《 gé liè fó yóu jì》 - zuò pǐn jiǎn jiè
zuò zhě：（ yīng） qiáo nà sēn · sī wēi fū tè
chéng shū shí jiān： 1726 nián
tè sè zhī chù： zhǐ zài pēng jī dāng shí yīng guó de yì huì zhèng zhì hé fǎn dòng zōng jiào shì lì de huàn xiǎng yóu jì tǐ fěng cì xiǎo shuō
《 gé liè fó yóu jì》 - zuò zhě jiǎn jiè
《 gé liè fó yóu jì》 qiáo nà sēn · sī wēi fū tè
qiáo nà sēn · sī wēi fū tè（ 1667 ～ 1745）， yǐ fěng cì zuò jiā míng chuí qīng shǐ。 tā shì yī míng mù shī， yī wèi zhèng zhì zhuàn gǎo rén， yī gè cái zǐ。 tā chū shēng yú 'ài 'ěr lán shǒu fǔ dū bólín， liù suì shàng xué， zài jī 'ěr kǎi ní xué xiào dú liǎo bā nián。 1682 nián jìn dū bólín zhù míng de sān yī xué yuàn xué xí， tā chú liǎo duì lì shǐ hèshī gē yòu xīng qù wài， bié de yī gài bù xǐ huān。 hái shì xué xiào “ tè bié tōng róng ” cái ná dào xué wèi。 zhī hòu， tā zài sān yī xué yuàn jì xù dú shuò shì， yī zhí dào yī liù bā liù nián。 1688 nián， ài 'ěr lán miàn lín yīng guó jūn duì de rù qīn， tā qián wǎng yīng guó xún zhǎo chū lù。
jiē xià lái de shí nián shì duì sī wēi fū tè yī shēng zhōng jù yòu zhòng yào yǐng xiǎng de guān jiàn shí qī。 tā tōng guò qīn qī de guān xì， zài mù 'ěr zhuāng yuán dāng sī rén mì shū。 mù 'ěr zhuāng yuán de zhù rén tǎn pǔ 'ěr shì yī wèi jīng yàn fēng fù de zhèng zhì jiā， yě shì wèi zhé xué jiā， xiū yǎng jí hǎo， zhè wú yí gěi sī wēi fū tè qǐ liǎo jī jí de， shèn zhì shì dǎo shī xìng zhì de zuò yòng。 zhè cóng zhèng zhì huò zhě qí tā jiào shí jì de jiǎo dù kàn， duì sī wēi fū tè kě néng shì yī zhǒng shī wàng， dàn jiù yī gè fěng cì zuò jiā lái shuō， jìn shí nián de shí jiān què shǐ tā dé dào liǎo chōng fēn de xué xí。 tā zǎo qī de liǎng bù fěng cì jié zuò《 tǒng de gù shì》 hé《 shì jì zhàn zhēng》 zhèng shì zài zhè lǐ xiě chéng de。
lí kāi mù 'ěr zhuāng yuán hòu， sī wēi fū tè huí dào 'ài 'ěr lán jì xù zuò tā de mù shī。 wèile jiào huì， tā tóu rù dào zhèng zhì huó dòng zhōng qù。 tā zài hòu bàn shēng xiě liǎo wú shù de zhèng zhì xiǎo cè zǐ， huò dé liǎo xiāng dāng de shēng yù。 suī rán tā yī shí jiān míng wén xiá 'ěr， kě tā de nèi xīn shì gū dú de。 tā shèn zhì yī bù bù zǒu dào liǎo jué wàng de biān yuán。 tā jīng lì liǎo yī qiē， yě kàn tòu liǎo yī qiē， yú shì， tā xiě liǎo《 gé liè fó yóu jì》。
《 gé liè fó yóu jì》《 gé liè fó yóu jì》
1745 nián 10 yuè 19 rì， sī wēi fū tè zài hēi 'àn hé gū kǔ zhōng gào bié liǎo rén shì， zhōng nián 78 suì。
《 gé liè fó yóu jì》 shì yī bù qí shū， tā bù shì dān chún de shǎo 'ér dú wù， ér shì bǎo yù fěng cì hé pī pàn de wén xué jié zuò， yīng guó zhù míng zuò jiā qiáo zhì · ào wēi 'ěr yī shēng zhōng dú liǎo bù xià liù cì， tā shuō：“ rú guǒ yào wǒ kāi yī fèn shū mù， liè chū nǎ pà qí tā shū dū bèi huǐ huài shí yě yào bǎo liú de liù běn shū， wǒ yī dìng huì bǎ《 gé liè fó yóu jì》 liè rù qí zhōng。” zài zhè běn shū zhōng， sī wēi fū tè de xù shì jì qiǎo hé fěng cì cái néng dé dào liǎo lín lí jìn zhì de fǎn yìng。
zuò pǐn de zhù rén gōng lǐ méi 'ěr · gé liè fó shì gè yīng guó wài kē yī shēng， hòu shēng rèn chuán cháng； tā shòu guò liáng hǎo jiào yù， wéi zǔ guó 'ér zì háo， zài zhí yè hé zhèng zhì liǎng fāng miàn sì hū dū pō yòu jiàn shí， kě shì tā běn zhì shàng què shì yī gè píng yōng de rén， ér sī wēi fū tè zhèng shì lì yòng liǎo zhù rén gōng de zhè zhǒng jú xiàn dá dào liǎo zuì chōng fēn de fěng cì xiào guǒ。 quán shū yóu sì juàn zǔ chéng， zài měi yī juàn zhōng gé liè fó dōuyào miàn lín cháng rén nán yǐ xiǎng xiàng de tè shū qíng kuàng。
