Gulliver's Travels » (REV)

Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin in 1667. Although he spent most of his childhood in Ireland, he considered himself English, and, aged twenty-one, moved to England, where he found employment as secretary to the diplomat Sir William Temple. On Temple's death in 1699, Swift returned to Dublin to pursue a career in the church. By this time he was also publishing in a variety of genres, and between 1704 and 1729 he produced a string of brilliant satires, of which Gulliver's Travels is the best known. Between 1713 and 1742 he was dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin; he was buried there when he died in 1745.

In Gulliver's Travels, the narrator represents himself as a reliable reporter of the fantastic adventures he has just experienced. But how far can we rely on a narrator who has been impersonated by someone else? The work purports to be a travel book, and describes the shipwrecked Gulliver's encounters with the inhabitants of four extraordinary places: Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa, and the country of the Houyhnhnms. A consumately skillful blend of fantasy and realism makes Gulliver's Travels by turns hilarious, frightening, and profound. Swift's alter ego plays tricks on us, and our gullibility uncovers one of the world's most disturbing satires of the human condition.

Introduction

Textual Note

The Text of Gulliver's Travels 1

Contemporary Criticism

Gulliver's Travels and the Grotesque Carol Abromaitis Abromaitis, Carol 337

The Importance of Gulliver's Third Voyage Robert Scott Dupree Dupree, Robert Scott 349

Gulliver the Epic "Hero" and "Great" Travel Writer: A Modern Battles the Ancients Mitchell Kalpakgian Kalpakgian, Mitchell 365

The Man Who is Not: Virtue, Politics, and Gulliver's Travels Dutton Kearney Kearney, Dutton 381

The Unity of Gulliver's Travels Douglas Lane Patey Patey, Douglas Lane 395

Jonathan Swift: The Satirist as Philosopher Peter Stanlis Stanlis, Peter 413

Contributors 433