Analysis of the nature of Swift’s satire in Gulliver’s Travels - Targets, techniques and effectiveness

Analysis of the nature of Swift’s satire in Gulliver’s Travels - Targets, techniques and effectiveness PDF Author: Reni Ernst
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3638883965
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 14

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Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, University College Dublin (Faculty of Arts; School of English and Drama), course: Gulliver’s Travels, language: English, abstract: In 1726 Jonathan Swift published Gulliver’s Travels, a book which on the surface appeared to be a travel log to chronicle the adventures of Lemuel Gulliver on his voyages to four separate countries, but primarily serves as a satire on different aspects of human society and humankind itself. Swift’s main purpose in using the satirical element in this book, as well as in most of his other works, is to “(...) vex the world rather than divert it (...)” (Swift 264) and thus to appeal to human’s ability to change situations for the better. This believe derived from Swift’s misanthropic worldview, not in the sense that he didn’t have faith in human nature and had given up on any notion of ideals, but he rather, arisen out of disappointment in humankind, believed that man nevertheless was capable of reform. Swift himself laid bare his radically negative view of human beings in a letter to his friend Alexander Pope in 1725: “I have ever hated all Nations professions and Communityes and all my love is towards individualls for instance I hate the tribe of Lawyers, but I love Councellor such a one (...) and the rest principally I hate and detest that animal called man, although I hartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth.” (Swift 264/ 265) Accordingly Swift’s focus lies on the individual himself to realize unjust circumstances and to change them by acting. In order to achieve changes in society or even in human beings themselves, Swift makes use of different satirical techniques, which will be closer looked at in each of the four books of Gulliver’s Travels, paying attention to Swifts targets and consequently to the effectiveness of his satire.

Analysis of the nature of Swift’s satire in Gulliver’s Travels - Targets, techniques and effectiveness

Analysis of the nature of Swift’s satire in Gulliver’s Travels - Targets, techniques and effectiveness PDF Author: Reni Ernst
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3638883965
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 14

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Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, University College Dublin (Faculty of Arts; School of English and Drama), course: Gulliver’s Travels, language: English, abstract: In 1726 Jonathan Swift published Gulliver’s Travels, a book which on the surface appeared to be a travel log to chronicle the adventures of Lemuel Gulliver on his voyages to four separate countries, but primarily serves as a satire on different aspects of human society and humankind itself. Swift’s main purpose in using the satirical element in this book, as well as in most of his other works, is to “(...) vex the world rather than divert it (...)” (Swift 264) and thus to appeal to human’s ability to change situations for the better. This believe derived from Swift’s misanthropic worldview, not in the sense that he didn’t have faith in human nature and had given up on any notion of ideals, but he rather, arisen out of disappointment in humankind, believed that man nevertheless was capable of reform. Swift himself laid bare his radically negative view of human beings in a letter to his friend Alexander Pope in 1725: “I have ever hated all Nations professions and Communityes and all my love is towards individualls for instance I hate the tribe of Lawyers, but I love Councellor such a one (...) and the rest principally I hate and detest that animal called man, although I hartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth.” (Swift 264/ 265) Accordingly Swift’s focus lies on the individual himself to realize unjust circumstances and to change them by acting. In order to achieve changes in society or even in human beings themselves, Swift makes use of different satirical techniques, which will be closer looked at in each of the four books of Gulliver’s Travels, paying attention to Swifts targets and consequently to the effectiveness of his satire.