《 gé liè fó yóu jì》 - gù shì gěng gài
xiǎo shuō yǐ wài kē yī shēng gé liè fó de sì cì chū hǎi háng xíng mào xiǎn de jīng lì wéi xiàn suǒ， yī gòng yóu sì bù fēn zǔ chéng。
dì yī juàn： lì lì pǔ tè（ xiǎo rén guó） yóu jì。 xù shù gé liè fó zài xiǎo rén guó de yóu lì jiàn wén。 zhè lǐ de rén， shēn cháng bù mǎn liù yīng cùn， tā zhì shēn qí zhōng， jiù xiàng wēi wēi de dà shān yī bān。 xiǎo cháo tíng lǐ chōng chì yīn móu guǐ jì、 qīngyà fēn zhēng。 chuān gāo gēn xié de yī pài yǔ chuān dī gēn xié de yī pài hù xiāng gōng jī， shì bù liǎng lì。
dì 'èr juàn： bù luó bǔ dīng nài gé（ dà rén guó） yóu jì。 gé liè fó zài lì lì pǔ tè rén de xīn mù zhōng shì gè chǒng rán dà wù， dàn yī dào bù luó bǔ dīng nài gé， tā jiù xiàng tián jiān de yòu shǔ yī bān xiǎo liǎo。 gé liè fó bèi dāng zuò xiǎo wán yì zhuāng rù shǒu tí xiāng lǐ， dài dào gè chéng zhèn biǎo yǎn zhǎn lǎn。 hòu lái， guó wáng zhào jiàn tā， tā kāng kǎi chén cí， kuā yào zì jǐ de zǔ guó de wěi dà， zhèng zhì de xián míng， fǎ lǜ de gōng zhèng， rán 'ér jūn yī yī zāo dào guó wáng de pēng jī yǔ bó chì。
dì sān juàn： lè pí tā、 bā 'ěr ní bā bǐ、 lā gé nài gé、 gé lè dà zhuī、 rì běn yóu jì。 zhù yào miáo shù gé liè fó zài lè pí tā（ fēi dǎo） hé gé lè dà zhuī（ wū rén dǎo） de yóu lì。 fēi dǎo shàng de rén cháng dé jī xíng guài zhuàng， zhěng tiān dān yōu tiān tǐ huì fā shēng tū biàn， dì qiú huì bèi huì xīng zhuàng jī dé fěn suì， yīn 'ér huáng huáng bù kě zhōng rì。 zài kē xué yuàn lǐ， shè jì jiā men zhèng zài cóng shì yán jiū rú hé cóng huáng guā zhōng tí qǔ yáng guāng qǔ nuǎn， bǎ fèn biàn hái yuán wéi shí wù， fán zhí wú máo de mián yáng， ruǎn huà dà lǐ shí děng kè tí。 zài wū rén dǎo shàng， dǎo zhù jīng tōng wū shù， shàn cháng zhāo hún， tā men bó lǎn gǔ jīn， fā xiàn lì shǐ zhēn xiāng bèi quán guì wāi qū， chāng jì bān de zuò jiā zài hǒngpiàn rén shì。
dì sì juàn： huì yīn guó yóu jì。 xù shù gé liè fó zài zhì mǎ guó de yóu lì。 zài zhè gè guó dù lǐ， jū zhù zǎi dì wèi de shì yòu lǐ xìng de gōng zhèng 'ér chéng shí de zhì mǎ， gōng zhì mǎ qū shǐ de shì yī zhǒng lèi sì rén xíng de chù lèi yé hú， hòu zhě shēng xìng yín dàng、 tān lán、 hàodòu。
《 gé liè fó yóu jì》 - zhù tí sī xiǎng
xiǎo shuō dì yī juàn zhōng suǒ miáo huì de xiǎo rén guó de qíng jǐng nǎi shì dà yīng dì guó de suō yǐng。 yīng guó guó nèi tuō lì dǎng hé huī gé dǎng cháng nián bù xī de dǒu zhēng hé duì wài de zhàn zhēng， shí zhì shàng zhǐ shì zhèng kè men zài yī xiē yǔ guó jì mín shēng háo bù xiāng gān de xiǎo jié shàng gòu xīn dǒu jiǎo。
xiǎo shuō de dì 'èr juàn zé tōng guò dà rén guó guó wáng duì gé liè fó yǐn yǐ wéi róng de yīng guó xuǎn jǔ zhì dù、 yì huì zhì dù yǐ jí zhǒng zhǒng zhèng jiào cuò shī suǒ jìn xíng de jiān ruì de pēng jī， duì yīng guó gè zhǒng zhì dù jí zhèng jiào cuò shī biǎo shì liǎo huái yí hé fǒu dìng。
xiǎo shuō de dì sān juàn， zuò zhě bǎ fěng cì de fēng máng zhǐ xiàng liǎo dāng dài yīng guó zhé xué jiā， tuō lí shí jì、 chén nì yú huàn xiǎng de kē xué jiā， huāng dàn bù jīng de fā míng jiā hé diān dǎo hēi bái de píng lùn jiā hé lì shǐ jiā děng。
xiǎo shuō dì sì juàn， zuò zhě lì yòng gé liè fó huí dá yī lián chuàn wèn tí 'ér jiē lù liǎo zhàn zhēng de shí zhì、 fǎ lǜ de xū wěi hé bù zé shǒu duàn yǐ huò dé guān jué de kě chǐ xíng wéi děng。
