JONATHAN SWIFT Gulliver’s Travels

Jonathan Swift was born in 1667 in Dublin of English parents He left Ireland for England at the time of the revolution in 1688 In 1694 he returned to Ireland and became an Anglican priest In April 1713 he was made Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin He produced a great deal of writings for the Tory administration

WORKS He worked for Sir William Temple, who encouraged him to write his first satirical works: “The Battle of the Books” “A tale of a Tub” was a literal battle between was an ironic satire ancient and modern books about Catholics in St. James’s Library and Dissenters

He began to write pamphlets like “A proposal for the universal use of Irish manufacture” and “The Drapier’s letters “ that denounced injustices in Ireland Gulliver’s Travels is the most important work of Jonathan Swift: it consists of four books, each dealing with the various adventures of the ship’s surgeon Lemuel Gulliver, illustrated by maps of the places he visited

An Irish hero He was considered a national hero. He regarded Ireland as a place of exile. In 1726 he published “Gulliver’s Travels” in 1729 he published “ A modest Proposal”. Swift’s later years were marked by the decay of his mental faculties,due to labyrinthine vertigo and by deafness. He died in 1745.

Gulliver sails from Bristol on 4th May 1699; after six months his ship is wrecked on an island by a storm BOOK 1 …but some Lilliputians make a plot against Gulliver… The Lilliputians take Gulliver to the capital city where the emperor asks him to help them against Blefuscu… He is cast upon the shore of LILLIPUT, an island that has a population of tiny people about 6 inches tall …so he repairs a boat of his size and he escapes to England

BOOK 2 GULLIVER Travels to Where he meets Giants (22 metres) Brobdingnag It is difficult to live because he is too small In Brobdingnag He looks like a Lilliputian so He is forced to live in a cage but but

The giants are friendly with him because they want to know how He lived in his land finally A bird flies him with the box and drops him in the sea . A ship transports him home

BOOK III -The island is exactly circular. It moves with its magnetic force, since it has two charges that can be reversed by means of an attached control. Gulliver's ship is attacked by pirates and he is marooned close to a desolate rocky island near India. He is rescued by the flying island of Laputa. The island of Laputa is very particular because: . -it is a kingdom devoted to the arts of music, mathematics and astronomy but unable to use them for practical ends. -Abstract theories dominate all aspects of Laputan life, from language to architecture to geography

On the island Gulliver meets a King who decides when to make it rain, and here he learns a new language. In Laputa he visits the Academy of Lagado, that wants to abolish all the words. On this island Gulliver is not a prisoner so he can continue his journey. He visits Glubbdubdrib, an island of sorcerers and magicians and the island of Luggnagg. Gulliver goes to Japan. After that he goes to Amsterdam, he comes back home to England by a Dutch ship.

Book IV Gulliver returns to sea despite his earlier intentions His crew commits mutiny and abandons him on a landing boat He lands on an island, where he finds two races: Yahoos Houyhnhnms Hideous, deformed, and savage humanoid creatures Refined talking horses that have a dominant place in the island society

Gulliver becomes a member of horses’ household, starts both to admire and emulate their lifestyle and reject human race Horses’ Assembly rules that Gulliver, a strange reasoning Yahoo, is a danger for their society and expels him He gets rescued against his will by a Portuguese ship and returns to England Here, he is unable to live with other humans because he considers them Yahoos and begins to spend the majority of his time speaking and living with horses in his stables becoming, in effect, insane.

Swift’s satiric technique Swift uses many different elements to characterize his satiric compositon Gulliver’s Travels. He uses: distortion , exaggeration; irony, incongruity and slapsticks; • insistence on details; parodies and burlesques; • Appearance of realism , the reader doubts on what to believe is true or not; • a varied tone from wild to outright derision ; • The figure of the traveller; • Altered perspectives.

SWIFT'S MASTERPIECE CAN BE READ ON DIFFERENT LEVELS: A TALE FOR CHILDREN: Gulliver's Travels is a novel very loved by children for a simple reason: the rich imagination with which Swift creates new worlds, absurd and amusing adventures. A POLITICAL ALLEGORY: It is a political allegory of England at Swift's time. Swift uses this novel to criticize the political condition of England in the 18th century and to make a satire of the royal court of George 1st. SWIFT'S MASTERPIECE CAN BE READ ON DIFFERENT LEVELS: A PARODY OF VOYAGE LITERATURE: This novel is inspired by the genre of travel literature. . A MASTERPIECE OF MISANTHROPY: Jonathan Swift attempted to stir up conscience through this story to correct the faults in human nature. Through his masterpiece Gulliver's Travels, he extended a message to the readers about the value of peace and rationality.

A CONTROVERSIAL WRITER In a letter to Pope he defined himself as a hater of man, whom he described as «an animal capable of reason» He has been labelled as a MISANTHROPE* a monster ,a lover of mankind, a man with a morbid attitude In fact in the fourth voyage of Guliver’s travels, he goes to the land of Houyhnhnms Where men were lower race and they were called Yahoos He was seriously concerned with politics and society, and his attitude was prevalently conservative He didn’t share the optimism of his age

YAHOOS *MISANTHROPE a person who distrusts or hates other people or mankind in general 4Bs A.S. 2016/2017