Analysis of the Nature of Swift's Satire in Gulliver's Travels - Targets, Techniques and Effectiveness

Analysis of the Nature of Swift's Satire in Gulliver's Travels - Targets, Techniques and Effectiveness PDF Author: Reni Ernst
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3638884775
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 33

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Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, University College Dublin (Faculty of Arts; School of English and Drama), course: Gulliver's Travels, 8 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: In 1726 Jonathan Swift published Gulliver's Travels, a book which on the surface appeared to be a travel log to chronicle the adventures of Lemuel Gulliver on his voyages to four separate countries, but primarily serves as a satire on different aspects of human society and humankind itself. Swift's main purpose in using the satirical element in this book, as well as in most of his other works, is to "(...) vex the world rather than divert it (...)" (Swift 264) and thus to appeal to human's ability to change situations for the better. This believe derived from Swift's misanthropic worldview, not in the sense that he didn't have faith in human nature and had given up on any notion of ideals, but he rather, arisen out of disappointment in humankind, believed that man nevertheless was capable of reform. Swift himself laid bare his radically negative view of human beings in a letter to his friend Alexander Pope in 1725: "I have ever hated all Nations professions and Communityes and all my love is towards individualls for instance I hate the tribe of Lawyers, but I love Councellor such a one (...) and the rest principally I hate and detest that animal called man, although I hartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth." (Swift 264/ 265) Accordingly Swift's focus lies on the individual himself to realize unjust circumstances and to change them by acting. In order to achieve changes in society or even in human beings themselves, Swift makes use of different satirical techniques, which will be closer looked at in each of the four books of Gulliver's Travels, paying attention to Swifts targets and consequently to the effectiveness of his satire.

Gulliver's Travels

Gulliver's Travels PDF Author: Jonathan Swift
Publisher: Echo Library
ISBN: 9781603037228
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description


A voyage to Brobdingnag

A voyage to Brobdingnag PDF Author: Jonathan Swift
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Jonathan Swift and the Anatomy of Satire

Jonathan Swift and the Anatomy of Satire PDF Author: John Marshall Bullitt
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Satire
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description


The Spectacle of the Growth of Knowledge and Swift's Satires on Science

The Spectacle of the Growth of Knowledge and Swift's Satires on Science PDF Author: Beat Affentranger
Publisher: Universal-Publishers
ISBN: 1581120680
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
This is a revisionist study of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century satires on science with an emphasis on the writings of Jonathan Swift and, to a lesser degree, Samuel Butler and other satirists. To say, as some literary commentators do, that the satirists attacked only pseudo-scientists who failed to employ the empirical method properly is to beg a crucial question: how could the satirists possibly have distinguished the genuine scientist from the crank? By a failsafe set of Baconian principles perhaps? No, the matter is more complicated. I read the satiric literature on early modern science against a totally different understanding of what science is, how it came into being, and how it developed. Satire has a decided advantage over scientific discourse. It can rely on common sense; scientific discourse often cannot. There is always a counter-intuitive element in the genuinely new. New knowledge is in some ways always at odds with received assumptions of what is possible, reasonable, or probable. Satire on science, I suggest, can be seen as a systematic exploitation of that gap of plausibility. Natural philosophers of the late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century were keenly aware of their discursive disadvantage and at times even hesitated to publish their material. They feared the satirists and the wits, who they knew would find it easy to debunk their work on commonsense grounds. But commonsense and laughter are unreliable yardsticks for measuring scientific merit. Ironically, the satirists and the natural philosophers shared some of the most fundamental epistemological assumptions of early English empiricism, for instance, the stereotypical Baconian assumption that knowledge about nature would come to us unambiguously once the mind was freed from preconception and bias. It is an assumption about scientific method that is decidedly hostile towards speculative hypothesising. Indeed, the motto of the day was not bold speculation and learning from error, but avoiding error at all costs. Yet in practice, error (or what appeared to be erroneous) was of course frequent; for science is an essentially speculative enterprise. Natural philosophers of the early modern period, however, were embarrassed by their failures and tried to explain them away. The satirists, on the other hand, could prey on these mistakes and conclude that the work of the natural philosophers was purely speculative. The reason for this rigid, anti-speculative epistemological stance, I argue, was a religious one, having to do with the conception of nature as a divine book that could be read like Scripture. This conflation of the epistemological and the theological is especially obvious in Swift. In both his satirical and non-satirical writings, he is obsessed with proposing proper standards of interpretation, and with criticising those whom he thought had corrupted these standards. Dissenters and religious enthusiasts are taken to task for their misreading of Scripture, for their corrupt religious doctrine which they erroneously claim to be based on Scripture and reason. The natural philosophers are accused of some similar hermeneutic sin; only, they have committed their interpretive transgressions against the proper interpretive standard of the book of nature. Where the natural philosophers claim to have found a new, more accurate way of reading the book of nature, Swift, I argue, sees only mis-readings. Rhetorically, Swift's satires on religious dissent perpetuate the typically Tory High-Church insinuation of sectarian and heretical sexual promiscuity. In his satires on science, Swift makes the same insinuation with respect to natural philosophers, most vividly so in A Tale of a Tub and the flying island of Laputa. The study concludes with a fresh look at Swift's rational horses in part four of Gulliver's Travels.