zōng guān xiǎo shuō de quán bù qíng jié，《 gé liè fó yóu jì》 zhèng zhì qīng xiàng xiān míng。 tā de pī pàn fēng máng， jí zhōng zài pēng jī dāng shí yīng guó de yì huì zhèng zhì hé fǎn dòng de zōng jiào shì lì。
《 gé liè fó yóu jì》 - zhù yào rén wù xíng xiàng fēn xī
gé liè fó： shì shí bā shì jì yīng guó de pǔ tōng rén， tā rè 'ài láo dòng， gāng yì yǒng gǎn， xīn dì shàn liáng。 tā zài yóu lì zhī zhōng， dòng chá dào shè huì xiàn shí de rì qū duò luò， dé chū yīng guó shè huì bìng bù wén míng de jié lùn。 gé liè fó de xíng xiàng， shì zuò zhě sī xiǎng de tǐ xiàn zhě。 zuò zhě jiāng zì jǐ de zhǒng zhǒng měi dé fù yú bǐ xià de rén wù， gé liè fó bù jì jiào gè rén de dé shī， ér duì bié rén guān huái bèi zhì。 gé liè fó shì gè zhèng miàn de lǐ xiǎng de rén wù。 tā zǒng shì tǎn shuài dì xù shù zì jǐ de ruò diǎn hé cuò wù， ér duì zì jǐ de yōu diǎn zé zhǐ zì bù tí。 tā qiān xùn hàoxué， nǔ lì yòng xīn yǎn guāng qù rèn shí xīn de xiàn shí。 tā cóng bù zì bào zì qì， zòng shǐ jiāng tā dāng zuò wán wù dào gè dì gōng rén guān shǎng， réng tài rán zì ruò， bǎo chí zì shēn de zūn yán， yǐ píng děng de zī tài yǔ dà rén guó de guó wáng jiāo tán。 tā yǒng yú bāng zhù xiǎo rén guó dǐ kàng wài zú rù qīn， dàn duàn rán jù jué wéi xiǎo rén guó guó wáng de qīn lüè kuò zhāng zhèng cè xiào láo。
《 gé liè fó yóu jì》 - wén xué yì shù tè diǎn
《 gé liè fó yóu jì》 de yì shù tè sè zhù yào tǐ xiàn zài fěng cì shǒu fǎ de yùn yòng shàng， jiān ruì shēn suì de fěng cì shì zhè bù zuò pǐn de líng hún。
dāng shí de yīng guó shì zuò zhě pēng jī hé wā kǔ de duì xiàng。 gé liè fó lì xiǎn de dì yī dì shì xiǎo rén guó。 zài zhè gè suō wēi de guó dù lǐ， dǎng pài zhī zhēng shì bù liǎng lì， lín bāng zhī jiān bù dàn xiǎng zhàn shèng 'ér qiě yào nú yì duì fāng。 xiǎo rén guó de guó wáng yòng bǐ sài shéng jì de fāng fǎ xuǎn bá guān yuán， wéi huò dé guó wáng shǎng gěi de jǐ gēn cǎi sè sī xiàn， guān yuán bù xī xiǎo chǒu sì dì zuò zhe kě xiào de biǎo yǎn。 zhè gè xiǎo cháo tíng shì dāng shí yīng guó de suō yǐng， lián lì lì pǔ tè de cháo zhèng fēng xí hé diǎn zhāng zhì dù yě tóng dāng shí de yīng guó zhèng jú yī mó yī yàng； zài dì 'èr juàn lǐ， zuò zhě gèng shì zhǐ míng dào xìng dì pī pēng yīng guó。 gé liè fó cháng piān dà lùn dì xiàng dà rén guó guó wáng jiè shào yīng guó de lì shǐ、 zhì dù hé xiàn zhuàng， yǐ jí zhǒng zhǒng wèiguó jiā wéi zì jǐ biàn jiě de shì， kě shì cóng dà rén guó de yǎn guāng kàn lái， yīng guó de lì shǐ chōng chì zhe“ tān lán、 jìng zhēng、 cán bào、 wěi shàn、 yín yù、 yīn xiǎn hé yě xīn” chǎn shēng de 'è guǒ。 zuò zhě jiè guó wáng de huà，“ nà yàng yī gè bēi wēi wú néng de xiǎo chóng” shì“ zì rán jiè zhōng pá xíng yú dì miàn de xiǎo dú chóng zuì yòu hài de yī lèi”， fěng cì liǎo yīng guó shè huì de fāng fāng miàn miàn； zài dì sān juàn lǐ， tōng guò duì lā gé duō kē xué yuàn rén shì suǒ cóng shì de wú liáo 'ér huāng táng de kē xué yán jiū， fěng cì liǎo yīng guó dāng shí de wěi kē xué； yòu guān lè pí tā dǎo de miáo huì zé pī píng liǎo yīng guó duì 'ài 'ěr lán de bō xuē yā pò。
