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Swift wrote plain perfection of prose. Comment.
Many critics like William Deans Howells; T.S. Eliot etc. have called Jonathan Swift the greatest writer of prose like T.S. Eliot says that
"Swift, the greatest writer of English prose, and the greatest man who has ever written great English prose."
But there are reasons for this greatness. One of the main reasons is that Swift wrote in a very plain and downright style. He didn't use any embellishments. At times, when Swift was writing serious stuff this same plain style appears dry but when writing humorously, this same plainness gives his wit a singular edge. Swift didn't use ornate or rhetorical language; he said what he had to in simply without any affectation as Hugh Blair says
"His style is of the plain and simple kind; free of all affectation, and all superfluity; perspicuous, manly and pure."
And at times, his style appears so simple that its seems like anybody with a little sense of writing could write like him but in this same simple ness of manner lies Swift's greatness like Scott says
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