A Modest Proposal
E166315
A Modest Proposal is Jonathan Swift’s famous 1729 satirical essay that uses shocking irony to criticize British policy toward the impoverished Irish.
All labels observed (2)
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T1438130 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: A Modest Proposal Context triple: [Augustan literature, notableWork, A Modest Proposal]
-
A.
The Scriblerus Club
The Scriblerus Club was an early 18th-century London literary circle, including figures like Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope, that satirized pretentious learning and bad taste through collaborative works.
-
B.
Poor Richard's Almanack
Poor Richard's Almanack is a yearly almanac published by Benjamin Franklin in colonial America, famous for its witty aphorisms, practical advice, and wide influence on early American culture.
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C.
Voltaire’s Bastards
Voltaire’s Bastards is a non-fiction book by John Ralston Saul that critiques the dominance of rationalist technocracy in modern Western society and its corrosive effects on democracy and human values.
-
D.
Candide
Candide is a satirical novella by Voltaire that follows a naïve young man’s disillusioning journey through a series of misfortunes, sharply critiquing philosophical optimism and societal hypocrisy.
-
E.
The Way We Live Now
The Way We Live Now is a satirical Victorian novel by Anthony Trollope that critiques the greed, corruption, and social pretensions of 19th-century British society.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: A Modest Proposal Target entity description: A Modest Proposal is Jonathan Swift’s famous 1729 satirical essay that uses shocking irony to criticize British policy toward the impoverished Irish.
-
A.
The Scriblerus Club
The Scriblerus Club was an early 18th-century London literary circle, including figures like Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope, that satirized pretentious learning and bad taste through collaborative works.
-
B.
Poor Richard's Almanack
Poor Richard's Almanack is a yearly almanac published by Benjamin Franklin in colonial America, famous for its witty aphorisms, practical advice, and wide influence on early American culture.
-
C.
Voltaire’s Bastards
Voltaire’s Bastards is a non-fiction book by John Ralston Saul that critiques the dominance of rationalist technocracy in modern Western society and its corrosive effects on democracy and human values.
-
D.
Candide
Candide is a satirical novella by Voltaire that follows a naïve young man’s disillusioning journey through a series of misfortunes, sharply critiquing philosophical optimism and societal hypocrisy.
-
E.
The Way We Live Now
The Way We Live Now is a satirical Victorian novel by Anthony Trollope that critiques the greed, corruption, and social pretensions of 19th-century British society.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (49)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
pamphlet
ⓘ
satirical essay ⓘ |
| author | Jonathan Swift ⓘ |
| canonicalStatus | classic of English satire ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin | Ireland ⓘ |
| criticizes |
British exploitation of Ireland
ⓘ
heartless economic rationalism ⓘ indifference to Irish poverty ⓘ |
| firstPublishedIn | Dublin ⓘ |
| form | essay ⓘ |
| fullTitle |
A Modest Proposal
self-linksurface differs
ⓘ
surface form:
A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick
|
| hasInfluenced |
discourse on satire and irony
ⓘ
modern political satire ⓘ |
| hasMainCharacter | unnamed projector (narrator) ⓘ |
| historicalContext |
18th-century Ireland
ⓘ
British–Irish relations ⓘ
surface form:
Anglo-Irish relations
|
| includedIn | Jonathan Swift bibliographies ⓘ |
| influencedBy | contemporary economic tracts ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| literaryDevice |
hyperbole
ⓘ
irony ⓘ parody ⓘ understatement ⓘ |
| literaryGenre |
political satire
ⓘ
prose ⓘ satire ⓘ |
| movement | Enlightenment literature ⓘ |
| narrativeVoice | first-person persona ⓘ |
| notableQuote |
"I have been assured by a very knowing American..."
ⓘ
"a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food" ⓘ |
| originalPublicationFormat | pamphlet ⓘ |
| pageCountApprox | approximately 10 pages ⓘ |
| primarySubject |
British policy in Ireland
ⓘ
overpopulation and poverty ⓘ poverty in Ireland ⓘ |
| proposedSolutionInText | selling and eating Irish infants ⓘ |
| publicationDate | 1729 ⓘ |
| setting | Ireland ⓘ |
| studiedIn |
English literature courses
ⓘ
courses on satire ⓘ |
| targetAudience | English and Anglo-Irish ruling classes ⓘ |
| theme |
colonialism
ⓘ
dehumanization of the poor ⓘ economic exploitation ⓘ moral blindness ⓘ |
| timePeriod | Augustan literature ⓘ |
| tone |
ironic
ⓘ
satirical ⓘ |
| workOf | Jonathan Swift ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: A Modest Proposal Description of subject: A Modest Proposal is Jonathan Swift’s famous 1729 satirical essay that uses shocking irony to criticize British policy toward the impoverished Irish.
Referenced by (6)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick
subject surface form:
Jonathan Swift