xiǎo shuō bù dàn pēng jī liǎo shè huì xiàn zhuàng， hái zài gēngshēn de céng miàn shàng， zhí jiē fěng cì liǎo rén xìng běn shēn。 zài dì sì juàn lǐ， guān yú“ qián” de nà duàn yì lùn jiù shì rú cǐ。 gé liè fó lái dào méi yòu jīn qián， méi yòu jūn duì jǐng chá de huì yīn（ mǎ） guó， xiàng tā de mǎ zhù rén jiě shì shuō：“ wǒ men nà lǐ de yě hú rèn wéi， bù guǎn shì yòng hái shì cuán， qián dōushì yuè duō yuè hǎo， méi yòu gè gòu de shí hòu。 yīn wéi tā men tiān xìng rú cǐ， bù shì shē chǐ làng fèi jiù shì tān dé wú yàn。 fù rén xiǎng shòu zhe qióng rén de láo dòng chéng guǒ， ér qióng rén hé fù rén zài shù liàng shàng de bǐ lì shì yī qiān bǐ yī。 yīn cǐ wǒ men de rén mín dà duō shù bèi pò guò zhe bēi cǎn de shēng huó ……”。 zuò zhě zhù yì dào zī běn zhù yì shè huì rén yǔ rén zhī jiān de chún cuì de jīn qián guān xì。 bìng yóu cǐ duì rén xìng chǎn shēng liǎo yí wèn。
zuò zhě zài duì dāng shí yīng guó de yì huì zhèng zhì hé fǎn dòng de zōng jiào shì lì jìn xíng wú qíng、 xīn là de fěng cì、 pēng jī shí， yòu de zhí yán xiāng jī， yòu de lì yòng yì bāng rén de chún shé， yòu de yǐn yù wā kǔ， yòu de yǐ shòu jī fěng rén， fán cǐ zhǒng zhǒng， fēng qù huá jī， shén qíng jiē bèi。
qíng jié de huàn xiǎng xìng yǔ xiàn shí de zhēn shí xìng yòu jī jié hé， yě gěi xiǎo shuō zēng tiān liǎo dú tè de yì shù mèi lì。 suī rán zuò zhě zhǎn xiàn de shì yī gè xū gòu de tóng huà bān de shén qí shì jiè， dàn tā shì yǐ dāng shí yīng guó shè huì shēng huó de zhēn shí wéi jī chǔ de。 yóu yú zuò zhě jīng què、 xì nì、 tiē qiē de miáo shù， shǐ rén gǎn jué bù dào tā shì xū gòu de huàn jǐng， sì hū yī qiēdōu shì zhēn qíng shí shì。 lì rú， zài miáo shù xiǎo rén yǔ dà rén、 rén yǔ wù de bǐ lì guān xì shí， yī gài 'àn yī yǔ shí 'èr zhī bǐ suō xiǎo huò fàng dà。 xiǎo rén guó lǐ de xiǎo rén bǐ gé liè fó xiǎo shí 'èr bèi； dà rén guó de dà rén yòu bǐ gé liè fó dà shí 'èr bèi。 gé liè fó de yī kuài qū qū shǒu pà， kě yǐ gěi xiǎo rén guó huáng gōng dāng dì tǎn； dà rén guó nóng fù de nà kuài shǒu pà， gài zài gé liè fó shēn shàng， jiù biàn chéng yī chuáng bèi dān liǎo。 zài miáo shù fēi dǎo de yùn xíng， gōng diàn de jiàn zhù， chéng zhèn de jié gòu shí， zuò zhě hái yòu yì yùn yòng liǎo shù xué、 wù lǐ、 huà xué、 tiān wén、 yī yào zhū fāng miàn de zhī shí yǔ shù jù。 zhè yàng， jiù shǐ rén wù jú bù xì jié de zhēn shí、 hé xié、 yúnchèn， zhuǎn huà wéi zhěng gè huà miàn、 chǎng jǐng de zhēn shí、 hé xié、 tǒng yī， jí dà dì zēng qiáng liǎo zuò pǐn de zhēn shí gǎn hé gǎn rǎn lì。
zuò zhě de wén bǐ pǔ sù 'ér jiǎn liàn。 lì rú wén zhōng xiě dào gé liè fó zài xiǎo rén guó chāo lù liǎo yī duàn guān fāng wén gào， tā zàn sòng guó wáng shì“ jǔ shì yōng dài” de“ wàn wáng zhī wáng”，“ jiǎo tà dì xīn、 tóu dǐng tài yáng”， děng děng。 gé liè fó hái zài kuò hào lǐ bù dòng shēng sè dì jiě shì dào：“ zhōu jiè yuē shí 'èr yīng lǐ”。 suí zhe zhè jù jiě shì， nà“ zhí dǐ dì qiú sì jí” de wú biān lǐng tǔ dǒu rán suō wéi zhōu biān bù guò shí yú lǐ de dàn wán zhī dì。 zhè zhǒng fǎn chā lìng rén pěng fù。 kuò hào lǐ de huà xiǎn shì chū zuò zhě pǔ sù yòu shí shì qiú shì de xù shù fēng gé， tā sì hū wú yì duì cǐ píng lùn， zhǐ shì zài kè guān zhōng shí dì wèiwǒ men jiě shì lì lì pǔ tè de chǐ dù。 tā céng jīng shēng míng：“ wǒ nìngyuàn yòng zuì jiǎn dān pǔ sù de wén bǐ bǎ píng fán de shì shí xù shù chū lái， yīn wéi wǒ xiě zhè běn shū zhù yào shì xiàng nǐ bào dào， ér bù shì gōng nǐ xiāo qiǎn。” jìn guǎn xiǎo rén guó、 dà rén guó、 huì yīn guó de qíng jǐng gè yì， zhù rén gōng de jìng yù yě bù xiāng tóng， dàn zhěng bù xiǎo shuō de bù jú、 fēng gé qián hòu yī zhì， gé liè fó měi cì chū hǎi de qián yīn hòu guǒ dōuyòu xiáng jìn de jiāo dài， fù zá fēn fán de qíng jié jūn 'àn shí jiān、 kōng jiān shùn xù yǐ cì miáo shù， wén zì jiǎn jié shēng dòng， gù shì xìng qiáng， yīn 'ér shù bǎi nián lái，《 gé liè fó yóu jì》 zài 'ōu zhōu gè guó yǎ sú gòng shǎng， fù rú jiē zhī。
