1660-1731

3.10
Daniel Defoe

Life and works Defoe’s novels

1
1. Portrait of Daniel Defoe,
18th century. London, The
Mansell Collection.
Text Bank 25
Daniel Defoe was born in 1660 into a family
of Dissenters, a Protestant sect which refused
the authority of the Church of England. He was
educated at Newington Green, in one of the
best Dissenting academies, where he studied
practical subjects such as modern languages,
economics and geography, besides the
traditional ones. His father wanted a religious
career for him, but Defoe began working as
an apprentice, and then went into business on
his own. He suffered two bankruptcies, which
he faced both with legal and illicit means. He
started to write in Whig papers; as a journalist
his greatest achievement was The Review, the
periodical which he published three times a
week from 1704 to 1713. He became a famous
and well-paid intellectual by writing political
essays and pamphlets till the reign of Queen
Anne (→ 3.2). The queen did not like his
critical attitude and had him arrested, tried and
imprisoned. He even made three appearances
in the pillory, which were meant to degrade
him publicly but which turned into triumph
when some of his friends threw flowers at him
instead of rocks or rotten eggs. He denied his
Whig ideas so as to be freed and became a
secret agent for the new government. When he
was about 60, he started to write novels which
were very successful. In 1719 he published
his first novel, Robinson Crusoe, which was
followed by Captain Singleton in 1720, the
voyage story of a captain who becomes a pirate.
In 1722 he published Moll Flanders, which is
about the adventures of a woman who was born
in Newgate prison in London, and Colonel
Jack, which tells the story of a pickpocket who
repents and ends up leading a prosperous and
respectable life. Defoe’s last novel was Roxana
(1724), which deals with the adventures of a
high-society woman who exploits her beauty
to obtain what she wants. Thanks to the
money he earned with these works, he could
afford a comfortable standard of life, but his
old creditors haunted him and led him into
numerous adventures till his death in 1731.
Defoe is generally regarded as the father of
the English novel, the representative of a new
social class that wanted to see their life and
ideals portrayed in literature. His narrative
technique was original and became the basis
for the development of the realistic novel.
His novels are fictional autobiographies
always pretending to be true stories through
the biographical details and memories
provided by the protagonist. They are also
preceded by a preface by the author which
emphasises their authenticity. The structure
of the novels is characterised by a series of
episodes and adventures held together by the
unifying presence of a single hero. The lack
of a coherent plot is due to the fact that Defoe
neither planned his works nor revised them;
his main aim as a writer was to produce a large
and effective output not intended for a critical
audience. Defoe used retrospective first-person
narration, and the author’s point of view
mainly coincided with the main character’s.
The characters are presented from the inside
and through their actions rather than from the
outside. They usually appear in isolation, either
physically like Robinson Crusoe, or socially like
Moll Flanders, in their struggle for survival or
for their daily bread.
COMPETENCE: READING AND
UNDERSTANDING INFORMATION
1 READ the text and justify the following
statements.
1 He was an outsider.
2 He was one of the greatest journalists
of the age.
3 He was a prolific writer.
4 He sold his pen to the political party
which governed the country.
5 He always held his head high.
6 He is the father of the English novel.
7 His novels are fictional autobiographies.
8 The plots of his novels lack coherence.

