Jonathan Swift was an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pampleteer, poet and cleric who became dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin. He's also known for writing Gulliver's Travels.
A Modest Proposal was published in 1729.
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(This post is a review, and not a summary)
This is probably the most hilarious piece of writing I've ever read in my life. Reading this takes me back to when I first discovered Mad Libs as a kid. The approach to humor between Swift's work and Mad Libs is not the same, but what is the same is its inherent level of silliness. It's so silly that it becomes laughable. The style in which it's written is what makes it downright absolutely hysterical. It's written in the language of how one would write in the 18th century, but on top of that it's written very eloquently. It's this eloquence combined with the insane subject matter that gives this work its unique magic. Swift titles his work as a "modest proposal", which is the literary equivalent of a racist starting his sentence with "I'm not a racist, but. . . ."
The proposal is discovered to be a potential solution to the economic turmoil that infects Ireland at the time. The brilliant solution Swift proposes as a way to go about easing the tension plaguing the economy is to sell the children of the poor and impoverished to the rich as food. This way, the poor have more money to invest on themselves as opposed to their children that would otherwise be there if they weren't served as food, while the rich get to enjoy a novel delicious cuisine made up of unwanted babies. It's a win-win. Plus, the poor would get even extra money in their selling of their offspring.
The explanation towards the proposal is amusing in it of itself, with generous 'guesstimations' and an argument that includes the attempt to persuade the readers in the savoriness of what are dead babies, by his "very knowing American of my acquaintance in London", who is implied to have tried the novel cuisine for himself, providing him with a particularly choice satisfactory dining experience.
It is of my opinion, and I am absolutely convinced, only by my sheer ignorance and only by hunch, that these are the origins of what is known today as deadpan comedy. The wiki definition seems to have it in a form that I cannot better express:
"Deadpan is an adjective, describing a deliberately emotionless and otherwise impassive, matter-of-fact manner. It is also a form of comic delivery in which humor is presented without a change in emotion or body language. It is usually spoken in a casual, monotone, or cantankerous voice, and expresses a calm, sincere, or grave demeanor, often in spite of the ridiculousness of the subject matter. This delivery is also called dry humor or dry wit, when the intent, but not the presentation, is humorous, blunt, oblique,sarcastic, laconic, or apparently unintentional."
As it was funny 300 years ago, it's still as hell of a lot funny today. Modern prominent deadpan comics include people like Steven Wright, Bill Murray, and Nathan Fielder.
The comedy's type is very closely related to anti-humor, where it "is a type of indirect humor that involves the joke-teller delivering something which is deliberately not funny, or lacking in intrinsic meaning. The practice relies on the expectation on the part of the audience of something humorous, and when this does not happen, the irony itself is of comedic value."
Everybody should read this before they die. They say that laughter is the best medicine, but given the state of medicine in 1729, laughter was probably literally the best medicine they had at their disposal, and this work does absolute justice to that proposition.
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