Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667—

19 October 1745)

Life Introduction Jonathan Swift was an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist,

political pamphleteer, poet and cleric who became Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

He was born in Dublin, Ireland, of an English family, which had important connections but little wealth.

Through the generosity of an uncle, he was educated at Kilkenny Grammar School and then Trinity College in Dublin.

Between 1689 and 1699 he worked as a private secretary to a distant kinship Sir William Temple, a retired diplomat.

And there he also received a first-rate education in politics through contact with Temple and many other well-known politicians, learning much about the vice, hypocrisy, intrigues, deception and corruption in the political world.

Died of insanity after a three-year illness.

Literary connections

His grandmother, Elizabeth (Dryden) Swift, was the niece of Sir Erasmus Dryden, grandfather of the poet John Dryden.

The same grandmother's aunt, Katherine (Throckmorton) Dryden, was a first cousin of Elizabeth, wife of Sir Walter Raleigh.

His great-great grandmother, Margaret (Godwin) Swift, was the sister of Francis Godwin, author of The Man in the Moone which influenced parts of Swift's Gulliver's Travels.

His uncle, Thomas Swift, married a daughter of the poet and playwright Sir William Davenant, a godson of William Shakespeare.

Swift’s Literary Position and Works

Literary Position Swift is one of the greatest masters of English prose. Swift is a master satirist. Even today, he is still regarded as a

national hero in Ireland.

Works: The Tale of Tub (1704) Battle of the Books (written in 1679, published in 1704) Gulliver’s Travels (1726), his greatest satiric work

Swift’s Concerns in his Works

Moral attributes

Swift was a man of great moral integrity and social charm. He had a deep hatred for all the rich oppressors and a deep sympathy for all the poor and oppressed.

Human nature

His understanding of human nature is profound. In his opinion, human nature is seriously and permanently flawed. To better human life, enlightenment is needed, but to redress it is very hard. He intends not to condemn but to reform and improve man nature and human institutions, there is often an under or overtone of helplessness and indignation.

Swift’s Artistic Features

Satire

His satire is usually masked by an outward gravity and an apparent earnestness which renders his satire all the more powerful. Simplicity and Directness

Swift is always most unsurpassed in the writing style of simple, direct, precise prose. He defined a good style as “proper words in proper places.” Clear, simple, concrete diction, uncomplicated sentence structure, economic and conciseness of language mark all his writings—essays, poems and novels.

Introduction to Gulliver’s Travels

Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan’s best fictional work, was published in 1726, under the title of Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, by Samuel Gulliver. The book contains four parts, each dealing with one particular voyage during which Gulliver meets with extraordinary adventures on some remote island after he has met with shipwreck of piracy of some other misfortune.

Themes and Genre A mix of Utopian fiction and the novel Fantastic tale of travels and adventures told in a realistic

way (realism and Robinson Crusoe) It shows Utopian worlds that expose, by contrast, the faults

of Western societies It is a satire of man’s vanities and irrationality It is a critique of society and its absurdities describing

imaginary worlds where the defects of the real world are exaggerated

Plot and Interpretations

It is a parody of a travel story of Lemuel Gulliver, a ship’s surgeon, who makes voyages in several regions of the world.

Book I: Lilliput -> Land of tiny people, satire of the English court and political life.

Book II: reversal of the point of view, the land of Giants , satire of England and Western societies .

Book III: the flying island of Laputa, satire of abstract thinking and the Royal society.

Book IV: the land of intelligent horses and human-like beasts (Yahoos), Gulliver divided between the two extremes of human potential (rationality-bestiality), pessimism and disgust for humankind .

Voyage to Lilliput

The book begins with a short preamble in which Lemuel Gulliver gives a brief outline of his life and history before his voyages. He enjoys travelling, although it is that love of travel that is his downfall. During his first voyage, Gulliver is washed ashore after a shipwreck and finds himself a prisoner of a race of tiny people, who are inhabitants of the island country of Lilliput. After giving assurances of his good behaviour, he is given a residence in Lilliput and becomes a favourite of the court. Gulliver assists the Lilliputians to subdue their neighbours, the Blefuscudians, by stealing their fleet. However, he refuses to reduce the island nation of Blefuscu to a province of Lilliput, displeasing the King and the court. Gulliver is charged with treason for, among other "crimes", "making water" in the capital (even though he was putting out a fire and saving countless lives.) He is convicted and sentenced to be blinded, but with the assistance of a kind friend, he escapes to Blefuscu. Here he spots and retrieves an abandoned boat and sails out to be rescued by a passing ship, which safely takes him back home.

