Comprehensive Introductions for Exam Use
Comprehensive Introductions for Exam Use
One. GULLIVER'S TRAVELS - Jonathan Swift, seventeen twenty-six
Introduction (Full Paragraph Form) Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, published in seventeen twenty-six, is one of the most remarkable and enduring works of satirical literature in the English language. Swift, who was born in Dublin in sixteen sixty-seven and served as the Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, wrote this extraordinary work out of a deep sense of moral outrage, political disillusionment, and profound disgust with the corruption and hypocrisy of the society around him. The work takes the form of a travel narrative - a genre that was enormously popular in the early eighteenth century, following the success of real voyage accounts like William Dampier's Voyages and fictional ones like Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe - and tells the story of Lemuel Gulliver, an English ship's surgeon who undertakes four extraordinary voyages to fantastical lands. In the first voyage, Gulliver travels to Lilliput, a land of people six inches tall, where the tiny people and their petty political conflicts represent the smallness and pettiness of English political life. In the second voyage, he travels to Brobdingnag, a land of giants, where the wise and rational King of Brobdingnag delivers a devastating verdict on English civilization after hearing Gulliver's proud account of English government and society. In the third voyage, he travels to Laputa and other lands, where Swift satirises scientific pretension, administrative incompetence, and colonial oppression. In the fourth and final voyage, he travels to the land of the
Houyhnhnms - rational, virtuous horses - where he encounters the Yahoos - brutish, degraded, and disgusting creatures who are physically human - and is forced to confront the terrible truth that human beings, stripped of their pretensions to reason and civilization, are essentially Yahoos. Throughout the work, Swift uses the device of imaginary voyages and fantastical lands to hold up a mirror to contemporary English and European society, exposing its political corruption, moral hypocrisy, intellectual vanity, and fundamental irrationality with a ferocity, precision, and brilliance that has never been surpassed. The work was published anonymously in seventeen twenty-six - Swift was careful to protect himself from the political consequences of so savage an attack on the establishment - and was an immediate and enormous success, recognised from the outset as a masterpiece of English prose and a landmark in the history of world literature.
Key Points to Remember (Simple Words)
Key Points to Remember (Simple Words)
Author: Jonathan Swift - Irish writer, Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.
Published: Seventeen twenty-six - anonymously published to avoid political trouble.
Type of Book: Satire written in the form of a travel narrative.
Main Character: Lemuel Gulliver - an English ship's surgeon and traveller.
Four Voyages - Remember as "LBLY":
L - Lilliput (tiny people = pettiness of English politics) .
B - Brobdingnag (giants = moral greatness; King condemns England) .
- Laputa (flying island = satire on science and colonial rule) . L
Y - Houyhnhnms/Yahoos (horses = reason; Yahoos = corrupt humans) .
Main Purpose: To expose political corruption, human pride, and moral hypocrisy.
Key Device: Uses imaginary lands as mirrors to reflect England's faults.