209
 Authors and Texts
Key idea
A spiritual
autobiography
Robinson Crusoe is full of
religious references to God,
sin, Providence and salvation
(→ T36). The novel can be read
as a spiritual autobiography
where the hero reads the Bible
to find comfort and guidance,
experiences the constant
conflict between good and evil,
and keeps a diary to record
events to see God’s will in them.
Robinson prays to God to be
freed from sin rather than to be
rescued from the island. What
Defoe explores is the conflict
between economic motivation
and spiritual salvation. Is the
concern with making money
and dealing with worldly
matters incompatible with
religious faith and spiritual
welfare? The Puritans found the
answer to this question in doing
their best to increase the gifts
that God had given them as
a sign of His grace.
1. Frontispiece to the first
edition of Robinson Crusoe
(1719).
210
1719
Robinson Crusoe
The main character in Defoe’s novel is
Robinson Kreutznaer, anglicised Crusoe, born
in York in 1632 of a German father and an
English mother. At the age of 19 he decides to
leave his home, his family and the prospect of
a comfortable life as a member of the trading
middle class in order to travel around the
world and make his fortune. His first voyage
leads him to Guinea and then back to England.
During his second voyage he is captured by
Moorish pirates but manages to escape; he
is finally rescued by a Portuguese ship and
brought to Brazil. There he becomes the owner
of a plantation and, needing more labour, sets
out on a voyage to Africa to get more slaves.
During this journey he is shipwrecked on a
desert island (→ T35) where he will remain
for 28 years. The rest of the novel tells how he
gradually re-builds the same kind of society
as exists in his country. He writes a diary
where he records his experiences and debates
contemporary ideas addressing himself, the
reader and even God. After 12 years of solitude
he finds a human footprint on the shore. As
time goes by, he also finds some human bones
and flesh left by cannibals. Once Robinson
decides to attack them: they escape and leave
one of their captives, whom he calls Friday, after
the day of his rescue. When other cannibals
land on the island, Robinson and Friday attack
them and free two of their prisoners, one of
whom turns out to be Friday’s father. The novel
ends with Robinson’s return to England and
his discovery that his plantation in Brazil has
prospered and made him very rich.
The setting of most of the story, the island,
is the ideal place for Robinson to prove his
qualities, to demonstrate that he deserved
to be saved by God’s Providence. Robinson
organises a primitive empire on the island,
thus becoming the prototype of the English
coloniser (→ T37): his stay on the island is not
seen as a return to nature, but as a chance to
exploit and dominate nature (→ T36).
1
The hero, Robinson, belongs to the middle
class, he is restless and wants to find his own
identity as an alternative to the model provided
by his father (→ 3.8). Actually the story begins
with an act of transgression, of disobedience,
which places the character in a situation of
separation that will culminate with his isolation
on the island after the shipwreck. Robinson’s
life on the island develops the issue of the
relationship between the individual and
society, between the private and the public
spheres. The society Robinson creates on the
island is not an alternative to the English one;
on the contrary, it can be read as an exaltation of
18th-century England and its ideals of mobility,
material productiveness and individualism.
Defoe shows that, though God is the prime
cause of everything, the individual can shape
his destiny through action. Man can overcome
doubt and modify reality through his work and
the interpretation of his achievements in the
light of the Bible and God’s will. Robinson has
a pragmatic and individualistic outlook. His
objective and rational approach to reality (→
T35) is demonstrated by his journal-keeping.
His progress re-invents the learning processes
of baking, ship-building, carpentry and farming.
Friday is the first native character to be
portrayed in the English novel, he is attractive
and lively. The moment Robinson rescues
him, he teaches him the word ‘master’, Western
culture and to read the Bible; so Friday
becomes the symbol of the colonised.
The novel shows an objective approach to the
events through clear and precise details. Defoe
concentrates his description on the primary
qualities of objects (→ T36), especially their
solidity, extension and number, rather than on
the secondary ones (colour, texture, flavour).
The language is simple, matter-of-fact and
concrete to reinforce the impression of reality
conveyed by the first-person narration.
3. The Restoration and the Augustan Age
 Authors and Texts

T37 Man Friday Daniel Defoe

Robinson Crusoe
(1719)
The following text deals with the description of the native Robinson has
rescued from a group of cannibals who came to the island to perform 4.8
their rites.

