Jonathan Swift Creation

7/28/2019 Jonathan Swift Creation

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Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) the greatest satirical spirit of the age.

1. A life of torture and loneliness.

2. Jonathan Swift as pamphleteer.

3. Gullivers travels Swifts most enduring work.

2. Swifts 1stprose satireThe Battle of the Books was written between the years 1696 1698.His patron, Sir William Temple found himself on the side of ancients in the controversy of the

Ancients versus Moderns.

His opponents ridiculed him copiously. Swift invents an incident in St. James Library, where

the ancient books thrown away by the librarian strive against injustice. Swift avoids taking either

side; he would not tell the reader who won the battle. (He drops the narrative at a certain

moment, pretending that the old manuscript that he decided to publish lacks the final part.)

Yet, some of the images and symbols allude to Swifts sympathy with the ancient authors.

The writer ridiculed the claims of the contemporary men of letters to be as great as ancients.

Dryden is presented in an armour that is too big in size and much too heavy for him, an explicit

allusion to his smaller literary force.

On the other hand, 2 insects, the Spider and the Bee represent the 2 groups of writers. The

Moderns had surpassed the Ancients in Mathematics and the Spiders web illustrates a perfect

application of this kind of knowledge. Besides this the Spider is proud of being able to spin his

web out of himself similarly, Moderns try to write their stories without taking into account

classical values and traditions. The authors sympathy is with the Bee, which goes straight to

nature and makes honey and wax, which stand for sweetness and light.

Another pamphlet is an antireligious satire - A Tale of a Tub. The title seems to have a double

meaning:

1) It suggests a kind of nonsense story told as a joke; the word tub here alludes to the ideaexpressed in the proverb: Empty vessels make the greatest sound.

2) In the preface Swift mentions the old nautical custom: if a whale follows the vessel, the

seamen throw an empty tub into the water to divert the whales attention from the ship.

Some literary interpreters consider that the empty tub symbolizes religion as something which

diverts people from other aspects of life.

The allegorical story brings together 3 brothers: PETER representing theRoman Catholic

Church, MARTIN representingAnglican Church and JACK Calvinist Protestantdissenters.

Each one had inherited from their father a coat (Gospel) with specific instructions how to

wear and look after it. The main requirement was to add no ornament to the dress.

Thus Swifts ironic history of the development of Christianity is built on a number ofsuggestive cloth details. The same kind of imagery is used as an effective way of punctuating

human pride. The author gives instructions how to identify various titles and positions in the

society by certain composition of clothes and dresses: If one of them be trimmed up with a

gold chain and a red gown, and a white rod, and a great horse, it is called a Lord Mayor; if

certain ermines and furs be placed in a certain position, we style them a Judge, and so an apt

conjunction of lawn and black satin we entitle a Bishop.

In the Tale of a Tub Swiftspoke in the name of reason against pride and fanaticism. At

the same time he was a stout defender of Anglican Church as the only right position for an

Englishman. Thus it is Peter and Jack who are attacked in Tale of a Tub.

But satire is a genre hard to deal with. It is liable to escape from the authors control and

expand criticism outside the writers intention. In the case of this work the destructive satire wasfocused on some modern religious doctrines.


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Swift wrote also pamphlets dedicated to the deplorable state of things in Ireland which had a

significant impact on social and economic life of Irish people.

The Drapiers Letters (1724) - was an effective attack against the proposal of English

Government to make a new Irish coinage. As the result of Swifts criticism and the public

protest the worthless project was given up.

Short view of the Present State of Ireland(1727) another pamphlet written on behalf of the

Irish men through which he manifests as an active defender of his country.

A Modest Proposalfor Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland Being a Burden on

Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick (1729)- is a work

that confirms Swift as the greatest master of irony. The satirist employs the reduction ad

absurdum device in order to suggest a wild solution of sacrificing the fattened infants from poor

families to rich gourmands as a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food.

The satirist uses one of his favourite ironical devices: role taking he adopts a mask of

someone very different from himself and speaks in that persons voice. The narrator here is ahypocritical politician who pretends to be guided by pseudo-humanitarian reasons (the care

about needy families as well as the desire to contribute to the feeding of and partly to the

clothing of many thousand) and who uses a calm tone and factual language to support his

humble proposal.

The description of the scheme contains minute calculations of advantages and expenses

(operations with thousands of children reserved for breed or offered in sale to the persons of

quality and fortune, money per weight, number of dishes cooked and people fed, etc.)

The proposed analysis results in the obvious treatment of human beings as animals.

Under the mask of complete indifference the author expresses his deep indignation at the

substitution of children with animals. On the other hand, the pamphleteer suggests that the

present condition of children is even worse that that of cattle.

Swifts criticism culminates when he makes his character motivates that there is no

personal interest in promoting this necessary work: he cannot benefit from it (his children are

much older than the recommended age for sacrifice the youngest being nine years old, and my

wife past child-bearing).

This satirical hyperbole mocks heartless attitudes towards the poor, as well as Irish policy

in general.

...............................................................................................................................3.Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, Firsta Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships, (1726) currently known as Gulliver's Travels-

is not only Swifts most popular work but also a synthesis of his whole career as a satirist.

The author applied a fashionable genre of an imaginary travel to create one of the most

comprehensive satires on human conditions.

The book is written in four parts, corresponding to voyages in four remote lands:

Part I: A Voyage to Lilliput

When the ship Gulliver is travelling on is destroyed in a storm, Gulliver ends up on the

island of Lilliput, where he awakes to find that he has been captured by Lilliputians, very small

people approximately six inches in height. Gulliver is treated with compassion and concern.

