A Meditation Upon A Broomstick

About This Book

A Meditation Upon A Broomstick is a brief satirical essay by Jonathan Swift, written around 1703-1704 and published in 1710. The piece is a masterful parody of Robert Boyle's Occasional Reflections upon Several Subjects, in which the eminent scientist drew elaborate moral lessons from everyday objects. Swift, finding Boyle's pious reflections absurdly overblown, composed his own 'meditation' on a common broomstick, beginning in a pitch-perfect imitation of Boyle's earnest, philosophical tone before spiraling into darkly comic observations about human vanity. The broomstick — once a flourishing tree in the forest, now stripped of its branches and forced to sweep dirt — becomes Swift's metaphor for humanity itself: creatures who strip Nature bare with their inventions, dress themselves in borrowed finery, and raise great clouds of dust while pretending to make the world cleaner. According to tradition, Swift read the piece aloud to Lady Berkeley, who had been enjoying Boyle's Reflections, and she reportedly praised it as the finest meditation in the entire collection before realizing she had been tricked. Though only a few pages long, A Meditation Upon A Broomstick is one of Swift's most quoted works and a perfect miniature of his genius for finding the absurd in the solemn.

About the Author

Publication Details