He was a comely, handsome fellow, perfectly well made, with straight,

strong limbs1, not too large; tall, and well-shaped; and, as I reckon2, about
twenty six years of age. He had a very good countenance, not a fierce and
surly3 aspect; but seemed to have something very manly 4 in his face; and yet
5 he had all the sweetness and softness of an European in his countenance,
too, especially when he smiled. His hair was long and black, not curled like
wool; his forehead very high and large, and a great vivacity and sparkling
sharpness5 in his eyes. The colour of his skin was not quite black, but very
tawny; and yet not of an ugly, yellow, nauseous tawny, as the Brazilians and
10 Virginians, and other natives of America are; but of a bright kind of a dun6
olive-colour, that had in it something very agreeable, though not very easy
to describe. His face was round and plump; his nose small, not flat, like the
negroes, a very good mouth, thin lips, and his fine teeth well set, and white
as ivory.
15 After he had slumbered, rather than slept, about half-an-hour, he
waked again, and comes out of the cave to me; for I had been milking my
goats7, which I had in the enclosure just by 8: when he espy’d9 me, he came
running to me, laying himself down again upon the ground, with all the
possible signs of an humble thankful disposition, making a many antick10
20 gestures to show it. At last he lays his head flat upon the ground, close to
my foot, and sets my other foot upon his head, as he had done before; and
after this, made all the signs to me of subjection, servitude, and submission
imaginable, to let me know how he would serve me as long as he lived.
1
I understood him in many things, and let him know I was very well pleased
25 with him; in a little time I began to speak to him, and teach him to speak to 1. Robinson and Friday in a
TV series (2008-09) created by
me; and first, I made him know his name should be Friday, which was the Stephen Gallagher on NBC.
day I saved his life; I called him so for the memory of the time; I likewise
taught him to say Master, and then let him know, that was to be my name;
I likewise taught him to say yes and no, and to know the meaning of them;
30 I gave him some milk in an earthen pot11, and let him see me drink it before
him, and sop12 my bread in it; and I gave him a cake of bread to do the like,
which he quickly comply’d with13, and made signs that it was very good for
him. 1 limbs. Membra, arti.
2 I reckon. Credo.
I kept there with him all that night; but as soon as it was day, I 3 fierce and surly. Feroce e scontroso.
35 beckoned to him14 to come with me, and let him know I would give him 4 manly. Virile.
5 sharpness. Acutezza.
some cloaths, at which he seemed very glad, for he was stark naked. As we 6 dun. Bigio, opaco.
went by the place where he had bury’d the two men, he pointed exactly to 7 goats. Capre.
the place, and shewed me the marks that he had made to find them again, 8 just by. Lì vicino.
9 he espy’d. Vide.
making signs to me that we should dig them up again, and eat them; at this 10 antick. Buffi, grotteschi.
40 I appeared very angry, expressed my abhorrence of it, made as if I would 11 earthen pot. Recipiente di terracotta.
12 sop. Intingere.
vomit at the thoughts of it, and beckoned with my hand to him to come 13 comply’d with. Obbedì.
away, which he did immediately, with great submission. 14 I beckoned to him. Gli feci un cenno.

216 3. The Restoration and the Augustan Age

 1667-1745

3.11
Jonathan Swift

Life and works in London, defending Ireland and the Church.

Jonathan Swift was born in 1667 in Dublin, He gave one-third of his income to the Catholic
where he was educated, although his parents poor.
were English. The family returned to England For a time he wrote comparatively little, but
at the time of the Glorious Revolution in after a few years he began to write pamphlets
1688 (→ 3.2), and Swift became secretary to denouncing the injustices that Ireland
1 Sir William Temple, a Whig statesman, who suffered from. Among them was The Drapier’s
1. Charles Jervas, Portrait
encouraged him to write his first satirical Letters (1724-25), a series of pamphlets Swift
of Jonathan Swift, ca 1718. works. wrote as an assumed character, M.B. Drapier,
London, National Portrait Among his best satires were: attacking the government’s proposal for a new
Gallery.
• The Battle of the Books (1704), about the coinage which would have increased poverty
merits of ancient and modern literature, in in Ireland.
which Swift supported Temple’s defence of In 1726 he published his masterpiece, Travels
the classics and mocked the self-satisfaction into Several Remote Nations of the World,
of modern scholarship, criticism and poetry. known as Gulliver’s Travels. In 1729 A Modest
• A Tale of a Tub (1704), about the contending Proposal appeared, in which, with irony and
religious parties of the day, the superstition bitterness, Swift suggested that the poverty of
of the Catholics and the fanaticism of the the Irish people should be relieved by the sale
Dissenters. of their children as food for the rich. Swift’s
In 1694 Swift returned to Ireland, where he was later years were marked by the decay of his
ordained Anglican priest; he was appointed mental faculties. He died in 1745.
Dean of Dublin’s St Patrick’s Cathedral in 1713.
Route 5: The great satirists He lived in Dublin for the next thirty years in A controversial writer
of the 18th century indignant opposition to the Whig government Swift is without doubt one of the most
controversial among great English writers. He
has been labelled alternatively as a misanthrope,
a man with a morbid attitude, a monster or a
COMPETENCE: READING AND UNDERSTANDING INFORMATION lover of mankind.
What clearly emerges from his works is that
1 READ the text and decide whether the following statements about Swift’s life he was seriously concerned with politics
and works are true or false. Correct the false ones. and society, and that his attitude was mainly
1 Swift’s family was of Irish origin but was forced to leave conservative. It is also clear that he did not
Ireland at the time of the Revolution of 1688. .................................................................................................... share the optimism of his age and the pride
in England of his contemporaries. He defined
2 Swift found a job at the house of Sir William Temple, a Whig statesman. ...............
himself as a hater of man, whom he described
3 His first satires were all concerned with religious subjects. ......................................................
as ‘an animal capable of reason’. According to
4 He became Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral. ................................................................................................................. Swift, reason is an instrument that must be used
5 He supported English rule in Ireland. .......................................................................................................................... properly; too intensive a use of reason is an
6 He made serious proposals to improve the situation of the poor in Ireland. ....... error of judgement and therefore unreasonable.
Thus he insisted on the need to take a
2 EXPLAIN the following in your own words: common-sense view of life.
Swift found in irony and satire the means
1 how Swift has been labelled;
that suited his temperament and his interests.
2 what his attitude to his contemporary society was; He usually achieved the effect of parody
3 how he viewed reason; combining ironic intent with the simplicity
4 what his favourite means of expression was. of his style and his diction.

