Jonathan Swift

(1667-1745)
Life in Ireland and England
• He was born in Ireland, in an English family.
• He became a priest.
• He was one of the most important writers of the Augustan
Age.
• In 1713 he became Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral –
Dublin.
• He spent the rest of his life in Ireland, defending the Irish
people by writing some articles for them. He died in 1745.

Jonathan Swift
A Brilliant Satirist
• The Battle of the Books, 1697

His most important satirical works

are:
• A Tale of a Tub, 1704
• The Drapier’s Letters, 1724
• A Modest Proposal, 1729

His masterpiece is
• Gulliver’s Travels, 1726

Jonathan Swift
Gulliver’s Travels (1726)
• It is a novel divided into four books.
• Fantasy and reality are mixed.
• First-person narrator.
• The reader has the impression of
listening to a confession.
• It belongs to the tradition of utopian
narrative with particular evidence of
realism.

Jonathan Swift
Utopia vs Reality
• Book 1: the Lilliputians (utopian characteristic) exemplify
the meanness and pettiness of our world (realistic
characteristic).
• Book 2: the gigantic size of the people of Brobdingnag
allows Gulliver to see all the physical imperfections of
men.
• Book 3: with Laputa Swift satirizes modern philosophies
and science (satire of Contemporary England).
• Book 4: Gulliver is faced with the degraded humanity of
the Yahoos and the superior intelligence of the wise
horses (the impact with realism is at the end extremely
low: the protagonist no longer knows to which world he
belongs).
Jonathan Swift
The Story…
Book 1
•Gulliver is shipwrecked in the empire of Lilliput.
•At first he is made prisoner, but then Lilliputians start to trust
him.
•In the end he is allowed to leave the country.

Book 2
•Gulliver lands in the country of Brobdingnag.
•He is treated with great kindness.
•He leaves the country by accident and is rescued by an
English ship.

Jonathan Swift
…The Story
Book 3
• Gulliver lands in Laputa, a flying island.
• The inhabitants are totally out of touch with reality.
• Their knowledge is all theoretical, abstract and faulty.

Book 4
•Gulliver arrives in the country of the intelligent horses, the
Houyhnhnms.
•There are also the Yahoos, terrible creatures closely
resembling men.
•Gulliver would like to stay with the horses, but he is forced
to leave.

Jonathan Swift
Beloved Horses, Hateful Men
Gulliver looks back with nostalgia to the days when he was
adored by the horses:

I did not feel that natural awe which the Yahoos and all other
animals bear towards them, but it grew upon me by degrees,
much sooner than I imagined, and was mingled with a
respectful love and gratitude, that they would condescend to
distinguish me from the rest of my species.

Jonathan Swift
The Yahoos
• The Yahoos are described as ugly and vicious.
• Gulliver is a Yahoo.
• Gulliver refuses his own race.

When I happened to behold the reflection of my own form in

a lake or a fountain, I turned away my face in horror and
detestation of myself, and could better endure the sight of
a common Yahoo, than of my own person.

Jonathan Swift
Gulliver’s back Home
• Gulliver returns to his wife and children.
• Physical repulsion of men.
• To endure life he keeps away as much as possible from
human beings.

My horses understand me tolerably well; I converse with

them at least four hours every day. They are strangers to
bridle or saddle, they live in great amity with me, and
friendship to each other.

Jonathan Swift