The Politics of Religion in Jonathan Swift’s ‘A Tale of a Tub’
Academic Details:
Name:Sandipkumar A. Jethava
Roll No.: 28
Enrollment No.: 5108250020
Sem.: 01
Batch: 2025-27
E-mail: sandipjethava9081@gmail.com
Assignment Details:
Paper Name: Literature of The Neo-classical Period
Paper No.: 102
Paper Code: 22393
Unit: 01 -Jonathan Swift’s ‘A Tale of a Tub’
Topic: The Politics of Religion in Jonathan Swift’s ‘A Tale of a Tub’.
Submitted To: Smt. Sujata Binoy Gardi, Department of English, Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University
Submitted Date: 10th November 2025
The following information—numbers are counted using QuillBot:
Images: 01
Words: 2230
Table of Content:
Abstract
Research question
Hypothesis
Introduction
Table: Major symbols in ‘A Tale of a Tub’
01.Religion, Politics, and the Age of Satire
02.The Religious Allegory:Three Brothers and the Church
03.Religious Hypocrisy and the Narrative Persona
04.The Politics of “Things Indifferent”:Adiaphora and Ideology
05.Irony, Authority, and the Anglican Middle Way
06.Conclusion
References
Abstract:
Jonathan Swift’s A Tale of a Tub (1704) unites religious satire with political allegory to critique the ideological corruption of early-eighteenth-century England. Composed during an era when ecclesiastical authority and state power were inseparable, Swift’s text exposes how theological enthusiasm and political opportunism mirror each other. Through his unstable narrator, the parable of three brothers, and his parodic digressions, Swift dramatizes the collapse of religious integrity in a society governed by factional ambition. Recent scholars—including L. D. Peterson, Marcus Walsh, George D. Stout, William Koon, and Paul Neimann—demonstrate that Swift’s theological satire operates as a defense of Anglican moderation and as an intervention in the ideological contests of the post-Revolutionary age. This essay examines the politics of religion in A Tale of a Tub through five interrelated aspects: religious allegory, narrative persona, the doctrine of adiaphora, irony and authority, and the Anglican ideal of moderation.
Research Question
How does Jonathan Swift employ religious satire in A Tale of a Tub to comment upon and critique the political culture of early-eighteenth-century England?
Hypothesis
Swift transforms religious controversy into political allegory to expose how corruption within the Church parallels the corruption of political authority. His satire ultimately defends Anglican moderation as a political as well as spiritual ideal, using irony and parody to dismantle both religious enthusiasm and secular rationalism.
Introduction:
Jonathan Swift’s A Tale of a Tub (1704) is one of the most intricate and provocative works of early eighteenth-century satire. Written during a period when questions of faith and authority were inseparable from the politics of the English nation, the work exposes the instability of religious and political discourse in an age of competing ideologies. Through its allegory of three brothers—Peter, Martin, and Jack—Swift dramatizes the schisms within Western Christianity while reflecting on the broader cultural conflict between tradition and innovation.
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The Tale is not merely a parody of sectarian excess but a profound meditation on the corruption of language, the misuse of reason, and the manipulation of truth for power. Swift’s blend of theological allegory and political irony allows him to critique both the pretensions of modern rationalism and the fanaticism of religious enthusiasm. In doing so, he constructs a defense of Anglican moderation as the moral and political center of a divided society.
Table: Major Symbols in ‘A Tale of a Tub’
Each symbol reinforces the central tension between divine truth and human pride.
1. Religion, Politics, and the Age of Satire
In early-eighteenth-century England, religion and politics were deeply entwined. The aftermath of the Glorious Revolution left the Church of England as both a spiritual and political pillar of national identity. As Encyclopaedia Britannica observes, “At the time it was written, politics and religion were still closely linked in England” (“A Tale of a Tub”). Swift’s career in the Anglican Church and his Tory loyalties shaped his understanding of this interdependence. A Tale of a Tub, his first major prose satire, emerges from this contested landscape of sectarian division and ideological instability.
Swift’s contemporaries viewed religious dissent not merely as theological error but as political rebellion. Conversely, defenders of toleration accused Anglican clergy of tyranny. In this polarized environment, Swift constructed a work that, as L. D. Peterson explains, “is at once a religious and a political satire” (Peterson 240). The allegory of the three brothers, the parodic digressions on modern learning, and the narrator’s manic reasoning all converge to expose the intellectual and moral decay of modernity. Swift’s central claim is that the perversion of religion—the reduction of divine truth to partisan instrument—mirrors the perversion of politics.
The preface of the Tale situates Swift’s narrator as a champion of “modern” reason who claims to reform religion through wit and method. Yet his digressions produce confusion rather than clarity. The parody of rational discourse here serves, as Marcus Walsh observes, to defend textual and institutional authority: “For Swift the Scriptures, for political as well as for religious reasons, needed to be vested with a distinguishing authority and respect” (Walsh 193). The Tale’s mock-scholarly form, therefore, not only satirizes literary pedantry but also dramatizes the erosion of spiritual reverence under the guise of intellectual progress.