223
 Authors and Texts 1726

Gulliver’s Travels

1 that he must use his wits to survive. Gulliver’s
1. Poster of the film Gulliver’s
Travels (1939) directed by
Dave Fleischer.
Gulliver’s Travels was printed in London in
1726, though most of it was certainly written
in the years 1721-25.
The novel has four settings, each linked
to one of Lemuel Gulliver’s four voyages.
When Gulliver’s ship is wrecked during his
first voyage, he reaches the land of Lilliput,
a childhood fantasy world built for very
small people, the tallest being only about six
inches high. Here Gulliver plays the role of a
benevolent giant for a little people who have
exaggerated ideas about their self-importance.
On his second voyage, Gulliver lands on the
land of Brobdingnag, where he finds himself
surrounded by a race of giants, making him feel
like a Lilliputian. In both worlds, Gulliver finds
third voyage to the island of Laputa allows
Swift to satirise the scientific community in
Great Britain. The fourth voyage to the land
of the Houyhnhnms, a country governed by
intellectual horses, gives Swift the opportunity
to criticise humanity. These four settings
provide Swift with the opportunity to discuss
everything he feels is wrong with mankind in
general and British society in particular.
The novel consists of four books.
Book 1. Gulliver sails from Bristol on 4th May
1699; after six months his ship is wrecked
somewhere in the South Pacific and he is cast
upon the shore of Lilliput, where he falls asleep.
The inhabitants of the land, the Lilliputians,
carry his huge body to the capital and house
him in an unused temple (→ T38). Gulliver
gradually learns their language, their customs
and institutions, and gains the favour of the
king. After several amusing experiences, he
manages to return to England.
Book 2. On 20th June 1702 Gulliver sails for
India but finds himself in Brobdingnag, a
country Swift located in Alaska. Here the
natives are giants, and Gulliver becomes the
king’s pet and is carried around in a cage.
The king enjoys talking with him about
the system of government in England and
Europe. One day Gulliver’s cage is lifted up by
a huge bird and dropped in the middle of the
ocean. He is rescued by a ship and returns to
England.

1 4.9 LISTEN and complete the plot of Book 3 and Book 4 with the missing information.

Book 3. Gulliver finds himself on the (1) of Laputa, which

(2) thanks to magnetism. Its inhabitants are (3)
astronomers, philosophers and scientists. Gulliver visits their capital, Lagado, and its
(4) (→ T39), where absurd experiments are (5) .
The island drops Gulliver on Japan and he (6) to go back to England.
Book 4. Gulliver’s last voyage leads him to the island inhabited by the Houyhnhnms, intelligent
horses that (7) over the Yahoos, who are stupid, corrupt and similar to
human beings in (8) . Gulliver admires the (9)
of the Houyhnhnms and is ashamed of his similarity with the Yahoos, a man-like race remarkable
for lust, greed and filth. When the horses banish him, he returns to England, where he finds that he
can’t any longer (10) the society of his fellow beings (→ T40). He therefore
decides to live in the stable, among the animals that (11) him of the
nobility of the Houyhnhnms.

