SWIFT’S MAIN WORKS: THE SATIRIST Swift wrote several satirical works against political corruption, and especially against the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole. The Battle of the Books (1697): Swift imagines a battle between the books written by the ancients (led by Homer and Virgil) and those written by the moderns. He awards victory to the ancients. A Tale of a Tub (1704): satirical work on corruption in religion and learning, directed especially against the Roman Church. It was intended by Swift as a defence of the Anglican Church. The Drapier’s Letters (1724): pamphlet (made up of letters) attacking English government for its policy to supply Ireland with copper halfpence and farthings (old British coins). Swift wrote these letters under the pseudonym of “Drapier” to accuse the unfair treatment of the Irish by the British. A Modest Proposal (1729): pamphlet which paradoxically suggests the use of Irish children as food for the rich. Gulliver’s Travels (1726): Swift’s masterpiece (a novel in four books). It’s a prose satire on civilized societies and a political allegory of Swift’s time. It can be considered a masterpiece of misanthropy because it represents a reflection on the aberrations of human reason. Swift’s best pamphlets are those concerned with the social and political situation of Ireland, in defence of the Irish.

GULLIVER’S TRAVELS (Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships)

GULLIVER’S TRAVELS: a travel account and a great satire Gulliver’s Travels is a novel in four books in which Swift mixes utopian fiction and travel writing. The narrator and main character is Dr LEMUEL GULLIVER (so the story is told by an “I” – a first-person narrator), an ordinary man (a middle-aged and practical-minded Englishman who is a ship’s surgeon), who makes a series of voyages all around the world. The novel was first published anonymously in 1726 in London (the second edition came out in 1727, while the third one in 1735). It is both a fascinating travel book and a satire on man and contemporary institutions.

GULLIVER’S TRAVELS: a travel account and a great satire The places visited by Lemuel are imaginary, but they seem to be real thanks to careful descriptions. Swift mixes the fantastic with the real in the sense that his imaginary lands and peoples are set in known and real oceans, countries or continents (the South Pacific, Alaska, India, Japan). He also gives the reader detailed information (with scientific precision!) about the names of the ships Gulliver sails on, their captains’ names, the degrees of longitude and latitude they sail into (as Daniel Defoe did in his “Robinson Crusoe”).

GULLIVER’S TRAVELS: a travel account and a great satire Actually, this novel is a parody of voyage literature and Swift only uses the form of a travel account to criticize civilized society (18th-century English and French society in particular) and to show human imperfections and faults → UTOPIAN FICTION. So, Swift’s masterpiece can be defined as a moral satire and a political allegory: the adventures of the hero (Lemuel Gulliver) bring the author and the reader into contact with peoples who are either more civilized or reflect our worst habits and defects.

Utopia vs reality Gulliver, who tells the story in the first person, sails from Bristol. In the first book the tiny Lilliputians (in the South Pacific) represent the meanness and pettiness of our own world (they are cruel) ; in the second book the gigantic size of the people of Brobdingnag (Alaska) allows Gulliver to see all the physical imperfections of man; on the other hand, they are wise and good;

Utopia vs reality 3. the voyage to Laputa (Japan) in the third book is a satire of contemporary England and of modern philosophies and science, and of their confidence in claiming to be able to solve all of mankind’s problems; 4. in the last voyage, in the fourth book, Gulliver meets the Yahoos (who are as wicked as his society), but he is also confronted with the superior intelligence of the wise horses (the “Houyhnhnms”) and he would like to stay with them forever (but they can’t stand his presence). When the story ends, Gulliver, a confused man, has to come back home. So he leaves for England.

Swift’s pessimism Swift is disgusted by the world he lives in and he wants to denounce humanity’s decay (he thinks Europe is falling into a state of corruption): so, in Gulliver’s retreat from the world, Swift may have intended to show a person’s alienation.