GULLIVER'S TRAVELS by JONATHAN SWIFT

About This Project: Questions Answered

About Swift, his life and thoughts

Do you have any information about Swift's life?

There is a collection of biographical sources at http://www.jaffebros.com/lee/gulliver/sources/biography.html

Do you have any pictures of Swift?

There is a collection of pictures of Swift at http://www.jaffebros.com/lee/gulliver/swift/index.html

I was interested in getting your ideas on this particular thought (part of my thesis):...Swift hated mankind but loved individual men...

Some insight might be taken from the oft-quoted passage from a letter to Alexander Pope:

I have ever hated all Nations professions and Communityes, and all my love is towards individuals;

In other words, he liked people, it was humanity he couldn't stand. Swift had seen a lot of suffering in his time and had been the victim of political intrigue and upheavals. He had good reason for distrusting institutions and those that supported them.

Some biographers think that Swift's angry disposition shown in his writings was a manifestation of the mental illness that eventually killed him. This seems too simple. For one thing, Swift was not nearly the misanthrope he seems from his writings. He had many long friendships and was known to be pleasant company, kind, and generous.

What was Swift's complaint with science?

Swift wasn't a complete Luddite. He did believe in progress. In Book II, Chapter 7, he says

whoever could make two ears of corn or two blades of grass to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country than the whole race of politicians put together.

Much of his dislike is aimed at the misuse of science. Science at that time was full of dabblers (satirized in Book III) and medicine was often more dangerous than disease. Therefore he wasn't so much poking fun at science as much as at bad science.

Do you believe that either conciously or unconciously Swift's own family life was portrayed in Gulliver's Travels?

Gulliver's Travels reveals virtually nothing of the narrator's family life. He never names his mother or father or his brothers - in fact, never mentions his mother at all. We know his wife's name is Mary and that he has two children.

In real life, Swift's own father died before he was born and his mother moved to England shortly after, leaving him in the care of uncles. Though Swift was devoted to his mother, they were not reunited until he graduated from college (in his late teens). Swift never married (nor apparently had any children otherwise).

What about Swift's ideas about women?

Swift is something of a cipher about women. On one hand, he demonstrated a profound regard for women by long-standing relationship with Esther Johnson ("Stella"). In fact, some suspect they were secretly married. It is clear that he admired and even loved Stella and had a number of other long, intimate (probably Platonic) relationships with women.

On the other hand, a lot of what Swift has to say on the subject of women is not respectful, at least in modern terms.

The reason why so few marriages are happy, is, because young ladies spend their time in making nets, not in making cages. "Thoughts on Various Subjects"

Then again, some of Swift's ideas about women, especially concerning their education and upbringing are decidedly modern and positive. Through Gulliver, he asserts that unless they receive the same education as men, we are raising half the population - the half that raises the next generation - to be useless.

Swift's views on aging

"No wise man ever wished to be younger"