Riassunto esame letteratura inglese, Prof. Zuccato, libro consigliato Gulliver's Travels, Swift

Jonathan Swift

1667 — Jonathan Swift was born on November 30 in Dublin, Ireland. He had

Anglo-Irish parents. His father dies a few months before Swift is born.

1673 — He was educated at Kilkenny Grammar School, which was, at the time,

the best in Ireland.

1682-1686 — Swift attends and graduates from Trinity College, Dublin.

1688 — Glorious Revolution. William of Orange invades England. With Dublin in

political turmoil, Trinity College is closed and Swift goes to England.

1689 — Swift becomes secretary in the household of Sir William Temple at Moor

Park in Surrey. Swift reads extensively from Temple’s library and here he meets

Esther Johnson, a little girl who will become his “Stella”. Begins to suffer from

Meniere’s disease, a disturbance of the inner ear.

1690 — At the advice of his doctors, Swift return to Ireland.

1692 — Temple enables Swift to receive an M.A. degree from Oxford, and Swift

publishes his first poem.

1694 — Swift leaves Temple’s household and returns to Ireland to take holy orders.

1695 — Swift ordained as a priest in the Church of Ireland, the Irish branch of the

Anglican Church.

1696-99 — Swift returns to Moor Park, and composes most of “A Tale of a tub”,

his first great work. In 1699 Temple dies, and Swift travels to Ireland as chaplain

and secretary yo the Earl of Berkeley.

1700 — Swift instituted Vicar of Laracor and presented to the Prebend of Dunlavin

in St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin.

1701 — D.D. (doctorate of divinity) from Dublin University and publishes his first

political pamphlet, supporting the Whigs against the Tories. Started to be more

involved in politics.

1704 — Anonymous publication of Swift’s “A Tale of a Tub”, “The Battle of the

Books”, and “The Mechanical Operation of the Spirit”

1707 — Swift in London as emissary of Irish clergy seeking remission of tax on

Irish clerical incomes. His requests are rejected by the Whig government. He

meets Esther Vanhomrigh, who will become his “Vanessa.” During the next few

years he is back and forth between Ireland and England, where he is involve in the

highest political circles.

1708 — Swift meets Addison and Steele, and publishes the “Bickerstaff Papers”

and “An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity.”

1710 — Swift returns to England. He associated to the Whig party, but begins to

quarrel. So he switches to the other side, the Tories, and becomes editor of the

The Examiner.

Tory newspaper Swift writes the series of letters which will be

published ad “The Journal to Stella.”

1713 — Swift installed as Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin.

1714 — Foundation of Scriblerus Club. Queen Anne dies, George I takes the

throne, the Torres fall from power, and Swift’s hopes for preferment in England

come to an end: he returns to Ireland “to die” as he says, “like a poisoned rat in a

hole.”

1716 — Swift marries Stella (Esther Johnson)

1718 — Swift begins to publish tracts on Irish problems.

1720 — Swift begins work upon Gulliver’s Travels, intended, as he says in a letter

to Pope “to vex the world, not to divert it.”

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1724 — Publication of “The Drapier Letters”, which gain him enormous popularity

in Ireland.

1725 — Gulliver’s Travels completed.

1726 — Visit to England, where he visits Pope at Twickenham; published Gulliver’s

Travels.

1727 — Swift’s last trip to England.

1727-1736 — Publication of five volumes of Swift;Pope Miscellanies.

1728 — Death of Stella

1729 — Publication of Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”

1731 — Publication of Swift’s “A beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed”

1735 — Collected edition of Swift’s “Works” published in Dublin; Swift is suffering

from Meniere’s Disease, resulting in periods of dizziness and nausea, and his

memory is deteriorating.

1738 — Swift slips gradually into senility, and suffers a paralytic stroke.

1742 — Guardians appointed to care for Swift’s affairs.

1745 — Swift dies on October 19.