2. The Religious Allegory: Three Brothers and the Church
The central allegory of A Tale of a Tub presents three brothers—Peter, Martin, and Jack—each representing a major branch of Western Christianity: Peter for Roman Catholicism, Martin for Anglicanism, and Jack for Dissenters or Puritans. Their father’s will, symbolizing Scripture, commands them to preserve their coats unchanged. The brothers’ eventual corruption dramatizes the history of the Church’s fragmentation and the consequent loss of original authority.
L. D. Peterson’s foundational article, “Swift’s Project: A Religious and Political Satire,” demonstrates that this allegory fuses theological and political commentary. Swift’s mock-heroic narrative “is at once a religious and a political satire” (Peterson 240). Peter’s additions to the coat—lace, embroidery, and trimmings—represent the Catholic Church’s accumulation of ceremony and power; Jack’s violent tearing of his coat mirrors the destructive zeal of Protestant dissent; and Martin’s attempts at moderation embody the Anglican ideal of measured reform. The brothers’ quarrel, therefore, reflects not only ecclesiastical conflict but also political rivalry among factions competing for royal favor and parliamentary influence.
Swift’s treatment of Martin is particularly revealing. He is sympathetic but not flawless—an emblem of reasoned authority struggling amid extremism. By presenting Martin as both participant and observer, Swift suggests that Anglicanism, though imperfect, offers the only viable balance between superstition and enthusiasm. The brothers’ story thus encodes a Tory political philosophy: stability depends on hierarchy, tradition, and restraint. When religion degenerates into private enthusiasm or authoritarian spectacle, civil order collapses.
Peterson further cites Swift’s ironic comment, “Is not Religion a Cloak …” to show how faith becomes a public disguise for ambition (Peterson 245). The brothers’ hypocrisy echoes politicians who cloak self-interest in moral rhetoric. Through this allegory, Swift warns that both church and state are vulnerable to the same human vanity that corrupts spiritual truth.
3. Religious Hypocrisy and the Narrative Persona
Beyond allegory, Swift’s satire operates through his creation of a deranged narrator—a persona whose self-importance and incoherence parody the modern preacher, scholar, and projector. George D. Stout emphasizes that “the speaker … is usually a persona distinct from Swift” (Stout 419). This separation allows Swift to critique folly while maintaining ironic distance.
The narrator’s erratic digressions—on madness, books, and “the moderns”—constitute a methodical chaos that mirrors the ideological disorder of his age. William Koon notes that A Tale of a Tub “is the most devastating onslaught on the authenticity of The …” (Koon 195), underscoring how the work undermines any claim to absolute authority. By letting his persona drown in pedantry and contradiction, Swift exposes the dangers of intellectual arrogance masquerading as reform.
The narrator’s rhetoric often parodies the language of political pamphleteers. His appeals to “projects” and “methods” echo the Whig enthusiasm for progress and innovation. Through him, Swift satirizes both the rationalist reformer and the fanatic preacher—figures who exploit language for persuasion rather than truth. As the Academia.edu commentary observes, “Swift critiques the hypocrisy of Christians while affirming the Gospel’s purity amidst corrupt church practices.” The narrator’s hypocrisy is thus emblematic of a broader cultural malaise: religion and politics alike are driven by vanity, not virtue.
This device of unreliable narration also reflects Swift’s political realism. He recognized that in a world governed by faction, pure truth could not be voiced directly; it required indirection, irony, and persona. The Tale’s chaotic form becomes its argument: modern discourse—religious or political—has lost coherence because it has lost humility.
4. The Politics of “Things Indifferent”: Adiaphora and Ideology
Paul Neimann’s essay “Things Indifferent: Adiaphora, Superstition, and Religious Ideology in Swift’s A Tale of a Tub” (2017) provides a crucial modern interpretation of Swift’s religious politics. Neimann examines the concept of adiaphora—“things indifferent,” or practices neither commanded nor forbidden by Scripture—and shows how Swift uses this theological idea to expose political manipulation. In seventeenth- and eighteenth-century debates, disputes over ceremonies, vestments, and rituals often disguised power struggles between church and state. Swift transforms this controversy into satire by portraying how trivial externals become instruments of ideological control.
Neimann writes that “Swift’s satire of superstition and adiaphora reveals how ideology governs religious practice” (Neimann 412). In the Tale, Peter’s additions to his coat symbolize the elevation of indifferent things to dogma, while Jack’s violent tearing of them represents the opposite error—confusing liberty with anarchy. Both extremes illustrate how religion, when politicized, ceases to be a means of salvation and becomes a weapon of domination.