zuò zhě kě fān yì wéi yuē ná dàn · sī wēi fū tè、 qiáo nà sēn · sī wēi fū tè、 jiāng nài shēng · sī wēi fū tè， lìng wài yǐ yòu《 xīn gé liè fó yóu jì》 chū bǎn
《 gé liè fó yóu jì》 - míng jiā diǎn píng
sī wēi fū tè yǐ yōu mò fēng fù liǎo zuò pǐn de dào dé hán yì， yǐ fěng cì jiē lù huāng dàn， bìng tōng guò rén wù xìng gé hé xù shù kuàng jià shǐ rén nán yǐ zhì xìn de shì jiàn chéng wéi xiàn shí， jí shǐ《 lǔ bīn xùn piào liú jì》 yě nán yǐ zài xù shù de kè bó xìng hé duō yàng xìng fāng miàn yǔ qí pì měi。 héng héng（ yīng） sī gè tè
《 gé liè fó yóu jì》 shì yī bù dú jù tè sè de xiǎo shuō jié zuò。 tā hé 18 shì jì 'ōu zhōu zhòng duō xiǎo shuō yī yàng， jì chéng liǎo liú làng hàn xiǎo shuō de jié gòu fāng fǎ， xí yòng liǎo dāng shí liú xíng de miáo xiě lǚ xíng jiàn wén de xiǎo shuō， yóu qí shì háng hǎi mào xiǎn xiǎo shuō de mó shì， xù shù zhù rén gōng gé liè fó zài hǎi shàng piào liú de yī xì liè qí yù。 tā wú yí zài xiāng dāng chéng dù shàng shòu dào dí fú《 lǔ bīn xùn piào liú jì》 hé qí tā yī xiē yóu jì tǐ mào xiǎn xiǎo shuō de yǐng xiǎng。 rán 'ér，《 gé liè fó yóu jì》 hé tā men suī rán xíng shì xiāng sì， xìng zhì què jié rán bù tóng。 tā shì《 tǒng de gù shì》 hé《 shū jí zhī zhàn》 nà lèi gù shì de jìn yī bù fā zhǎn， jù yòu yǔ shí bā shì jì kāi shǐ xīng qǐ de xiě shí zhù yì xiǎo shuō bù tóng de ruò gān dú tè xìng zhì。 héng héng wú hòu kǎi《 jiǎn lùn fěng yù tǐ xiǎo shuō《 gé liè fó yóu jì》 jí qí wén xué dì wèi》
wén xué shǐ duì《 gé liè fó yóu jì》 de píng jià： zuò pǐn jiǎ tuō zhù rén gōng gé liè fó yī shēng zì shù tā shù cì háng hǎi yù xiān， piào liú dào xiǎo rén guó， dà rén guó， fēi dǎo guó hé zhì mǎ guó jǐ gè tóng huà shì guó jiā de zāo yù hé jiàn wén， quán miàn fěng cì， nuó yú liǎo yīng guó de shè huì xiàn shí ． qí zhōng“ dà rén guó” hé“ zhì mǎ guó” shè huì suǒ shè huì lǐ xiǎng suī rán bǎo cún liǎo zōng fǎ shè huì de yuán shǐ tè diǎn， dàn què bāo hán zhe qǐ méng zhù yì de shè huì yuán zé hé jià zhí guān． zuò zhě bǎ fěng cì duì xiàng kuā zhāng biàn xíng dào cán kù shèn zhì huāng dàn de dì bù， yǔ xiàn dài de“ hēi sè yōu mò” yòu xiāng tōng zhī chù．
The book became tremendously popular as soon as it was published (John Gay said in a 1726 letter to Swift that "it is universally read, from the cabinet council to the nursery"); since then, it has never been out of print.
Plot summary
The book presents itself as a simple traveller's narrative with the disingenuous title Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, its authorship assigned only to "Lemuel Gulliver, first a surgeon, then a captain of several ships". Different editions contain different versions of the prefatory material which are basically the same as forewords in modern books. The book proper then is divided into four parts, which are as follows.
Part I: A Voyage to Lilliput
Mural depicting Gulliver surrounded by citizens of Lilliput.
May 4, 1699 — April 13, 1702
The book begins with a short preamble in which Gulliver, in the style of books of the time, gives a brief outline of his life and history prior to his voyages. He enjoys traveling, although it is that love of travel that is his downfall.
