Concetti Chiave
- Jonathan Swift was born in Ireland, educated at Trinity College, and served as a secretary to Sir William Temple in England before becoming an Anglican priest.
- Swift's major works include the satirical "Gulliver’s Travels" and "A Modest Proposal," which critiques English indifference to Irish issues.
- "Gulliver’s Travels" blends fantasy, political satire, and moral fable, making it a complex work despite its reputation as a children’s classic.
- In "Gulliver's Travels," Swift uses fantastical lands and characters to satirize the cruelty, vanity, and irrationality of human societies.
- Swift's later life was marked by ill health, and he was eventually declared insane before his death in 1745.
Indice
La vita di Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift was born in Ireland in 1667 and educated at Trinity College in Dublin. In 1689 he went in England and for the next ten years he served as secretary to Sir William Temple, a prominent English statesman. In 1694 Swift became an ordained Anglican priest. He moved back to Ireland after Sir William’s death and he published anonymously his first major satirical work.
Il ritorno in Irlanda e la satira
In 1710 he returned to England and became editor of The Examiner, the journal of the Tory party, but with the fall of the Tories he accepted a post as Dean of St. Patrick’s, Dublin. In the 1720s Swift formed the group of Tory satirists known as the Scriblerians, along with Alexander Pope and John Gay. He published his masterpiece, Gulliver’s Travels and A Modest Proposal, a grotesque satire of Irish problems and the indifference of the English towards them. In this funny text, Swift suggested that babies make a succulent dish, especially when boiled, and that could be the solution to overpopulation and to starvation in Ireland. Sift spent the last years if his life in ill health and was eventually declared insane. He died in 1745.
Gulliver's Travels: un'opera complessa
Gulliver’s Travels has been considered for a long time a children’s classic, but its dense mixture of fantasy, political satire and moral fable render it a highly complex work. It’s divided into four books.
Book 1 represents cruelty, pettiness and provincialism of men (the way Swift saw the England of his times). Lemuel Gulliver tells of his shipwreck off the island of Lilliput, where he meets the Lilliputians (tiny people) and learns about their customs, culture, and political system. He offers to help these people in their war against the island of Blefuscu, after which he returns to England.
Book 2: Brobdingnag e la vanità umana
Book 2 represents human vanity and self-love. Gulliver faces a series of misadventures, after which he finds himself abandoned on the island of Brobdingnag, whose inhabitants are all giants. The situation of Book 1 is reversed, as Gulliver is regarded as something like a living doll for children to play with. He’s sold to the Queen, before returning once again to England.
Book 3: Laputa e la parodia intellettuale
Book 3 is a parody of the pretentions of abstract intellectual thinking, which has no connections to reality. Gulliver lands on the amazing flying island of Laputa, which is populated by philosophers and scientists, all involved in bizarre and futile scientific researches. From there he journeys to two other islands, each with its own absurdities.
Book 4: I cavalli intelligenti e i Yahoos
Book 4 finds Gulliver in a land ruled by intelligent horses, who are served by a bestial race called the Yahoos. Again, Gulliver tries to learn the language and ways of the inhabitants of the island. He assimilates them so well that when he returns home he finds himself disgusted by his normal life. In this last Book Swift reveals his own vision of the human society through the point of view of the intelligent horses, who regard humans like the savage Yahoos.
Domande da interrogazione
- ¿Cuál fue el papel de Jonathan Swift en el partido Tory?
- ¿Qué representa el Libro 1 de "Gulliver’s Travels"?
- ¿Cómo aborda Swift los problemas de Irlanda en "A Modest Proposal"?
- ¿Qué crítica se presenta en el Libro 3 de "Gulliver’s Travels"?
Jonathan Swift se convirtió en editor de The Examiner, el diario del partido Tory, durante su tiempo en Inglaterra en 1710.
El Libro 1 representa la crueldad, mezquindad y provincialismo de los hombres, reflejando la visión de Swift sobre la Inglaterra de su época.
Swift sugiere satíricamente que los bebés podrían ser un plato suculento, especialmente hervidos, como solución al problema de la sobrepoblación y el hambre en Irlanda.
El Libro 3 es una parodia de las pretensiones del pensamiento intelectual abstracto, que carece de conexión con la realidad, representado por la isla voladora de Laputa.
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