Swift's use of the literature of travel in the composition of "Gulliver's travels"

The primary aim of this thesis is to identify and assess the correspondences which occur between Gulliver's Travels and non fiction travel writing to which Swift is known to have had access before and during the period of composition. Books of travels listed by Harold Williams in Dean Swift's Library (Cambridge, 1932) have been consulted. In particular, the thesis examines the possible contribution of travel documents published by Hakluyt and Purchas. The method of research employed has been to concentrate upon themes such as the veracity of travel writers, stylistic features, primitive savages, strange islands, magic,attitudes to voyaging, bows and arrows, pygmies and giants, motives for travel, law and customs. The first chapter summarizes known and possible influences, considering the broad combination of fabulous and imaginary prose travel with Swift's mock realism. The second chapter develops the analysis of literary parody and considers the uneasy satirical relationship between travel lies and Gulliver's ironic veracity, with particular reference to magic and astrology. Chapters 3-7 comprise five regional studies of several themes which have been considered of special relevance to Gulliver's Travels, following this survey of travel writing. The conclusions reached in the course of the thesis relate to the allusive power and ironic depth of Gulliver's Travels. Whereas R.W. Frantz, W.A. Eddy, Arthur Sherbo and others have noticed incidental parallels in real travel literature, no comprehensive study exists of the subject as a whole. The thesis treats Hakluyt and Purchas in detail in working towards establishing the conventions of travel writing which are partly imitated and partly mocked by Swift. The extent to which it is intended that the reader should be conscious of the real travel background is also explored. Although source hunting can be an unprofitable activity, the large number of correspondences between Gulliver's Travels and the literature of real travel upon which the work is partly based suggest Swift was more conversant with voyages and travels than may have been presumed. These travel features appear to have been carefully intermingled with recognizable Homeric, Rabelaisian and Lucianic elements

"No more existence than the inhabitants of Utopia" : Utopian satire in Gulliver's travels

This study provides the first book-length examination of Gulliver's Travels as a utopian work. Swift relies on the genre of the utopia for the structure of each of the book's four voyages and as a means to further his satire on human nature, English society, and utopianism itself. The first two chapters introduce to the reader the methods and vocabulary of Utopian Studies, the critical approach utilized in this dissertation. They lay the foundation for the later examination of Swift's complex manipulation of the genre by analyzing various definitions of utopia, by examining the connection between satire and the utopian tradition established by Thomas More, and by detailing aspects of the structure and themes of utopias that served as probable sources for Gulliver's Travels

Fantasy Should Not Be Mistaken For Reality

I've always enjoyed fantasy literature that conveys a sharp political or social message. Among the classics of this subgenre are Thomas More's "Utopia," Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels," and George Orwell's "1984.

The Sense of Gulliver's Travels

Paper by William Bowman Pipe

Gulliver and other monkeys : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English Literature at Massey University

The distinctions between tragedy, satire and comedy, as with the lines severing madness from genius, are blurred and uncertain. The purpose of this essay is to further smudge, and where possible to erase, the artificial divisions within these two sets of notions, and thereby create more confusion. Throughout I shall refer to the life and work of Swift, and in particular Gulliver's Travels, as neat examples of the chaos intrinsic in these diverse, yet related, concepts. As Aristotle exemplified the principle of the tragic, using Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannos, saving why it is sad or tragic in his opinion, so I hope to say why I feel Gulliver's Travels to be predominantly funny or comic, and attempt to explain the principle of the comic in a like manner, with digression upon other works as has seemed appropriate to the illustration of the subject. Throughout I shall use the term 'comedy' in its broader sense, as referring to the comic, rather than in its technical sense of comic drama

Tolkien\u27s A Secret Vice and \u27the language that is spoken in the Island of Fonway\u27

Note: I delivered a shortened version of this paper (entitled \u27Early Explorers and Practitioners of a shared \u27Secret Vice\u27) at the May 2016 International Medieval Congress in Kalamazoo, Michigan as part of the Tolkien and Invented Language Session

The Influence of Cyrano De Bergerac\u27s Voyages to the Sun and the Moon on Jonathan Swift\u27s Gulliver\u27s Travels

It has been claimed by the French that Cyrano de Bergerac was the source for Jonathan Swift\u27s GULLIVER\u27S TRAVELS. In the following paper an effort will be made to show the Englishman\u27s indebtedness to the French writer, but in so doing it will be necessary to give some of the more indirect influences upon de Bergerac as well as upon Swift