224 3. The Restoration and the Augustan Age


Swift devotes a few pages to point out that
Gulliver is a typical European. He is middle-
aged, well-educated and sensible; he is a
careful observer, he takes care of his family
and runs his business prudently. He is, like
Robinson Crusoe (→ 3.10), one of the practical
seamen through whom England started to
rule the seas. He has experience of the world
and he fully supports the culture which has
produced him. In this way Swift implies
that the transformation which takes place
in Gulliver through his voyages cannot be
linked to any extravagance of his character.
Only when circumstances force him to think,
does Gulliver learn something and begin to
develop a critical awareness of the limitations
of European values. However, these first
critical insights are only temporary because
when he returns home after his first voyage,
he quickly fits into European life. But in the
second voyage the critical awareness becomes
deeper, even if he does not question European
values seriously and still defends the history
of Europe. This time it takes him a while to
re-adjust to European life after his return home.
In the fourth voyage Gulliver’s transformation
becomes complete and when he returns home,
he can no longer take part in European society,
not even with his friends and family.
Swift’s originality lies in his presenting Gulliver
always displaced – first in relation to little men
and then to big ones – and finally and suddenly
forced into comparison not with men but with
animals.
Swift looked to the extensive literature of
travel, real and imaginary. In fact throughout
the 17th century the imaginary voyage had
been used by French writers as a vehicle for
their theories. The traveller usually discovered
some happy societies where men lived a simple,
uncorrupted life, following natural instincts
and the innate light of reason; and from these
utopias European man was seen as the victim
of civilisation.
Gulliver’s experiences are different because
the people among whom he is cast are in
no sense children of nature. They all live in
highly organised societies and are governed
by institutions. If in the end Gulliver takes an
aversion to everything at home, it is because
Europe is losing its civilisation and falling into
a state of corruption, expressed in the novel by
the constant opposition between rationality
and animality.
The scientific projects described in Book 3 show
a familiarity with the work of the Royal Society
(→ 3.1). Finally there are recognisable elements
of political allegory through allusions to people
and events in the England of Queen Anne and
George I (→ 3.2, 3.3).
Swift’s masterpiece can be read on different
levels. It has been widely read as a tale for
children because of Gulliver’s amusing and
absurd adventures, especially in the first two
books. It can also be read as a political allegory
of Swift’s time, as a parody of voyage literature
or as a masterpiece of misanthropy and a
reflection on the aberrations of human reason.
The most common interpretation among Swift’s
contemporaries and in the 19th century was
that Swift’s main satiric point was to criticise
the political, social and religious conflicts of
the time, as well as the problems caused by
scientific progress.
A second interpretation claimed that Swift
was mentally unbalanced, and therefore the
reader does not need to consider the ending of
the book seriously. This psychoanalytic view
neutralises the satire by an appeal to mental
disorders.
In the 20th century, criticism held that we
are not supposed to see Gulliver’s actions as
the natural rational result of his experiences,
because Gulliver himself has finally become the
target of the author’s satire. Gulliver no longer
speaks for the author, but his dislike of the
Yahoos and his conduct are a sort of warning
for us. This approach maintains the claim
that Swift was a clever writer, in control of his
literary medium.
Gulliver, just like Robinson Crusoe (→ 3.10),
tells his experiences in the first person, in a
prose style which is matter-of-fact, free of
literary colouring, and records observed details
with the precision of a scientific instrument.
Key idea
Swift’s satiric technique
One of the main ingredients
of satire is distortion or
exaggeration; the reader is
invited to see something very
familiar in such a way that
it becomes simultaneously
ridiculous or even disgusting
and yet funny. The key to this
technique is the use of the
traveller, the figure who is the
reader’s contemporary and
fellow countryman.
The genius of Swift’s satire
in Gulliver’s Travels is shown
in a second feature, the way
he organises the new world
by constantly changing
the perspective on human
conduct. Through this
altered perspective, Swift can
manipulate Gulliver’s reactions
to the changing circumstances
in order to highlight his satiric
points in a very humorous way.
COMPETENCE: READING
AND UNDERSTANDING
INFORMATION
2 READ the texts on pages
224-225 and answer
the following questions.
1 What lands does Gulliver visit?
2 What people does he meet?
3 What sort of character is
Gulliver?
4 What is his function in the
novel?
5 Why does Gulliver’s Travels
differ from traditional works
of travel literature?
6 What constant opposition is
expressed in the novel?
7 How can the novel be
interpreted?
8 What are the ingredients of
Swift’s satirical technique?
225