Gulliver's Travels Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Jonathan Swift's masterpiece, Gulliver's Travels, is a brilliant satire that mixes Horatian and Juvenalian satire. The work is also a ingenious satire on the progress of European philosophy and science in early modernity. In this essay I... more

Jonathan Swift's masterpiece, Gulliver's Travels, is a brilliant satire that mixes Horatian and Juvenalian satire. The work is also a ingenious satire on the progress of European philosophy and science in early modernity. In this essay I examine how Swift's mock travel literature is a descent into hell with the fall and degeneration of man from Lilliputians to the Houyhnhnm.

Los viajes de Gulliver no es solo un cuento de aventuras...

Swift wrote Gulliver’s Travels, a satiric masterpiece, for a game of stories proposed in the ‘Martinus Scribelus Club’, whose members were notable satirists such as Pope, Arbuthnot, and Gay. Each member was given a topic, and Swift’s was... more

Swift wrote Gulliver’s Travels, a satiric masterpiece, for a game of stories proposed in the ‘Martinus Scribelus Club’, whose members were notable satirists such as Pope, Arbuthnot, and Gay. Each member was given a topic, and Swift’s was to satirize the numerous and popular volumes describing seafaring voyages and their fantastic adventures. And, what came out of this linguistic exercise was the biting criticism of a novel, Gulliver’s Travels, initially titled- Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World.

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, previously published as a travel narrative in 1726, revolves around the adventurous life of a ship's surgeon, Lemuel Gulliver. Throughout the book, Swift highly mocks and criticizes the follies of the... more

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, previously published as a travel narrative in 1726, revolves around the adventurous life of a ship's surgeon, Lemuel Gulliver. Throughout the book, Swift highly mocks and criticizes the follies of the people in power in various parts of England. Swift was extremely critical of the Enlightenment philosophers and scientists as they laid much emphasis on scientific knowledge and less on practicality. Jenny Mezciems rightly points out, 'The purpose of Swift's works was to mock practices and attitudes which he abhorred.' The imagery and symbolism throughout the book represent the irony and corruption of the English System.

The eighteenth century is known for the emergence of free thought, rationalism and critical thinking, and for the liberation of the arts and sciences from superstition. Jonathan Swift, being a devoted Anglican, was also a formidable... more

The eighteenth century is known for the emergence of free thought, rationalism and critical thinking, and for the liberation of the arts and sciences from superstition. Jonathan Swift, being a devoted Anglican, was also a formidable critic of the Enlightenment thought, making his skepticism of modern learning a major theme in his writing. In Gulliver’s Travels Swift challenges the idea that truth can be empirically defined by a simple collection of facts, and he argues that humans are not rational animals. In a letter to Pope, Swift wrote that he has material towards a treatise proving the falsity of that definition animal rationale and to show it would be only rationis capax, i.e. capable of reason. This is especially evident in Part IV, in the land of the Houyhnhnms. I will focus on this last part of the Travels and will compare it to the empirical philosophy of John Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding. My aim is to discuss Gulliver’s shift to madness, following his inability to internalize the perceptions of the societies in which he happens to find himself and his irrational aspiration to become one of the “horses”. The current paper will concentrate on the interplay of truth and lies, central to Swift’s writing and language, as the tool for achieving a subtle irony, enhanced by Gulliver’s obsession with truth, self-deception, and constant contradictions. Arguably, the target of Swift’s satire are not lies, but the denial of lies and the pursuit of reason at all costs.

The author of the term estrangement [ostranenie], Viktor Shklovsky argued that it is the essence of genuine art. A true work of art estranges the world, but it is also strange in relation to all other works previously produced.... more

The author of the term estrangement [ostranenie], Viktor Shklovsky argued that it is the essence of genuine art. A true work of art estranges the world, but it is also strange in relation to all other works previously produced. Estrangement in art withstands the automatization of both life and art forms.
In one way or another, we share this understanding when we praise a work for its originality or criticize it for being uninventive. While the criterion of estrangement seems quite effective and in line with today’s dynamic way of looking at art, paradoxes emerge when we try applying it to various texts.
Sometimes, for instance, we are no longer able to feel the originality of a thing that was such initially: its estrangement has itself become automated. And sometimes a writer did not even try to estrange anything and yet embedded estrangement in his/her text. An example of it is the epigraph to Nabokov’s Gift taken from a simple grammar book by P. Smirnovsky: “An oak is a tree. A rose is a flower. A deer is an animal. A sparrow is a bird. Russia is our fatherland. Death is inevitable.” Can we talk of estrangement here? Certainly, and yet who is the author: Nabokov, who re-contextualizes these phrases, or Smirnovsky, who created the construction pregnant with estrangement? My presentation addresses this and other paradoxes the discussion of which does seem to have a great heuristic value.

In this essay, I argue that Swift's meditation on hospitality in Gulliver's Travels-- its repeated restaging of relations between guests and hosts, prisoners and guards, pets and masters-- constitutes a theory of satire itself as a... more

In this essay, I argue that Swift's meditation on hospitality in Gulliver's Travels-- its repeated restaging of relations between guests and hosts, prisoners and guards, pets and masters-- constitutes a theory of satire itself as a relation of hospitality. In the encounter between Gulliver and the Lilliputians, and in the parallel encounters that follow in all four books of the text, questions of hospitality, obligation, and submission are emphasized. This emphasis operates as an avenue for the reader not only to consider Gulliver's (or a traveler's) obligations and liberties within the spaces of colonial or pre-colonial encounter, but also to regard Gulliver as an emblem or figure of satire itself. This role for Gulliver is underwritten by, or operates in parallel with, the ways in which hospitality is figured throughout his voyages.

Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels and Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels set in Ankh-Morpork are similar enough that both can be treated as belonging to the subgenre of comic fantasy. The narratives foreground the fantastic, written to... more

Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels and Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels set in Ankh-Morpork are similar enough that both can be treated as belonging to the subgenre of comic fantasy. The narratives foreground the fantastic, written to entertain and amuse its readers but also contain societal criticism in the form of satire or parody. This paper compares the unnatural aspects of Gulliver’s Travels and select City Watch instalments of Discworld. By using a combination of the fairly recent sub-discipline within narratology, unnatural narrative theory, and Genette’s question of “who speaks?”, this study analyses the narrators
and the different kinds of unnatural spaces in which they speak. The analysis is divided into four chapters as follows: how to read the unnatural in a narrative, what constitutes an unnatural space, the respective narrator’s voice, and finally, reliability of the narrators
within their unnatural space. It becomes apparent that the narrators are unreliable, not only in terms of controlling the information the reader is allowed access to within the narrative but also because of spatiotemporal ambiguity within the narratives.

Psychoanalytical criticism mostly deals with the methods of reading encouraged by Freudian theories of psychology. Its primary focus is on works of literature as a sort of expression of the author's personality and state of mind. While... more

Psychoanalytical criticism mostly deals with the methods of reading encouraged by Freudian theories of psychology. Its primary focus is on works of literature as a sort of expression of the author's personality and state of mind. While reading a text, readers encounter groups of signs that could unravel the writer’s psyche, besides having effects on their own mentality. The basic shared element between Literature and Psychoanalysis, therefore, could be that both deal with human behaviour. Accordingly, Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels has been chosen to be studied in the light of Freudian psychoanalysis since it is one of the most renowned literary works which comments on human personality and its roots. The famous allegorical readings of the novel might have shadowed its psychoanalytical importance; consequently, we will discuss how the four voyages of Gulliver are demonstrating different life phases of human beings with having either id, ego, or superego as a dominant force in each stage. Besides, the voyages help Gulliver form a better understanding of, not only himself but of all human beings. By making use of satire, Swift proposes a critique of human beings' vice, folly, pride, and avarice, the roots of which will be discussed according to Freudian propositions.

This is a literary essay that investigates satire as it can be found in Gulliver's Travels. It does this through an in-depth analysis of two extracts from the novel that looks at how the various elements of satire and manifested in the... more

This is a literary essay that investigates satire as it can be found in Gulliver's Travels. It does this through an in-depth analysis of two extracts from the novel that looks at how the various elements of satire and manifested in the extracts and to what end the author uses them.

John Stubbs should be commended for his biography of the great Anglo-Irish satirist and clergyman. The work is not merely a biography; it is also an account that details the turbulence of the times in which Jonathan Swift lived, painting... more

John Stubbs should be commended for his biography of the great Anglo-Irish satirist and clergyman. The work is not merely a biography; it is also an account that details the turbulence of the times in which Jonathan Swift lived, painting lively portraits of the many figures and personalities with whom he interacted.

Il caro estinto e I viaggi di Gulliver sono due romanzi scritti da due autori di cultura inglese, vissuti in epoche tra loro distanti, ma entrambi dotati di capacità satirica e irriverente. Due autori che hanno esaminato la condizione... more

Il caro estinto e I viaggi di Gulliver sono due romanzi scritti da due autori di cultura inglese, vissuti in epoche tra loro distanti, ma entrambi dotati di capacità satirica e irriverente. Due autori che hanno esaminato la condizione umana forse con cinismo ma anche con profondo realismo, raccontando due storie (una apparentemente ordinaria, l'altra fantastica) dalle quali il ruolo dell'umanità esce fuori ridimensionato, ridotto a marginale conseguenza di fattori casuali e causali. Il tanto vantato libero arbitrio, la grande sete di progresso altro non sono che anelli di eventi che si succedono e l'uomo, con il suo agire, è solo un inceppo, una presenza dannosa quando non inutile.

The paper presents an approach to the literature based on an analysis of three factors: the historical reader, the historical author, and the informed reader. By applying synchronic and diachronic methods of reading, an acceptable... more

The paper presents an approach to the literature based on an analysis of three factors: the historical reader, the historical author, and the informed reader. By applying synchronic and diachronic methods of reading, an acceptable critical reading of a literary work is proposed. The paper aims to explain the functioning of all three factors through the interpretation of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. The result of the interpretation is the discovery of the truth about the true nature of colonialism, which is still relevant today. At the same time, the paper shows the importance of applying the appropriate methodology in the study of literature as a way of achieving and preserving its autonomy in relation to the other humanities. .

Ponencia: “Los múltiples viajes de Capitán Lemuel Gulliver en la literatura utópica inglesa (1719-1796)”, en el II Workshop. Perspectivas interdisciplinarias sobre relatos de viaje, discursos de la colonización y experiencia moderna... more

Ponencia: “Los múltiples viajes de Capitán Lemuel Gulliver en la literatura utópica inglesa (1719-1796)”, en el II Workshop. Perspectivas interdisciplinarias sobre relatos de viaje, discursos de la colonización y experiencia moderna (siglos XVI-XVIII). Homenaje a Rogelio Paredes. Museo Etnográfico, FFyL UBA, 16 y 17 de marzo del 2017.