On his first voyage, Gulliver is washed ashore after a shipwreck and awakes to find himself a prisoner of a race of people one-twelfth the size of normal human beings, less than 6 inches high/15 cm high, who are inhabitants of the neighbouring and rival countries of Lilliput and Blefuscu. After giving assurances of his good behaviour, he is given a residence in Lilliput and becomes a favourite of the court. From there, the book follows Gulliver's observations on the Court of Lilliput, which is intended to satirise the court of George I (King of England at the time of the writing of the Travels). Gulliver assists the Lilliputians to subdue their neighbours the Blefuscudians by stealing their fleet. However, he refuses to reduce the country to a province of Lilliput, displeasing the King and the court. Gulliver is charged with treason and sentenced to be blinded. With the assistance of a kind friend, Gulliver escapes to Blefuscu, where he spots and retrieves an abandoned boat and sails out to be rescued by a passing ship which safely takes him back home. The Building of residence that Gulliver is given in Lilliput is of note, as in this section he describes it as a temple in which there had some years ago been a murder and the building had been abandoned. Swift in this section, is revealing himself as a member of the Freemasons; this being an allusion to the murder of the grand master of the Freemasons, Hiram Abiff.
Part II: A Voyage to Brobdingnag
Gulliver Exhibited to the Brobdingnag Farmer by Richard Redgrave
June 20, 1702 — June 3, 1706
When the sailing ship Adventure is steered off course by storms and forced to go in to land for want of fresh water, Gulliver is abandoned by his companions and found by a farmer who is 72 feet (22 m) tall (the scale of Lilliput is approximately 1:12; of Brobdingnag 12:1, judging from Gulliver estimating a man's step being 10 yards (9.1 m)). He brings Gulliver home and his daughter cares for Gulliver. The farmer treats him as a curiosity and exhibits him for money. The word gets out and the Queen of Brobdingnag wants to see the show. She loves Gulliver and he is then bought by her and kept as a favourite at court.
Since Gulliver is too small to use their huge chairs, beds, knives and forks, the queen commissions a small house to be built for Gulliver so that he can be carried around in it. This box is referred to as his travelling box. In between small adventures such as fighting giant wasps and being carried to the roof by a monkey, he discusses the state of Europe with the King. The King is not impressed with Gulliver's accounts of Europe, especially upon learning of the usage of guns and cannons. On a trip to the seaside, his "travelling box" is seized by a giant eagle which drops Gulliver and his box right into the sea where he is picked up by some sailors, who return him to England.
Part III: A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, Glubbdubdrib, and Japan
August 5, 1706 — April 16, 1710
After Gulliver's ship is attacked by pirates, he is marooned near a desolate rocky island, near India. Fortunately he is rescued by the flying island of Laputa, a kingdom devoted to the arts of music and mathematics but utterly unable to use these for practical ends.
Laputa's method of throwing rocks at rebellious surface cities also seems the first time that aerial bombardment was conceived as a method of warfare. While there, he tours the country as the guest of a low-ranking courtier and sees the ruin brought about by blind pursuit of science without practical results in a satire on the Royal Society and its experiments.
While waiting for passage Gulliver takes a short side-trip to the island of Glubbdubdrib, where he visits a magician's dwelling and discusses history with the ghosts of historical figures, the most obvious restatement of the "ancients versus moderns" theme in the book. He also encounters the struldbrugs, unfortunates who are immortal, but not forever young, but rather forever old, complete with the infirmities of old age. Gulliver is then taken to Balnibarbi to await a Dutch trader who can take him on to Japan. While there, Gulliver asks the Emperor "to excuse my performing the ceremony imposed upon my countrymen of trampling upon the crucifix", which the Emperor grants. Gulliver returns home, determined to stay there for the rest of his days.
Part IV: A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms
September 7, 1710 – July 2, 1715
Despite his earlier intention of remaining at home, Gulliver returns to sea as the captain of a 35ton merchant man as he is bored of his employment as a surgeon. On this voyage he is forced to find new additions to his crew who he believes to have turned the rest of the crew against him. His pirates then mutiny and after keeping him contained for some time resolve to leave him on the first piece of land they come across and continue on as pirates. He is abandoned in a landing boat and comes first upon a race of (apparently) hideous deformed creatures to which he conceives a violent antipathy. Shortly thereafter he meets a horse and comes to understand that the horses (in their language Houyhnhnm or "the perfection of nature") are the rulers and the deformed creatures ("Yahoos") are human beings in their base form. Gulliver becomes a member of the horse's household, and comes to both admire and emulate the Houyhnhnms and their lifestyle, rejecting humans as merely Yahoos endowed with some semblance of reason which they only use to exacerbate and add to the vices Nature gave them. However, an Assembly of the Houyhnhnms rules that Gulliver, a Yahoo with some semblance of reason, is a danger to their civilization and he is expelled. He is then rescued, against his will, by a Portuguese ship, and is surprised to see that Captain Pedro de Mendez, a Yahoo, is a wise, courteous and generous person. He returns to his home in England. However, he is unable to reconcile himself to living among Yahoos; he becomes a recluse, remaining in his house, largely avoiding his family and his wife, and spending several hours a day speaking with the horses in his stables.