In turn, he helps them solve some of their problems, especially their conflict with their enemy,

Blefuscu, an island across the bay from them. Gulliver falls from favor, however, because he
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposalhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal


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refuses to support the Emperor's desire to enslave the Blefuscudians and because he "makes

water" to put out a palace fire. Gulliver flees to Blefuscu, where he converts a large war ship to

his own use and sets sail from Blefuscu eventually to be rescued at sea by an English merchant

ship and returned to his home in England.

Part II: A Voyage to Brobdingnag

As he travels as a ship's surgeon, Gulliver and a small crew are sent to find water on an

island. Instead they encounter a land of giants. As the crew flees, Gulliver is left behind and

captured. Gulliver's captor, a farmer, takes him to the farmer's home where Gulliver is treated

kindly, but, of course, curiously. The farmer assigns his daughter, Glumdalclitch, to be Gulliver's

keeper, and she cares for Gulliver with great compassion. The farmer takes Gulliver on tour

across the countryside, displaying him to onlookers. Eventually, the farmer sells Gulliver to the

Queen. At court, Gulliver meets the King, and the two spend many sessions discussing the

customs and behaviors of Gulliver's country. In many cases, the King is shocked and chagrined

by the selfishness and pettiness that he hears Gulliver describe. Gulliver, on the other hand,

defends England.

One day, on the beach, as Gulliver looks longingly at the sea from his box (portable

room), he is snatched up by an eagle and eventually dropped into the sea. A passing ship spots

the floating chest and rescues Gulliver, eventually returning him to England and his family.

Part III: A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, Glubbdubdrib, and

Japan

Gulliver is on a ship bound for the Levant. After arriving, Gulliver is assigned captain of

a sloop to visit nearby islands and establish trade. On this trip, pirates attack the sloop and place

Gulliver in a small boat to fend for himself. While drifting at sea, Gulliver discovers a Flying

Island. While on the Flying Island, called Laputa, Gulliver meets several inhabitants, including

the King. All are preoccupied with things associated with mathematics and music. In addition,

astronomers use the laws of magnetism to move the island up, down, forward, backward, and

sideways, thus controlling the island's movements in relation to the island below (Balnibarbi).

At the Grand Academy of Lagado, great resources and manpower are employed on researching

completely preposterous schemes such as extracting sunbeams from cucumbers, softening

marble for use in pillows, learning how to mix paint by smell, and uncovering political

conspiracies by examining the excrement of suspicious person.

While in this land, Gulliver visits Balnibarbi, the island of Glubbdubdrib, and Luggnagg.Gulliver finally arrives in Japan where he meets the Japanese emperor. From there, he goes to

Amsterdam and eventually home to England.

Part IV: A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms

While Gulliver is captain of a merchant ship bound for Barbados and the Leeward

Islands, several of his crew become ill and die on the voyage. Gulliver hires several replacement

sailors in Barbados. These replacements turn out to be pirates who convince the other crew

members to mutiny. As a result, Gulliver is deposited on a "strand" (an island) to fend for

himself. Almost immediately, he is discovered by a herd of ugly, despicable human-like

creatures who are called, he later learns, Yahoos. They attack him by climbing trees and

defecating on him. He is saved from this disgrace by the appearance of a horse, identified, he


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later learns, by the name Houyhnhnm. The grey horse (a Houyhnhnm) takes Gulliver to his

home, where he is introduced to the grey's mare (wife), a colt and a foal (children), and a sorrel

nag (the servant). Gulliver also sees that the Yahoos are kept in pens away from the house. It

becomes immediately clear that, except for Gulliver's clothing, he and the Yahoos are the same

animal. From this point on, Gulliver and his master (the grey) begin a series of discussions about

the evolution of Yahoos, about topics, concepts, and behaviors related to the Yahoo society,which Gulliver represents, and about the society of the Houyhnhnms.

Despite his favored treatment in the grey steed's home, the kingdom's Assembly

determines that Gulliver is a Yahoo and must either live with the uncivilized Yahoos or return to

his own world. With great sadness, Gulliver takes his leave of the Houyhnhnms. He builds a

canoe and sails to a nearby island where he is eventually found hiding by a crew from a

Portuguese ship. The ship's captain returns Gulliver to Lisbon, where he lives in the captain's

home. Gulliver is so repelled by the sight and smell of these "civilized Yahoos" that he can't

stand to be around them. Eventually, however, Gulliver agrees to return to his family in England.

Upon his arrival, he is repelled by his Yahoo family, so he buys two horses and spends most of

his days caring for and conversing with the horses in the stable in order to be as far away fromhis Yahoo family as possible.

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Of equal interest is the character of Gulliver himselfhe progresses from a cheery

optimist at the start of the first part to the pompous misanthrope of the book's conclusion and we

may well have to filter our understanding of the work if we are to believe the final misanthrope

wrote the whole work.

In this sense Gulliver's Travels is a very modern and complex novel. There are subtle

shifts throughout the book, such as when Gulliver begins to see all humans, not just those in

Houyhnhnm-land, as Yahoos.

Throughout, Gulliver is presented as being gullible; he believes what he is told, never

perceives deeper meanings, is an honest man, and expects others to be honest. This makes for

fun and irony; what Gulliver says can be trusted to be accurate, and he does not always

understand the meaning of what he perceives.

Also, although Gulliver is presented as a commonplace "everyman", lacking higher

education, he possesses a remarkable natural gift for language. He quickly becomes fluent in the

native tongue of any strange land in which he finds himself, a literary device that adds much

understanding and humour to Swift's work.

Despite the depth and subtlety of the book, it is often classified as a children's story

because of the popularity of the Lilliput section (frequentlybowdlerised) as a book for children.

One can still buy books entitled Gulliver's Travels which contain only parts of the Lilliput

voyage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misanthropehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everymanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Bowdlerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Bowdlerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misanthropehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everymanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Bowdler

Jonathan Swift Creation

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