is one of Jonathan Swift’s most complex and controversial poems. This study presents, for the first time, a detailed analysis and interpretation of what, on a surface level, has to be called a mock , but which, on a deeper level, is a highly allusive political satire. The main emphasis has been placed on providing a commentary which seeks to make this 18th-century text within its historical, political, and religious context comprehensible to present-day readers.

The Author: Melanie Maria Just studied English, Latin, and Greek at the University of Münster and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and was awarded the degree of Magister Artium at Münster in 2001; she submitted her doctoral dissertation to the Faculty of Arts at Münster in 2003. From 1999 to 2003 she worked at the Ehrenpreis Centre for Swift Studies at the University of Münster, and is currently employed as Research Assistant at the University of Bonn.

: Poets Laureate – Reception – Commentary – Ars Poetica – Neoclassicism.