with which to stoke up conversation when it lapses into awkward silence. To prove his theses, he then proffers three mock dialogues, citing the drawing room as the most suitable place to display the art of elegant and polite conversation. The result is a hilarious and deeply ironic analysis that is as relevant today as when it was first conceived. Irish clergyman and satirist Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) is best remembered for his philosophical parody Gulliver's Travels.

Genres: Essays, Satire, Classics

124 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1738

About the author

Jonathan Swift 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, Dublin, hence his common sobriquet, "Dean Swift".
Swift is remembered for works such as A Tale of a Tub (1704), An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity (1712), Gulliver's Travels (1726), and A Modest Proposal (1729). He is regarded by the Encyclopædia Britannica as the foremost prose satirist in the English language. He originally published all of his works under pseudonyms—such as Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff, M.B. Drapier—or anonymously. He was a master of two styles of satire, the Horatian and Juvenalian styles.
His deadpan, ironic writing style, particularly in A Modest Proposal, has led to such satire being subsequently termed "Swiftian".

Reviews

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read about half of it, slowly realizing that there was no story to pull me along. Consequently, the fact that I didn't understand more than maybe a third of the one-liners of which the book is an assemblage made reading it pretty pointless.
It's a funny(ish) idea, a dialogue made up entirely of the cliches of hand-me-down wit, but it does depend on one recognizing, or at least understanding, the gags. I understood nearly enough to have a rough idea what was going on - that is, not enough.
There are endnotes, but they seem randon in terms of what they explain, and in any case are massively insufficient & generally no help.
Shame; I wanted to be amused by it. I find Swift is never as enjoyable as they make him sound as if he's going to be - and as my somewhat kindred temperament makes me wish him.
But there you go. As Miss Notable says, "my comfort is, 'twill all be one a thousand years hence."

PS. Despite having the same image on the cover, my copy is introduced (not very interestingly) by Toby Litt rather than by Lynne Truss. Fwiw.

[Two Readers in Love]

"Polite conversation in three dialogues by Jonathan Swift with introduction and notes by George Saintsbury" was recommended in "Tempest in a Teaspoon – Thomas Adès Opera of Buñuel’s The Exterminating Angel," Alan Vanneman (October 29, 2017)

https://brightlightsfilm.com/tempest-...

It is available in the public domain on as a Project Gutenberg ebook: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60186

[Mathilde Weiss-Maurin · Rating 3 out of 5]

l'essai de Swift est très intéressant ! la préface est un peu longue à mon goût !