Composition and history
It is uncertain exactly when Swift started writing Gulliver's Travels, but some sources suggest as early as 1713 when Swift, Gay, Pope, Arbuthnot and others formed the Scriblerus Club, with the aim of satirising then-popular literary genres. Swift, runs the theory, was charged with writing the memoirs of the club's imaginary author, Martinus Scriblerus. It is known from Swift's correspondence that the composition proper began in 1720 with the mirror-themed parts I and II written first, Part IV next in 1723 and Part III written in 1724, but amendments were made even while Swift was writing Drapier's Letters. By August 1725 the book was completed, and as Gulliver's Travels was a transparently anti-Whig satire it is likely that Swift had the manuscript copied so his handwriting could not be used as evidence if a prosecution should arise (as had happened in the case of some of his Irish pamphlets). In March 1726 Swift travelled to London to have his work published; the manuscript was secretly delivered to the publisher Benjamin Motte, who used five printing houses to speed production and avoid piracy. Motte, recognising a bestseller but fearing prosecution, simply cut or altered the worst offending passages (such as the descriptions of the court contests in Lilliput or the rebellion of Lindalino), added some material in defence of Queen Anne to book II, and published it anyway. The first edition was released in two volumes on October 26, 1726, priced 8s. 6d. The book was an instant sensation and sold out its first run in less than a week.
Motte published Gulliver's Travels anonymously and, as was often the way with fashionable works, several follow-ups (Memoirs of the Court of Lilliput), parodies (Two Lilliputian Odes, The first on the Famous Engine With Which Captain Gulliver extinguish'd the Palace Fire...) and "keys" (Gulliver Decipher'd and Lemuel Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Regions of the World Compendiously Methodiz'd, the second by Edmund Curll who had similarly written a "key" to Swift's Tale of a Tub in 1705) were produced over the next few years. These were mostly printed anonymously (or occasionally pseudonymously) and were quickly forgotten. Swift had nothing to do with any of these and specifically disavowed them in Faulkner's edition of 1735. However, Swift's friend Alexander Pope wrote a set of five Verses on Gulliver's Travels which Swift liked so much that he added them to the second edition of the book, though they are not nowadays generally included.
Faulkner's 1735 edition
In 1735 an Irish publisher, George Faulkner, printed a complete set of Swift's works to date, Volume III of which was Gulliver's Travels. As revealed in Faulkner's "Advertisement to the Reader", Faulkner had access to an annotated copy of Motte's work by "a friend of the author" (generally believed to be Swift's friend Charles Ford) which reproduced most of the manuscript free of Motte's amendments, the original manuscript having been destroyed. It is also believed that Swift at least reviewed proofs of Faulkner's edition before printing but this cannot be proven. Generally, this is regarded as the editio princeps of Gulliver's Travels with one small exception, discussed below.
This edition had an added piece by Swift, A letter from Capt. Gulliver to his Cousin Sympson which complained of Motte's alterations to the original text, saying he had so much altered it that "I do hardly know mine own work" and repudiating all of Motte's changes as well as all the keys, libels, parodies, second parts and continuations that had appeared in the intervening years. This letter now forms part of many standard texts.
Lindalino
The short (five paragraph) episode in Part III, telling of the rebellion of the surface city of Lindalino against the flying island of Laputa, was an obvious allegory to the affair of Drapier's Letters of which Swift was proud. Lindalino represented Dublin and the impositions of Laputa represented the British imposition of William Wood's poor-quality copper currency. Faulkner had omitted this passage, either because of political sensitivities raised by being an Irish publisher printing an anti-British satire or possibly because the text he worked from didn't include the passage. It wasn't until 1899 that the passage was finally included in a new edition of the Collected Works. Modern editions thus derive from the Faulkner edition with the inclusion of this 1899 addendum.
Isaac Asimov notes in The Annotated Gulliver that Lindalino is composed of double lins; hence, Dublin.
Major themes
Gulliver's Travels has been the recipient of several designations: from Menippean satire to a children's story, from proto-Science Fiction to a forerunner of the modern novel.
Published seven years after Daniel Defoe's wildly successful Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels may be read as a systematic rebuttal of Defoe's optimistic account of human capability. In The Unthinkable Swift: The Spontaneous Philosophy of a Church of England Man Warren Montag argues that Swift was concerned to refute the notion that the individual precedes society, as Defoe's novel seems to suggest. Swift regarded such thought as a dangerous endorsement of Thomas Hobbes' radical political philosophy and for this reason Gulliver repeatedly encounters established societies rather than desolate islands. The captain who invites Gulliver to serve as a surgeon aboard his ship on the disastrous third voyage is named Robinson.
Possibly one of the reasons for the book's classic status is that it can be seen as many things to many different people. Broadly, the book has three themes:
* a satirical view of the state of European government, and of petty differences between religions.
* an inquiry into whether men are inherently corrupt or whether they become corrupted.
* a restatement of the older "ancients versus moderns" controversy previously addressed by Swift in The Battle of the Books.
In terms of storytelling and construction the parts follow a pattern:
* The causes of Gulliver's misadventures become more malignant as time goes on - he is first shipwrecked, then abandoned, then attacked by strangers, then attacked by his own crew.
* Gulliver's attitude hardens as the book progresses — he is genuinely surprised by the viciousness and politicking of the Lilliputians but finds the behaviour of the Yahoos in the fourth part reflective of the behaviour of people.
* Each part is the reverse of the preceding part — Gulliver is big/small/sensible/ignorant, the countries are complex/simple/scientific/natural, forms of Government are worse/better/worse/better than England's.
