21 pages • 42 minutes read
Jonathan SwiftA Description of a City Shower
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1710A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Further Reading & Resources
Related Poems
“A Description of the Morning” by Jonathan Swift (1709)
“A Description of the Morning” is Swift’s earliest published attempt at an urban pastoral. The poem shares many themes and satirical targets with 1710’s “A Description of a City Shower.” The earlier poem’s edge is not as developed as in “City Shower.” Some of the scenes in “Description of the Morning,” such as “Moll [who] had whirl'd her mop” in Line 7, seem to be precursors to those in “City Shower.” Comparing the two poems shows how Swift refined his take on the urban pastoral and the themes it is best suited to explore.
“The Lady’s Dressing Room” by Jonathan Swift (1732)
“The Lady’s Dressing Room” is an extreme example of Swift’s tendency to depict human beings as disgusting creatures. This poem comes much later in Swift’s writing career, as he was becoming more withdrawn and misanthropic. Like in “City Shower,” which depicts the waste products necessary to keep the illusion of the city alive, “Lady’s Dressing Room” claims to give an inventory of the grotesque items necessary to produce the illusion of beauty in a lady.
“The Reasons that induced Dr. Swift to Write a Poem Called ‘The Lady’s Dressing Room'" by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1734)
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s response to Swift’s “Lady’s Dressing Room” not only gives a good sense of the way that literary figures addressed one another through poetry in 18th-century English culture, but it provides a critical look at Swift’s pessimistic attitude and satirical style. Montagu also provides a wider, less misogynistic look at the societal pretensions that Swift attacks in “City Shower” and in “Lady’s Dressing Room.”
“Tunbridge Wells” by The Earl of Rochester (1675)
The Earl of Rochester was one of the preeminent satirical poets of his time, and his “Tunbridge Wells” foreshadows the kind of grotesque look at humanity that Swift adopts in his later works. Rochester’s work is also a good example of a true mock pastoral, and maintains most of the heightened language and stock characters that were common in the genre.
“A selection from Georgics, III” by Virgil (29 BCE)
Virgil, along with Horace, were the two masters of the pastoral form that English writers in Swift’s time attempted to emulate. This selection from Virgil’s larger poem Georgics shows the kind of reverence for the natural world that typifies Classical pastorals. Comparing this selection to Swift’s “City Shower” illuminates how drastically Swift departs from typical pastoral subject matter.
Further Literary Resources
A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift (1729)
Swift’s A Modest Proposal is one of his most celebrated and effective satires. Like in “City Shower,” Swift uses extreme hyperbole to demonstrate human faults and moral failings. In the case of A Modest Proposal, Swift suggests that impoverished Irish Catholics should consider selling their children for consumption by rich English gentleman, thereby pointing to the English’s heartless, consumptive attitude toward Ireland.
The Spectator No. 1 By Joseph Addison (1711)
Alongside Swift, Joseph Addison was one of the preeminent prose stylists of the era. Together, their innovations in English prose were to provide descriptive, straight-forward writing, two principles that are still maintained in contemporary English writing today. This example, from Addison’s magazine Spectator, is told from the perspective of Addison’s persona from which the magazine borrows its name. Addison’s descriptive, observation-based style is indicative of the kind of writing popular at the time and provides further context for the importance of observation in Swift’s poem.
"The Lost World of the London Coffeehouse" by Matthew Green (2018)
Matthew Green explores the coffeehouse culture of London in the 17th and 18th century, which provides much-needed context to the literary scene in which Swift wrote. Coffee is not only considered to be one of the main drivers of the Scientific Revolution, it also developed cultures of artistic and political discussion. Much of the political and artistic development during this period can be traced back to coffee-houses and the groups that frequented them.
Listen to Poem
The reading of “A Description of a City Shower” provided by the YouTube channel Poems Cafe captures the poem’s satirical tone well. The reader emphasizes many of the poem’s double entendres without allowing them to overshadow the poem’s surface interpretation.
Related Titles
By Jonathan Swift
