16TH AND 17TH CENTURIES
JONATHAN SWIFT.
Jonathan Swift was born in 1667 in Dublin of English parents. He left Ireland and moved in
England during the revolution of 1688. Swift started to work for Sir William Temple, a scholar and
wing statesman. Encouraged by Temple Swift wrote his first satirical works. After the dead of
Temple, he returned to Ireland and became an ordained Anglican priest. There he started to
produce writings for the Tory administration. He was made Dean of St. Patrick’s cathedral in
Dublin in April 1713. Later years were marked by the decay of his mental faculties. He died in
1745 and he is still regarded as a nation hero in Ireland.
The swift’s main works are:
The tale of tub: a satire about religious parties (Catholics and Dissenters);
Battle of the Book: a satire about the merits of ancient and modern literature.
A modest proposal: a satire suggesting that the poverty of Irish people should be relieved by
the sale of their children as food for the rich.
The Gulliver’s travel is his most famous work, is a satirical novel about the story of this ship’s
surgeon Lemuel Gulliver. The novel is divided in four books.
*In the first book Gulliver sails from Bristol and after six month his ship-wrecked
somewhere in the south pacific. He cast upon the shore of Lilliput; the Lilliputians are
only six inches high.
*In the second book Gulliver sails for India, but finds himself in Brobdingnag, in Alaska.
The natives are giants, twelve times tall as Gulliver. He becomes the pet of the king and
is kept in a cage dropped in the middle of the ocean by a huge bird. He, rescued by a
ship, returns to England.
*The third book start when the Gulliver’s ship is attacks by pirates who set him adrift on
a small boat. He finds himself on the island of Laputa. The inhabitants are immortal
astronomers, philosophers and scientist who makes absurd experiments. The island
drops Gulliver in Japan and there he manages his return in England.
*The fourth book tells the last voyage of Gulliver to an island inhabited by Houyhnhnms;
horses endowed with reason rule over the Yahoos. The horses banish him, and he
leaves for England. The novel end when he goes to live in a stable.
Swift was inspirated by the political and moral satire and the literature travels and the
culture of utopias, an ideal world where the men live an uncorrupted life.
