Gulliver's Travels
by Jonathan Swift

• Encyclopædia Britannica
• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• biography Information Please Almanac
• Selected Essays McMaster Univ.
• National Portrait Gallery

satire usually uses indirect forms of humor, such as irony, exaggeration, and parody, to make its points; problems are addressed obliquely; for example, praising that which deserves condemnation (Gulliver's praise of gunpowder in Brobdingnag II:7;3) or taking a bad or weak idea to its absurd conclusion (A Modest Proposal);

one of the limitations of satire is that its targets may not recognize themselves;

"SATIRE is a sort of glass wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind reception it meets with in the world, and that so very few are offended with it." Author's Preface, The Battle Of The Books

"A Bishop here said, that Book was full of improbable lies, and for his part he hardly believed a word of it; and so much for Gulliver." letter to Alexander Pope, Nov. [27] 1726

In the Travels, the targets of Swift's satire include virtually every aspect of human experience, from contemporary controversies to ancient history, to the practice of government, religion, law, medicine, and scientific research, and to the fundamentals of life, birth, family, education, love, friendship, marriage, sex, and death, even human nature.

Because of the breadth of the satire, there is something there to delight, anger, and bewilder everyone, contributing to its continued popularity for almost 300 years. Swift's satire is pointed, sometimes harsh, always funny, and rarely simple or direct. That is in part the nature of satire, that it exposes absurdities, but it does not necessarily provide remedies.

• "He then desired me to draw my Scymiter" (I:2); one of Gulliver's possesions on arriving in Lilliput, which he is asked to surrender.

• Lilliput: "the Conjunction of Male and Female is founded upon the great Law of Nature, in order to propagate and continue the Species, the Lilliputians will needs have it, that Men and Women are joined together like other Animals, by the Motives of Concupiscence; " (I:6;11)

for above seventy Moons past there have been two struggling Parties in this Empire, under the Names of Tramecksan and Slamecksan (I:4)

• South Sea Bubble
• Extraordinary Popular Delusions And The Madness Of Crowds

• "one private Pocket which escaped their Search, wherein there was a pair of Spectacles (which I sometimes use for the weakness of mine Eyes)" (I:2;11)
• "the Enemy's Arrows, many of which struck against the Glasses of my Spectacles, but without any other Effect" (I:5;1)

• "It now began to be known and talked of in the Neighbourhood, that my Master had found a strange Animal in the Fields, about the Bigness of a Splacknuck," (II:2;2)

• ... Surgeon to the Swallow, Captain Abraham Pannell Commander; with whom I continued three Years and a half, making a Voyage or two into the Levant, and some other Parts. (I:1);

Swift was born in Dublin, Ireland, November 20, 1667 to Jonathan and Abigail Erick (or Herrick) Swift, English immigrants. He was their second child and only son. Swift's father passed away earlier that year and, though there is some confusion about the details, his mother left her young son to be raised by her late husband's family and returned to England. Swift was sent to Kilkenny Grammar School and then to Dublin University (Trinity) where he received a B.A. (1686). Swift was studying for his Masters when political troubles surrounding the overthrow of James II (the Glorious Revolution) caused him to leave for England (1688).

In England, Swift's mother helped find him a position as secretary to Sir Wm. Temple, a retired statesman and family friend, at his estate at Moor Park (1689). It was here that Swift met his lifelong friend, Esther Johnson ("Stella" of many of his poems and letters), a member of Temple's household, then 8 years old. Swift left Temple in 1690 for Ireland because of his health, but returned to Temple's service the following year. During this second stay with Temple, Swift received his M.A. from Oxford (1692). Apparently dispairing of a gaining a better position from Temple, Swift left Moor Park to be ordained a priest in the Church of Ireland and was appointed to a prebend in Kilroot (1694). Though Swift seems to have found some comfort in developing the gardens and ground around his house, he was otherwise miserable being isolated in a small, remote community. While there, however, Swift seems to have became romantically involved with Jane Waring. A letter from him survives offering to remain if she would marry him and promising to leave and never return to Ireland if she refused. She must have refused, because Swift left his post and returned to England and Temple's service at Moor Park in 1696 where he remained until Temple's death in 1699.

