Gulliver's Travels

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Data:	15.10.2001
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Jonathan Swift

• Born in Ireland in 1667 of English parents
• Anglo- Irish duality, he lived in Ireland till 1689, when he went from Sir Temple, a kinsman of his mother and a statesman, he took advantage from his library and his circle.
• In his first pamphlet “The Battle of Books” he awards victory of a book- competition with modern writers to the ancient. So he reveals classical tendencies.
• In “A Tale of Tub” he explains with an allegorical story the religious problems of his time: in fact the Western Christianity was divided into 3 confessions: the Chatolicism,the Puritanism, the Protestantism. He prefers the Church of England but always with some critics. It is a satirical work.
• He is not a novelist, but a satirist. He has a polemical genius especially about social and political problems related to Irish situation ( “A Modest Proposal”).
• He has been made Dean of S. Patrick’s Chatedral in Dublin.
• “Gulliver’s travels” is a satyre of the civilized society, with a lot of allusions to conemprary politics,in the form of an adventurous tale.
• After 1739 he came loss of mental powers and died after 3 years of lethargy.
• Works: “The battle of the Books”, “A tale of tub”, “Guliver’s travels”, “A modest Proposal…”.
• He is an aristocratic and conservative man, possibly so pessimist because his class was overcame by the middle class.
• A formidable polemist, he hate practical activities.

Gulliver’s Travels
• Like Defoe here is the realism, they are the first works of fiction, they make a modern use of the first person narrator.
• Lemuel Gulliver is a ship’ surgeon who shipwrekes and makes a serie of voyages into remote nations.
• He mixes fantastic and real, he is careful about names and the geography of his book seems real.
1. Gullliver is shipwrecked in the empire of Lilliput (very small people), initially they make him prisoner, but gradually they try to use him in their wars. Thanks to his help he is allowed to leave the island. Lilliputians exemplify the meanness of human race, in particular of Englishes. They choose their statesmen for their pleasures for the emperor and the tight- rope walking ( he makes a satire about politicians: they are games for power).
2. He lands in the country of Brobdingnang. They are giants very tolerant and highly civilised. They use him like a toy. An eagle picks up him from his box and lets him over the sea. Toghether with the Lilliputians they simbolize the society and the individual person. You can be a giant for someone and a toy for someone else. They simbolize the physical imperfections of men. They think that English society is barbarous.
3. He lands in the isle of Laputa, which flyes thanks to a magnet. The ihabitants despise all practical occupations; they like the knowledge ( which is theorical and abstract). The projectors of Lagado make absurds experiments because they’ re out of touch with reality. Laputa represents the satire of modern philosophies and science and their presomptuosness.
4. He lands in the country of Houynhnms, the intelligent horses, and Yahoos, primitive and not intelligent apes, who simbolize the human race. Gulliver decides to stay with horses, but they don’t tolerate Yahoo’s, so he comes back home. There he cannot tolerate all the humans (he is misanthropist and misogene), so he decides to live in the stable. He doesn’t knows to wich world he belongs and they represent the extremes of depravity and goodness.

• It is a controversial book because it seems a children story and a philosophical tale. He talks about human futility through a work of fiction.
• Satire is important but at the same time dangerous: you can be emarginated from the society.
• Swift is disgusted by the human race, in particulary of women. He show an individual alienation, he never married but it seems affectionated to a girl, called Stella, very young.