Swift’s position, however, is not merely doctrinal but political. As Marcus Walsh observes, “For Swift the Scriptures, for political as well as for religious reasons, needed to be vested with a distinguishing authority and respect” (Walsh 193). By ridiculing those who treat sacred text as mutable human invention, Swift defends the stability of divine revelation as the foundation of social order. His satire of textual corruption parallels his critique of political opportunism: in both cases, the substitution of human will for divine or constitutional authority breeds chaos.
Moreover, Swift’s mock-scholarly apparatus—the preface, footnotes, and “digressions”—parodies how institutional bureaucracy converts revelation into paperwork. The narrator’s pedantic catalogues imitate the administrative prose of government reports, suggesting that both theology and politics have been reduced to systems of empty documentation. The Tale, therefore, is not only a religious satire but also a commentary on the emerging technocratic rationality of modern politics.
5. Irony, Authority, and the Anglican Middle Way
At the heart of Swift’s political theology lies his Anglican commitment to moderation—the via media or “middle way” between Roman excess and Puritan zeal. This ideal shaped his politics as well as his faith. The Tale’s Martin embodies this principle: cautious, imperfect, yet devoted to order and tradition. By presenting Martin’s balanced position as the only sustainable one, Swift advances a Tory vision of harmony grounded in continuity rather than innovation.
Religious moderation, for Swift, is inherently political because it resists both tyranny and anarchy. Peter’s authoritarianism parallels absolutist monarchy; Jack’s frenzy mirrors radical republicanism. Martin’s prudence, by contrast, aligns with constitutional monarchy and ecclesiastical hierarchy. Swift’s defense of the Anglican Church thus doubles as a defense of the English state.
The Academia.edu essay “Religious Hypocrisy in Jonathan Swift’s A Tale of a Tub” summarizes this moral vision: “Swift critiques the hypocrisy of Christians while affirming the Gospel’s purity amidst corrupt church practices.” His irony does not reject religion but restores it by exposing false zeal. Similarly, his political conservatism is not reactionary but restorative; he aims to purify, not to destroy.
Irony serves as Swift’s moral method. By refusing to speak directly, he forces readers to discern truth through contradiction. The narrator’s madness conceals Swift’s reason; his blasphemy implies reverence. In an age of ideological extremism, irony becomes a form of political prudence—a way to affirm truth without surrendering it to factional misuse.
6.Conclusion:
A Tale of a Tub stands as one of the most complex fusions of religion and politics in English satire. Through allegory, persona, and irony, Swift exposes the shared vices of churchmen and statesmen: pride, hypocrisy, and the will to power. His depiction of Peter, Martin, and Jack dramatizes the historical schisms of Christianity, while his mad narrator enacts the intellectual disarray of modern culture. As Peterson argues, Swift’s project “is at once a religious and a political satire” (240). As Walsh and Neimann show, it also defends the principle of authority—scriptural and institutional—against the encroachments of enthusiasm and superstition.
In political terms, Swift’s satire champions moderation. The Anglican via media represents a model of balance in both theology and governance. Religion, rightly understood, sustains social cohesion; misused, it becomes a vehicle for ambition. Swift’s warning remains relevant: when faith serves politics, both are corrupted.
By turning theological debate into literary art, Swift transformed the language of religion into an instrument of political critique. His Tale teaches that the search for absolute truth—whether in religion or politics—inevitably leads to madness. Only humility, irony, and tradition can preserve the fragile harmony of belief and power. In the end, Swift’s politics of religion call not for dogmatic certainty but for reflective moderation, the very virtue his age most lacked.
References:
‘A Tale of a Tub’ the original text: Sec. IV. A Tale of a Tub
Image source: Wikimedia
Koon, William. “An Approach to A Tale of a Tub.” PMLA, vol. 91, no. 2, 1976, pp. 193–207. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/461056.
Neimann, Paul. “Things Indifferent: Adiaphora, Superstition, and Religious Ideology in Swift’s A Tale of a Tub.” Modern Philology, vol. 115, no. 3, 2017, pp. 403–425. University of Chicago Press, https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/690217.
Peterson, L. D. “Swift’s Project: A Religious and Political Satire.” ELH, vol. 34, no. 2, 1967, pp. 240–259. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2872374.
Religious Hypocrisy in Jonathan Swift’s ‘A Tale of a Tub.’ Academia.edu, www.academia.edu.
Stout, George D. “Speaker and Satiric Vision in Swift’s Tale of a Tub.” Studies in English Literature, vol. 9, no. 3, 1969, pp. 417–430. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/450038.
Walsh, Marcus. “Text, ‘Text’, and Swift’s A Tale of a Tub.” The Review of English Studies, vol. 41, no. 162, 1990, pp. 191–208. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/515828.
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