Voyage to Brobdingnag

When the sailing ship Adventure is blown off course by storms and forced to put into land for want of fresh water, Gulliver is abandoned by his companions and found by a farmer who is 72 feet (22 m) tall. He brings Gulliver home and his daughter cares for Gulliver. The farmer treats him as a curiosity and exhibits him for money. Since Gulliver is too small to use their huge chairs, beds, knives and forks, the queen commissions a small house to be built for him. This is referred to as his 'travelling box'. Between small adventures such as fighting giant wasps and being carried to the roof by a monkey, Gulliver discusses the state of Europe with the King. The King is not happy with Gulliver's accounts of Europe, especially upon learning of the use of guns and cannons. On a trip to the seaside, his travelling box is seized by a giant eagle which drops Gulliver and his box into the sea, where he is picked up by some sailors, who return him to England.

Voyage to Laputa After Gulliver's ship was attacked by pirates, he is marooned close to a

desolate rocky island near India. Fortunately, he is rescued by the flying island of Laputa, a kingdom devoted to the arts of music and mathematics but unable to use them for practical ends. Gulliver tours Laputa as the guest of a low-ranking courtier and sees the ruin brought about by the blind pursuit of science without practical results. At the Grand Academy of Lagado, great resources and manpower are employed on researching completely preposterous schemes such as extracting sunbeams from cucumbers, softening marble for use in pillows, learning how to mix paint by smell. Gulliver is then taken to Balnibarbi to await a trader who can take him on to Japan. While waiting for a passage, Gulliver takes a short side-trip to the island of Glubbdubdrib, where he visits a magician's dwelling and discusses history with the ghosts of historical figures. After reaching Japan, Gulliver returns home, determined to stay there for the rest of his days.

Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms

Despite his earlier intention of remaining at home, Gulliver returns to the sea as the captain of a merchantman as he is bored with his employment as a surgeon. His crew then mutiny, and after keeping him contained for some time resolve to leave him on the first piece of land they come across and continue as pirates. He is abandoned in a landing boat and shortly afterwards he meets a race of horses who call themselves Houyhnhnms (which in their language means "the perfection of nature"); they are the rulers, while the deformed creatures called Yahoos are human beings in their base form. Gulliver becomes a member of a horse's household, and comes to both admire and emulate the Houyhnhnms and their lifestyle, rejecting his fellow humans as merely Yahoos endowed. However, an Assembly of the Houyhnhnms rules that Gulliver, a Yahoo with some semblance of reason, is a danger to their civilization, and expels him. He is then rescued, against his will, by a Portuguese ship. He returns to his home in England, but he is unable to reconcile himself to living among 'Yahoos' and becomes a recluse, remaining in his house, largely avoiding his family and his wife, and spending several hours a day speaking with the horses in his stables; in effect becoming insane.

Gulliver's Travels has been adapted several times for film, television and radio.

Gulliver's Travels (1939): Max Fleischer's animated feature-length classic of Gulliver's adventures in Lilliput. This was the first full-length animated cartoon after Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and was intended mostly for children.

The Three Worlds of Gulliver (1960): a loose adaptation starring Kerwin Matthews and featuring stop motion effects by Ray Harryhausen.

Case for a Rookie Hangman (1970): A satirical movie by the Czech Pavel Juráček, based upon the third book, depicting indirectly the Communist Czechoslovakia, shelved soon after its release.

Gulliver's Travels (1977): Part live-action and part-animated. Stars Richard Harris. Gulliver's Travels (1996): Live-action, 2 part, TV miniseries with special effects starring

Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen, also featuring a variety of film stars in cameo roles. Of all film versions, this one is the most faithful to the novel, although it still makes significant changes.

Crayola Kids Adventures: Tales of Gulliver's Travels (1997): Live-action Direct-to-video film starring children with Adam Wylie as Gulliver.

Jajantaram Mamantaram (2003): Live-action Indian children's film, starring Javed Jaffrey.

Gulliver's Travels (2010): Modernized, Live-action version of Gulliver's adventures in Lilliput, starring Jack Black, also featuring Billy Connolly, James Corden, Amanda Peet, Chris O'Dowd, Catherine Tate, Jason Segel, Emily Blunt and Olly Alexander.

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