Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

Overview of Swifts contextThe Age of Reason Newtons Principia (1687)

Colonialism Travel Books Noble Savage optimistic view of human nature War of Spanish Succession (1701-1713) Nature, and Natures laws lay hid in night: God said, Let Newton be! And all was light Alexander Pope

Esther Johnson - StellaJonathan Swifts epitaph

Swifts worksEarly works: - The Battle of the Books (1704) - A Tale of a Tub (1704)Mature works: - Drapiers Letters (1724) - Gullivers Travels (1726) - A Modest Proposal (1729)A Journal to Stella (1766, posthumously)

Gullivers Travels (1726) Prose fiction (not a novel)RECEPTION OF THE WORKImmediate success: From the highest to the lowest it is universally read, from the cabinet council to the nursery Alexander Pope, John GayGT eventually became something sinister: Severe, unjust and degrading as this satire is, it was hailed with malignant triumph by those whose disappointed hopes had thrown them into the same state of gloomy misanthropy which it argues in its author Sir Walter Scott

Gullivers four voyagesLilliput

2. Brobdingnag

3. Laputa

4. The country of the Houyhnhnms

The Publisher to the ReaderTheres an air of truth apparent through the wholeThis volume would have been at least twice as large, if I had not made bold to strike out innumerable passages relating to the winds and tidesRichard Sympson

1. A Voyage to LilliputWhat do these things and people represent in relation to British history?

Two parties: -Tramecksan or High Heels -Slamecksan or Low HeelsLilliput and BlefuscuA most obstinate War

Two Ways of breaking the egg: -Big-Endians -Small-Endians

The Emperor who published an EdictThe Emperor who lost his lifeThe Emperor who lost his crown

Brundrecal

2. A Voyage to BrobdingnagMotifs of disproportion and disgustEuropeans = Pernicious race

For, in fact, what is man in nature? A Nothing in comparison with the Infinite, an All in comparison with the Nothing, a mean between nothing and everything Pascal

3. A Voyage to LaputaFlappers

Academy of Projectors

Critique on the excessive time and effort devoted to impractical research in the Age of Reason

4. The country of the HouyhnhnmsHouyhnhnms Rational side of human beingsYahoos Instinctual side of human beings Lie = the thing that is not

Socrates: Wouldn't he remember his first home, what passed for wisdom there, and his fellow prisoners, and consider himself happy and them pitiable? [] Moreover, were he to return there, wouldn't he be rather bad at their game, no longer being accustomed to the darkness?

Plato, The Allegory of the Cave