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

P. 221/228

He’s in those strange places in the islands where hypothetically intelligent

people live. Gulliver visits an academy of projectors, who plan and invent

new things (parody of the Royal Academy). Swift is making fun not only of

stupid people and human stupidity but also human intelligence which is a

different form of obtusity, of madness. He shows the limits of human

condition, there is no way out of human stupidity. Parody of intelligence. The

projectors do strange things, they try to make crazy or funny inventions.

All these people looked mad, a sort of parody of mad scholar. New idea to

build house, from roof to foundation, by copying bees and spiders; trying to

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produce fabric out of cobwebs, spider web, instead of using silkworms

(usare ragnatele invece di bachi da seta).

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Country of Houyhnhnms

P. 344 The Houyhnhnms are the most rational people that Gulliver meets in his

travel. Their methods of education should be imitated:

1. They don’t give their children anything sweet to eat.

2. They think educating girls in a different way from boys is a monstrosity,

especially considering that woman are the ones that breed and educate the

children.

3. Values for “temperance, industry, exercise and cleanliness.”

P. 346 Houyhnhnms seems to be fully rational, but there’s a dark side in their

rationality. They are debating on wether the Yahoos should be exterminated

(genocide). They keep the Yahoos at distance, as if they might be infected

In every Utopia

physically and mentally by them —> element of racism.

there is a dark side.

Body: very revolutionizing because for the first time a book talks about the body

and bodily needs. In many cases, especially in the past, we could read books on

travel but it wouldn't describe how people found food or water, etc. Swift often

refers to this, shows the material difficulties of Gulliver as a traveller, which also

meant to make the novel sounds more realistic, as if he had really existed, had this

kind of problems, how I felt, etc.

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Lilliput

P. 17 Gulliver is tied down to the ground, and he is very hungry and thirsty, so he

describes his problem with gestures and the people of Lilliput do their best

to satisfy him, but it was very difficult because he was so big. “and being

almost famished with hunger, having not eaten a morsel for some hours before I le

the ship, I found the demands of nature so strong upon me, that I could not forbear

showing my impatience (perhaps against the strict rules of decency) by putting my

finger frequently to my mouth, to signify that I wanted food.”

P. 25 Gulliver has to defecate, and so needs to find a place where to do so but it’s

very hard since everything is so tiny around him on the island and everyone

will see him. He describes everything very meticulously. Cannot do it inside

of the house they built for him, so basically goes to a field to do what he has

to do.

P. 62 Very funny passage, but it was considered offensive when the book was

published. There is a fire in the queen’s palace in Lilliput, they wake up

Gulliver. He thinks of an expedient, the evening before he had drunken a lot

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of delicious wine, and so decides to urinate on the fire to stop the fire

(offensive gesture, piss on the queen). Even if he saves the queen, she’s still

offended.

“The case seemed wholly desperate and deplorable; and this magnificent palace

would have infallibly been burnt down to the ground, if, by a presence of mind

unusual to me, I had not suddenly thought of an expedient. I had, the evening before,

drunk plentifully of a most delicious wine called glimigrim, (the Blefuscudians call it

flunec, but ours is esteemed the better sort,) which is very diuretic. By the luckiest

chance in the world, I had not discharged myself of any part of it. The heat I had

contracted by coming very near the ames, and by labouring to quench them, made

the wine begin to operate by urine; which I voided in such a quantity, and applied so

well to the proper places, that in three minutes the re was wholly extinguished, and

the rest of that noble pile, which had cost so many ages in erecting, preserved from

destruction.”

P. 65 Describes the burial rituals:

“they bury their dead with their heads directly downward, because they hold an

opinion, that in eleven thousand moons they are all to rise again; in each prtiod the

earth /which they conceive to be flat) will turn upside down, and by this mens they

shall at their resurrection, be found ready standing on their feet.”

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Brobdingnag

P. 108 Gulliver can see the details of the giants, and he finds them disgusting

“i must confess no object ever disgusted me so much as the sight of her monstrous

breast, which I cannot tell what to compare with, so as to give the curious reader an

idea of its bulk, shape and colour. [...] the nipple was about half to the bigness of my

head, and the hue both of that and the dug, so varied with spots, pimples and

freckles, that nothing could appear more nauseous. [...] this made me reflect upon the

fair skin of our English ladies, who appear so beautiful to us only because they are of

our own size, and their defects not to be seen but through a magnifying glass”

P. 112 A sort of explanation, I am writing about this bodily needs to help

philosophers think about who we are, how we behave etc.

P. 136/137

He sees these huge horrible things. In this case he sees the queen eating,

she’s absolutely repellent while chewing stuff; he also sees some poor

people. He sees these parasites, huge (exploiting the sense of size, anything

big is ugly).

P. 144/146

Gulliver finds himself in a situation of disturbed sexuality. There are these

huge woman who kind of use Gulliver as a toy, a doll. They behaved as is he

wasn’t present, like he wasn’t a man. So big, that they don’t even look

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attractive to Gulliver, they lose their attractiveness (huge moles, hairs). Is

trying to give some disturbed idea of the body to the reader, body is

described in detail but is not attractive.

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Country of Houyhnhnms

P. 289-290 / 298

Soon, a group of servants bring in some Yahoos, and to Gulliver’s horror and

astonishment they resemble perfectly the human figure. The horses see a

difference between Gulliver and the Yahoos, simply because he wears

clothes and they believe the clothing is part of Gulliver’s body.

“the face of it indeed was flat and broad, the nose depressed, the lips larger and the

mouth wide; but these differences are common to all savages nations, where the

lineaments of the countenance are distorted, by the natives suffering their infants to

lie groveling on the earth, or by carrying them on their backs, nuzzling with their

face against the mothers’ shoulders. The fore-feet of the Yahoo differed from my

hands in nothing else but the length of the nails, the coarseness and brownness of the

palms, and the hairiness on the backs. There was the same resemblance between our

feet, with the same differences; which I knew very well, though the horses did not,

because of my shoes and stockings; the same in every part of our bodies except as to

hairiness and color.”

Gulliver is very keen to take care of its clothes, because they are the only

thing that distinguishes him from Yahoos. He eventually admits to the horses

that clothes are just a measure to protect doubly part from hot, cold and to

maintain decency. The horses don’t understand why we should conceal

what nature has given, nor feel shame. But since he is an intelligent being,

he allows Gulliver to do what makes him comfortable and hide his

nakedness.

Passage in the last book when he’s with the Houyhnhnms, of course he has

to find something to eat because he can’t eat like a horse. So he describes

in detail how he managed to find some food to eat, grains and milk. He

didn’t find much to eat, but then he discovers after a while that he was

content and sufficient with what he had, so kind of shows how going back to

a primitive way is still auto sufficient for the body, body has simple needs

and how nature can easily satisfy us. Finds the need of salt, but eventually

gets used to eating without it (he almost forgot about salt).

P. 322-323/329

Relationship between balance of food intake and health: in europe, people

drink uncontrollably in a way that resembles Yahoos. The abidance leads not

only to physical diseases but also mental diseases, that are quite common

among female Yahoos. Not only Yahoos eat too much, but they do so

greedily and selfishly

“if you throw among 5 yahoos as much food as would be sufficient for gifts, they will

instead of eating peaceably, fall together by the ears, each single one impatient to

have all to itself; and therefore a servant was usually employed to stand by while they

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were feeding abroad, and those kept at home were tied at a distance from each

other."

P. 340 Terrible moment for Gu