Meditation Upon a Broomstick

Jonathan Swift

Meditation Upon a Broomstick

A Meditation Upon a Broomstick is a satire and parody written by Jonathan Swift 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'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 for the Meditation, consider the last paragraph:

"But a Broom-stick, perhaps you'll say, is an Emblem of a Tree standing on its Head; and pray what is Man, but a Topsy-turvy Creature, his Animal Faculties perpetually mounted on his Rational; His Head where his Heels should be; groveling on the Earth, and yet with all his Faults, he sets up to be a universal Reformer and Corrector of Abuses, a Remover of Grievances, rakes into every Slut's Corner of Nature, bringing hidden Corruptions to the Light, and raises a mighty Dust where there was none before, sharing deeply all the while, in the very same Pollutions he pretends to sweep away: His last Days are spent in Slavery to Women, and generally the least deserving; 'till worn to the Stumps, like his Brother Bezom, he's either kicked out of Doors, or made use of to kindle Flames, for others to warm Themselves by.":

 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, misanthropistic and misognynistic note of despair and nihilism. Also, while it begins with a hopeful call to selfexamination, it moves eventually into a condemnation of all efforts at improvement.

 A Meditation upon a Broomstick begins with the narrators lament that he used to know this single stick when it was a part of a beautiful tree, and now it is used to make things clean by getting itself dirty. The fate of this single stick is ultimately the fire. The narrator reveals that his subject is a broomstick. He declares that a broomstick is like a man. He is born upright, with all his hair, but is turned upside down, then relegated to a withered trunk as he ages. Man lives according to the whim of maids, much like the broomstick.

 Man reveals abuses, sweeps up dirt, and

participates in the very pollution he pretends to want to eradicate. Mans fate, like that of the stick, is either to be kicked out of doors or to be used for criticism by others. Analysis The main purpose of A Meditation Upon a Broomstick, a short piece in just two paragraphs, is literary parody. Swift is mocking the writing style of Robert Boyle, whom he considered to be a very silly writer. The specific book that Swift is parodying is Occasional Reflections Upon Several Subjects, which Swift considered a silly title (almost as silly as A Meditation Upon a Broomstick).

 Swifts attempts to poke fun at Boyles language are apparent in his woeful, lamenting tone, in such lines as, When I beheld this I sighed, and said within myself, Surely mortal man is a Broomstick! Swift also presents a piece that is humorous in itself. It turns out that man is very like a broomstick, often being upside-down and irrational, sweeping up and raking up dirt as people criticize one another, and becoming soiled in the process.