At Temple's death, Swift was left without a patron. He felt that he had been promised a "living" through his connection to Temple and tried to appeal directly to King William for appointment to a position, but without success. Instead, he returned to Ireland as chaplain to Lord Berkeley, a new lord justice. Apparently, Swift expected to be secretary and chaplain, and when someone else edged Swift out of the first position, he left Berkeley to be appointed to the vicarages of Laracor and Rathbeggan, the rectory of Agher, and the prebend Dunlavin, St. Patrick's Cathedral. In 1701, Swift received his Doctor of Divinity from Dublin University. In 1702, Esther Johnson and her companion Rebecca Dingley moved to Ireland at Swift's urging, obstensibly to take advantage of the lower cost of living there.

Swift returned to London several times over the next 10 years, eventually in an official capacity to lobby the government on the Church of Ireland's behalf (1707-9). During this time Swift published A Tale of a Tub and Battle of the Books (1704) and began to gain a reputation as a writer. This lead to close, lifelong friendships with Alexander Pope, John Gay and John Arbuthnot, forming the core of the Martinus Scriberlus Club).

Beginning 1710, Swift was recruited to support the Tory government under Robert Harley and Henry St. John at the end of Queen Anne's reign. His letters to Johnson and Dingley back in Ireland (published as "A Journal to Stella") record those turbulent times leading up to the fall of the Tories in 1714. The subsequent proscecution of the Tory leaders, Swift's friends, is one of the subjects addressed in Gulliver's Travels.

Again Swift hoped that his contacts would lead to a position of importance, perhaps the Historiographer Royal or a bishopric. His friends in government, however met with resistance from Queen Anne who had apparently formed a dislike for Swift, and the best they could do for him was appointment as Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin (1713). Thus at the fall of the Tory government, Swift returned to Ireland, almost as an exile ("like a rat in a hole"). However, once in Ireland, Swift began to turn his pamphleteering skills in support of Irish causes, producing some of his most memorable works; "Proposal for Universal Use of Irish Manufacture" (1720), "The Drapier's Letters" (1724), and "A Modest Proposal" (1728); earning him the status of an Irish patriot.

Also during this time, Swift wrote Gulliver's Travels (1726). Like all of his other work, Swift published the Travels pseudonomously. Several of his publications had resulted in a price placed on his head and there was enough critical material against the current English government and monarchy to bring charges of sedition. The Travels was the culmination of all his experience, understanding, and talent, addressing his views of the world and humanity as a whole. It is his masterpiece and remains one of the great literary works, and perhaps the greatest satiric work, of all time.

Though Swift was in other respects a healthy man (he was a great advocate of exercise, a vigorous walker and horseback rider), he suffered from bouts of "giddiness" or vertigo and ringing in his ears from his early 20s, caused by Meniere's Disease, an inner ear condition. Swift's letters are full of the misery it caused him and it also contributed to Swift's fear of losing his mind. These fears seemed to be coming true when, in his 70s Swift appeared increasingly disoriented and vulnerable. His friends had him declared of "unsound mind and memory" (1742) and his affairs placed in the hands of trustees to protect him. Though medical evidence is sketchy, it seems that he then suffered a series strokes or seizures which deprived him of speech. Swift died on October 19, 1745 just short of his 78th birthday. His epitaph reads:

[He has gone where fierce indignation can lacerate his heart no more -- depart wayfarer, and imitate if you are able one who to the utmost strenously championed liberty.]

It was in the name of Richard Sympson, on behalf of the fictional Gulliver, that Swift negotiated publication of the Travels with the printer Benj. Motte. While Swift had other dealings as Swift with Motte in his own name, he continued to correspond as Sympson regarding the Travels. (see letters)