A Tale of a Tub

• How far do you think Digression is necessary ? 

 Introduction

     Digressions in a literary text serve a diverse array of functions, such as a means to provide background information, a way to illustrate or emphasize a point through example or anecdote, and even a channel through which to satirize a subject.  

        

  Digression is necessary 

    The Tale is a prose parody divided into sections of "Digression" and a "tale" of three brothers, each representing one of the main branches of Western Christianity. A satire on the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches and English Dissenters, it was famously attacked for its profanity and irreligion, starting with william Wotton, who wrote that it made a game of "God and Religion, Truth and Moral Honesty, Learning and Industry" to show "at the bottom  contemptible Opinion of every Thing which is called Christianity.

  The Tale was enormously popular, presenting both a satire of religious excess and a parody of contemporary writing,inliterature,politics,theology, exegesis, and medicine through its comically excessive front matter and series of digressions throughout. The overarching parody is of enthusiasm, pride, and credulity. At the time it was written, politics and religion were still closely linked in England, and the religious and political aspects of the satire can often hardly be separated. The work made Swift notorious, and was widely misunderstood, especially by Queen Anne herself who mistook its purpose for profanity. It effectively disbarred its author from proper preferment in the Church of ingland but is considered one of Swift's best allegories, even by himself.  

  

   From its opening the book alternates between Digression and Tale. However, the digressions overwhelm the narrative, both in their length and in the forcefulness and imaginativeness of writing. Furthermore, after  the labels for the sections are incorrect. Sections then called "Tale" are Digressions, and those called "Digression" are also Digressions.

   The Tale's satire is most consistent in attacking misreading of all sorts. Both in the narrative sections and the digressions, the single human flaw that underlies all the follies Swift attacks is over-figurative and over-literal reading, both of the Bible and of poetry and political prose. The narrator is seeking hidden knowledge, mechanical operations of things spiritual, spiritual qualities to things physical, and alternate readings of everything.

   

    For example, in Book Eleven, Homer employs a mini-digression when Agamemnon comes upon brothers Peisandros and Hippolokhos in battle. After they come to Agamemnon as suppliants, he remembers that their father was one who denied Menelaos’ emissaries and “held out for killing

then and there”.This short interlude from the action provides the audience with a critical fact about the beginning of the war and the nature of the opposing parties. 

    

   The digression was also used for non-satiric purposes in fiction. In Henry feliding'sThe history of tom jones A foundling the author has numerous asides and digressive statements that are a side-fiction, and this sort of digression within chapters shows up later in the work of Charles Dikens , Herman Melville, victor hugo  and others. The novels of Leo Tolstoy ,Marcel proustHenry miller are also full of digressions.

   Unintentional digressions in informal conversation and discussion are common. Speakers commonly use the phrase "But I digress" after a digression to express the shift back to the main topic. Many examples of this use can already be found in 19th-century publications. Unless the speaker ties the "digression" back into the subject at hand, that shift in subject does not strictly constitute a rhetorical digression.

 conclusion 

   

        Digression as a device can also be found in present-day after introducing the topic, the speaker will introduce a story that seems to be unrelated, return to the original topic, and then use the story to illustrate the speaker's point.