Summary of Swift’s Chronology:

Swift was born in 1667 in Dublin, he belonged to an Anglo-Irish family. He was

educated in a prestigious catholic school in Ireland. He went to Trinity College, one

of the oldest university in Ireland. In 1688, during the Glorious Revolution Swift was

forced to go to England. He had a life long relationship with a girl “Stella”; he

suffered from Meniere’s Disease. Back to Ireland in 1694, he became a priest in the

Church of Ireland, a branch of the Church of England. He was in touch with the

Upper class. Became a Dean in St. Patrick’s Cathedral. He got a doctor of divinity

in Dublin university.

In 1710 he became associated with the Whig party and then switched over to the

opposite party, the Tories. Modern journalism developed at that time in the early

18 century. He was a friend of the main original writers of the time like Alexander

th

Pope, they satirized bad writers and made fun of them. In 1720 he started working

on Gulliver’s travels; he published some letters about the economic situation of

Ireland which had a huge impact. In 1726 Gulliver’s travels got published. His

health declined in the last years of his life because of the disease that he had —>

dementia. He died in 1745. He had frustrated political ambitions, he would have

liked to have more important political positions in the church.

Gulliver’s Travels (17th c)

In his first edition he disguised the author’s name, and so the book sold out in a

few days. This was quite surprising because it wasn’t a children’s book. Quickly

people found out who the author was and so he received enormous public

success.

The genre of the book is formed of elements of a utopian novel, so imaginary

countries, put together with satiric fable. He puts together different rhetorical

devices. But there are also elements that don’t belong there either. He has an

obsession for bodily fashion (body functions). Many travel books at the time were

quite popular, linked to the expanding colonialism of the time. People traveled for

practical economical purposes, so Swift exploited that fact. Many novels were

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written by people who had never left London, so invented things. Enormous

interest for exotic places and new lands.

Original title: “Travel into several remote nations of the world” by Lemuel Gulliver.

The name Gulliver didn’t appear in the first title.

He was a surgeon, a physician and after a captain. Swift told us this fact because

he cared about the body, he was a physician and because he had the approach of

a surgeon, he wanted to analyze the society, but doesn’t want to cure mankind.

Gulliver evokes something like gullible (stupido, ti possono prendere in giro) so it

was a strange name. He says different things about us, but his names says he is

king of a fool, it is a sort of self defense, rhetorical strategy.

The book is divided into 4 parts\travels. The most famous is the first book: the

voyage to Lilliput. Part two: Voyage to Brobdingnag. Part three: Voyage to Laputa,

Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, Glubbdubdrib and Japan. Part four: a voyage to the country

of Houyhnhnms (special race of horse that behaved like human beings, they were

perfectly reasonable, and other who lived there were “yahoo” monsters who acted

like animals (contraposition of human and animal, the parts are inverted)

Language: in the book there are a few passages about languages, an unusual

reference to different languages. Swift created fictional languages for each country,

and underlined the difficulties of communication in different cultural environments.

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Lilliput

P. 28 / 31

Gulliver is in Lilliput and here he’s trying to communicate with the king and

with the lawyer. He tries to speak in every language that he knows, but it’s

impossible to understand or to be understood. After clarifying that he is no

threat to the island, in 3 weeks he is taught the language and once he knows

how to speak, the first thing he asks is “please give me back my liberty.

“His imperial majesty spoke o en to me, and I returned answers: but neither of us

could understand a syllable. There were several of his priests and lawyers present (as

I conjectured by their habits), who were commanded to address themselves to me;

and I spoke to them in as many languages as I had the least smattering of, which

were High and Low Dutch, Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, and Lingua Franca, but

all to no purpose. […]

…the first words I learnt, were to express my desire ‘that he would please give me my

liberty;’ which I every day repeated on my knees. His answer, as I could comprehend

it, was, ‘that this must be a work of time, not to be thought on without the advice of

his council, and that first I must lumos kelmin pesso desmar lon emposo;”

P. 45 Swift includes also fictional translations of the languages of the various

countries.