Gulliver's Travels

Gulliver's Travels PDF Author: Ronald Knowles
Publisher: Macmillan Reference USA
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
An accessible introduction to some of the most important ideas developed in Plato's Symposium.

A Modest Proposal

A Modest Proposal PDF Author: Jonathan Swift
Publisher: Modernista
ISBN: 9180949193
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 14

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Book Description
In one of the most powerful and darkly satirical works of the 18th century, a chilling solution is proposed to address the dire poverty and overpopulation plaguing Ireland. Jonathan Swift presents a shockingly calculated and seemingly rational argument for using the children of the poor as a food source, thereby addressing both the economic burden on society and the issue of hunger. This provocative piece is a masterful example of irony and social criticism, as it exposes the cruel attitudes and policies of the British ruling class towards the Irish populace. Jonathan Swift's incisive critique not only underscores the absurdity of the proposed solution but also serves as a profound commentary on the exploitation and mistreatment of the oppressed. A Modest Proposal remains a quintessential example of satirical literature, its biting wit and moral indignation as relevant today as it was at the time of its publication. JONATHAN SWIFT [1667-1745] was an Anglo-Irish author, poet, and satirist. His deadpan satire led to the coining of the term »Swiftian«, describing satire of similarly ironic writing style. He is most famous for the novel Gulliver’s Travels [1726] and the essay A Modest Proposal [1729].

The Character of Swift's Satire

The Character of Swift's Satire PDF Author: Claude Julien Rawson
Publisher: Newark : University of Delaware Press ; London ; Toronto : Associated University Presses
ISBN:
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
The nature, style, and targets of Swift's witty, biting, and sometimes violent satire are critically investigated in this collection of essays. They portray Swift's social criticism in the light of his involvement in the politics of Anglo-Irish relations, and trace his literary roots, describing his connection with the Renaissance and studying his use of cliches and rhetoric.

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift (Book Analysis)

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift (Book Analysis) PDF Author: Bright Summaries
Publisher: BrightSummaries.com
ISBN: 2808019033
Category : Study Aids
Languages : en
Pages : 20

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Book Description
Unlock the more straightforward side of Gulliver’s Travels with this concise and insightful summary and analysis! This engaging summary presents an analysis of Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, which follows the title character, Lemuel Gulliver, as he embarks on a series of exploratory voyages and discovers numerous new species, from the diminutive Lilliputians to the impressively wise Houyhnhnms. Gulliver’s journey makes him keenly aware of the foibles of humankind and the shortcomings of many institutions back home, and he becomes increasingly cynical about the human race. This misanthropy shocked many early readers, but nowadays Gulliver’s Travels is widely recognised as a masterpiece of satire. Jonathan Swift was an Irish writer who was well known for his satirical works, including in particular Gulliver’s Travels and the essay A Modest Proposal. Find out everything you need to know about Gulliver’s Travels in a fraction of the time! This in-depth and informative reading guide brings you: • A complete plot summary • Character studies • Key themes and symbols • Questions for further reflection Why choose BrightSummaries.com? Available in print and digital format, our publications are designed to accompany you on your reading journey. The clear and concise style makes for easy understanding, providing the perfect opportunity to improve your literary knowledge in no time. See the very best of literature in a whole new light with BrightSummaries.com!