Note: A table book is a guestbook placed at a woman's front door. All suitors and other guests signed their names in the table book before visiting.
Jonathan Swift's quick poem Written in a Lady's Ivory Table Book is simple criticism over foolish behavior. From the table book to the reader, the poem criticizes everyone who write in it. Next to every visitor's name in the table book is a little jab written by the owner against the signed name, such as "For an el breth" (10) and "A safe way to use perfume" (12). However, like every guestbook, all of these scribbles are "expos'd to every coxcomb's eyes" (5) and reveals the thoughts of the owner to everyone who visits the home. The narrator is very quick to point out how foolish this behavior is such as in lines 18 and 19: "Who that had wit would place it here, For every peeping fop to jeer?"
Additionally, the narrator is just as quick to criticize those who would write equally insulting things over the woman's writing: "In pow'r of spittle and a clout, Whene'er he please, to blot it out; And then, to heighten the disgrace, Clap his own nonsense in the place." (21-24) With this guilty visitor in mind, the narrator goes on to call him a mindless tool since, by writing his own nonsense down for everyone to see, he's no better than "a gold pencil tipped with lead." (30)
The poem itself is simple enough. It only vents about shortsighted and annoying behavior and seems to have very little in the way of additional messages. This poem is a fun read and easy enough to understand. Are there additional messages, though? It's very possible that Swift tucked more into his verses. It's also possible that certain elements of the poem would be harder for modern readers to spot simply due to the cultural and time gap between the readers and the writing.
It is true that the poem uses the voice of the table book to satirize everyone who writes things in it. However, the satire is also directed at the owner, the lady herself, who mixes up incommensurate kinds of information, putting a recipe for paint next to love letters. This mixture of “trifles” suggests that the woman’s relationships with other people are just as shallow as her interests (paint, perfume, curing bad breath). The poem is addressed to the reader of the book who might be contemplating writing something in it. Line 19 refers to this person and their “Brains Issue” (ie. their ideas) being exposed to the “excrement” of the Fop’s brain. Because the book is erasable, the Fop can just use some spit and a rag (or clout) to blot out whatever addressee of the poem has written and replace it with his own ideas (such as they are). The larger point of this section is to make people and their concerns into ephemera by contrasting them to the wit and solidity of the Table Book itself. With the final six lines, the Table Book turns people into objects by making fun of the man who will marry the woman who owns the book: he must be “a gold pencil tipt with Lead” (ie very rich but without much of a brain). The poem’s satire thus works by reversing the conventional roles of people and objects: people in the poem are disposable objects, while the Table Book has all the characteristics of a rational person.
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