Jonathan Swift
1667-1745
Jonathan Swift
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Swift was born in Ireland in 1667
He received a BA from Trinity College, Dublin in
1686
He received an MA from Oxford in 1692
He became an Anglican priest in 1695
He was granted a Dr. of Divinity degree from Trinity
in 1702
He was active in the early debates of the political
parties in England—Whigs and Tories
Swift is famous for his satires:
• A Modest Proposal (1729)
• Gulliver’s Travels (1726)
Jonathan Swift
Gulliver’s Travels
Four books/voyages:
3. Laputa
2. Brobdingnag
1. Lilliput
4. Houyhnhnms
Lemuel Gulliver’s four voyages can be
seen as a satirical exploration of the
human condition:
What does it mean to be a human being?
The name “Gulliver” may suggest that he
is “gullible”
Travel Narrative
Gulliver’s Travels is a parody of the genre of “travel narrative”
During the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, these tales of
voyages of exploration and colonial adventure were extremely
popular:
Christopher Columbus
Amerigo Vespucci (for whom “America” is named)
Sir Walter Raleigh
Captain John Smith
More’s Utopia also parodies the genre. Travel narratives are often
sometimes “utopian”—Book IV of Gulliver’s Travels also parodies
More’s Utopia
Lilliput
Gulliver encounters a land of tiny people, Lilliput, after being shipwrecked
on his first voyage.
They are 1/12th the size of the average human, about 6”
According to Stuart Sherman,
editor of the Longman Anthology of British Literature Vol. 1c:
The diminutive citizens of Lilliput represent human small-mindedness
and petty ambitions. Filled with self-importance, they Lilliputians are
cruel, treacherous, malicious and destructive.
(Longman Anthology, p. 2531)
Brobdingnag
Gulliver’s second voyage, to Brobdingnag,
a land of giants:
In Brobdingnag Gulliver is reduced to the
size of a Lilliputian. 12X the size of
man, about 72’
According to Stuart Sherman:
He is humbled by his own helplessness
and, finding the huge bodies
of the Brobdingnagians grotesque, he
realizes how repulsive the
Lilliputians must have found him
(Longman
Anthology, p. 2531)
Brobdingnag
When Gulliver gives the wise king of Brobdingnag an account of the
political affairs of England—which manifest hypocrisy, avarice and
hatred—the enlightened monarch concludes that most of the
country’s inhabitants must be “the most pernicious race of little
odious vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the face of
the Earth.”
Throughout Gulliver’s Travels that which is admirable is held up to
expose corruption in the reader’s world, and that which is deplorable
is identified with the institutions and practices of contemporary
Europe, particularly Britain.
(Longman Anthology, p. 2531)
LAPUTA, BALNIBARBI, LUGGNAGG,
GLUBBDUBDRIB, and JAPAN
• The third part deals with mainly with his
accidental visit to the flying Island, where
the philosophers and projectors devote all
their time and energy to the study of some
absurd problems.
• He also encounters Struldbruggs,
immortals that face the same ailments as
everyone else, they just never die
Houyhnhnms
and Yahoos
Gulliver’s crew mutinies and puts him
ashore on an unknown island
The island turns out to be inhabited
by the “Houyhnhnms”--creatures
who look like horses but are more
civilized and intelligent than
humans, in Gulliver’s view
The island also has “Yahoos”—
creatures who look like humans
but are sub-human in
intelligence, savage and
disgusting
• The last part is a most interesting account of his
discoveries in the Houyhnhnm land, where horses are
endowed with reason and all good and admirable
qualities, and are the governing class.
• Contrary to the Houyhnhnms, the Yahoos possess every
conceivable evil. They are malicious, spiteful, envious,
unclean and greedy. Gulliver admires the life and ways
of the horses, as much as he is disgusted with the
Yahoos, whose relations remind him of those existing in
English society to such a degree that he shudders at the
prospect of returning to his native.
Express
neither grief
nor joy
REASON alone
dominates all
thinking and
decision making
Relationships
and courtships
have no place
Devaluation
of love and
all emotion
Rigid Society
Nonexistenc
e for rules or
laws
Monotonou
s existence
Greed and
envy
Rage and
Revenge
Malicious and
cruel
Society of
without
trust
Social
Chaos/Anarchy
Society
without
law or
order
Devaluation
of life and
destruction
of society
Not fully
reasonabl
e
Value the
principles of
conduct
Charitable and
judging
Capable of
Reason
Capable
of reason
Existence
of hypicrosy
Houyhnhnm – what we could be if we relied
solely on reason without any regard for emotion
or conduct
Yahoo- what we are fully capable of becoming
when we let greed, lust, jealousy, rage and
revenge dictate.
Captain Mendez- exemplifies what we as a
society should aspire to become.
Spontaneous, generous and charitable.