P. 60 He is referring to the two states that are in this voyage, Lilliput (clearly a

parody of England) and Blefuscu (the enemy island, clearly France). Their

languages differ as much as two languages in Europe. Each one thinks its

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own language is the most beautiful, the language of my neighbor is horrible.

Like in the real world, there are ambassadors, so the ambassador from

Blefuscu is obliged to speak in Lilliputian because they refuse to learn other

languages. They need a translator to communicate.

“It is to be observed, that these ambassadors spoke to me, by an interpreter, the

languages of both empires differing as much from each other as any two in Europe,

and each nation priding itself upon the antiquity, beauty, and energy of their own

tongue, with an avowed contempt for that of their neighbour;”

P. 65 Here he talks about their strange manner of writing, very peculiar, from one

corner of the paper to the other. He always uses a reference to make fun of

something in England, in this case how the woman wrote at that time.

“I shall say but little at present of their learning, which, for many ages, has

flourished in all its branches among them: but their manner of writing is very

peculiar, being neither from the left to the right, like the Europeans, nor from the

right to the left , like the Arabians, nor from up to down, like the Chinese, but aslant,

from one corner of the paper to the other, like ladies in England.”

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Brobdingnag

P. 105 The giant who finds Gulliver tries to communicate, but once again this is

impossible. The giants voice was very loud and Gulliver shouted in different

languages but it didn't work.

“Thee farmer, by this time, was convinced I must be a rational creature. He spoke

often to me; but the sound of his voice pierced my ears like that of a water-mill, yet

his words were articulate enough. I answered as loud as I could in several

languages, and he often laid his ear within two yards of me: but all in vain, for we

were wholly unintelligible to each other.”

P. 106 Gulliver wants to be polite and toast to the lady’s good health in English, but

that makes his guest laugh: even though he believes his language sounds

polite, the effect is different, they cannot understand him (example of

relativism).

P. 113/114

The daughter of his mistress became a teacher to him, she was relatively

small and she used him as a toy. She gives him the name of Grildrig to

indicate small measures (means mannikin) and in return he called her

Glumdalclitch (little nurse). The girl is very fond of Gulliver and takes good

care of him.

“She gave me the name of Grildrig, which the family took up, and afterwards the

whole kingdom. The word imports what the Latins call nanunculus, the Italians

homunceletino, and the English mannikin. To her I chiefly owe my preservation in

that country: we never parted while I was there; I called her my Glumdalclitch, or

little nurse; and should be guilty of great ingratitude, if I omitted this honourable

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mention of her care and affection towards me, which I heartily wish it lay in my

power to requite as she deserves, instead of being the innocent, but unhappy

instrument of her disgrace, as I have too much reason to fear.”

P. 171 Example of how intelligent the giants were, they had a clear masculine and

smooth style, which corresponds to mental and moral clarity. He imagined

that intelligent people use this kind of language.

“Their style is clear, masculine, and smooth, but not florid; for they avoid nothing

more than multiplying unnecessary words, or using various expressions.”

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Laputa

P. 197

The language of Laputa resembles italian, therefore he responds in Italian

hoping that the sounds will be agreeable to their ears. Although they still

cannot communicate, at least this time the local understand his intentions and

help him. It was quite normal for sailors to know a little bit of all the main

European languages.

“At length one of them called out in a clear, polite, smooth dialect, not unlike in

sound to the Italian: and therefore I returned an answer in that language,

hoping at least that the cadence might be more agreeable to his ears. Although

neither of us understood the other, yet my meaning was easily known, for the p e o p l e

saw the distress I was in.”

P. 200-202

Gulliver meets the king, once again using all the languages he knows. He

orders them to teach Gulliver the language in about 4 hours. People in Laputa

are extremely intelligent, yet they are self-absorbed which is why they use a

flapper (rattle to draw attention when people are too involved in themselves).

In a few days he’s able to learn the language. Talks about the etymology of

the word Laputa

“The king, as far as I could conjecture, asked me several questions, and I addressed

myself to him in all the languages I had. When it was found I could neither understand

nor be understood, I was conducted by his order to an apartment in his palace (this

prince