* Gulliver's view between parts contrasts with its other coinciding part — Gulliver sees the tiny Lilliputians as being vicious and unscrupulous, and then the king of Brobdingnag sees Europe in exactly the same light. Gulliver sees the Laputians as unreasonable, and Gulliver's Houyhnhnm master sees humanity as equally so.
* No form of government is ideal — the simplistic Brobdingnagians enjoy public executions and have streets infested with beggars, the honest and upright Houyhnhnms who have no word for lying are happy to suppress the true nature of Gulliver as a Yahoo and are equally unconcerned about his reaction to being expelled.
* Specific individuals may be good even where the race is bad — Gulliver finds a friend in each of his travels and, despite Gulliver's rejection and horror toward all Yahoos, is treated very well by the Portuguese captain, Don Pedro, who returns him to England at the novel's end.
Of equal interest is the character of Gulliver himself — he progresses from a cheery optimist at the start of the first part to the pompous misanthrope of the book's conclusion and we may well have to filter our understanding of the work if we are to believe the final misanthrope wrote the whole work. In this sense Gulliver's Travels is a very modern and complex novel. There are subtle shifts throughout the book, such as when Gulliver begins to see all humans, not just those in Houyhnhnm-land, as Yahoos.
Despite the depth and subtlety of the book, it is often classified as a children's story because of the popularity of the Lilliput section (frequently bowdlerised) as a book for children. It is still possible to buy books entitled Gulliver's Travels which contain only parts of the Lilliput voyage.
Cultural influences
From 1738 to 1746, Edward Cave published in occasional issues of The Gentleman's Magazine semi-fictionalized accounts of contemporary debates in the two Houses of Parliament under the title of Debates in the Senate of Lilliput. The names of the speakers in the debates, other individuals mentioned, politicians and monarchs present and past, and most other countries and cities of Europe ("Degulia") and America ("Columbia") were thinly disguised under a variety of Swiftian pseudonyms. The disguised names, and the pretence that the accounts were really translations of speeches by Lilliputian politicians, were a reaction to a Parliamentary act forbidding the publication of accounts of its debates. Cave employed several writers on this series: William Guthrie (June 1738-Nov. 1740), Samuel Johnson (Nov. 1740-Feb. 1743), and John Hawkesworth (Feb. 1743-Dec. 1746).
The popularity of Gulliver is such that the term "Lilliputian" has entered many languages as an adjective meaning "small and delicate". There is even a brand of cigar called Lilliput which is (not surprisingly) small. In addition to this there are a series of collectible model-houses known as "Lilliput Lane". The smallest light bulb fitting (5mm diameter) in the Edison screw series is called the "Lilliput Edison screw". In Dutch, the word "Lilliputter" is used for adults shorter than 1.30 meters. Conversely, "Brobdingnagian" appears in the Oxford English Dictionary as a synonym for "very large" or "gigantic".
In like vein, the term "yahoo" is often encountered as a synonym for "ruffian" or "thug".
In the discipline of computer architecture, the terms big-endian and little-endian are used to describe two possible ways of laying out bytes in memory; see Endianness. One of the satirical conflicts in the book is between two religious sects of Lilliputians, some of whom who prefer cracking open their soft-boiled eggs from the little end, while others prefer the big end.
zuò zhě：（ yīng） qiáo nà sēn · sī wēi fū tè
chéng shū shí jiān： 1726 nián
tè sè zhī chù： zhǐ zài pēng jī dāng shí yīng guó de yì huì zhèng zhì hé fǎn dòng zōng jiào shì lì de huàn xiǎng yóu jì tǐ fěng cì xiǎo shuō
《 gé liè fó yóu jì》 - zuò zhě jiǎn jiè
《 gé liè fó yóu jì》 qiáo nà sēn · sī wēi fū tè
qiáo nà sēn · sī wēi fū tè（ 1667 ～ 1745）， yǐ fěng cì zuò jiā míng chuí qīng shǐ。 tā shì yī míng mù shī， yī wèi zhèng zhì zhuàn gǎo rén， yī gè cái zǐ。 tā chū shēng yú 'ài 'ěr lán shǒu fǔ dū bólín， liù suì shàng xué， zài jī 'ěr kǎi ní xué xiào dú liǎo bā nián。 1682 nián jìn dū bólín zhù míng de sān yī xué yuàn xué xí， tā chú liǎo duì lì shǐ hèshī gē yòu xīng qù wài， bié de yī gài bù xǐ huān。 hái shì xué xiào “ tè bié tōng róng ” cái ná dào xué wèi。 zhī hòu， tā zài sān yī xué yuàn jì xù dú shuò shì， yī zhí dào yī liù bā liù nián。 1688 nián， ài 'ěr lán miàn lín yīng guó jūn duì de rù qīn， tā qián wǎng yīng guó xún zhǎo chū lù。
jiē xià lái de shí nián shì duì sī wēi fū tè yī shēng zhōng jù yòu zhòng yào yǐng xiǎng de guān jiàn shí qī。 tā tōng guò qīn qī de guān xì， zài mù 'ěr zhuāng yuán dāng sī rén mì shū。 mù 'ěr zhuāng yuán de zhù rén tǎn pǔ 'ěr shì yī wèi jīng yàn fēng fù de zhèng zhì jiā， yě shì wèi zhé xué jiā， xiū yǎng jí hǎo， zhè wú yí gěi sī wēi fū tè qǐ liǎo jī jí de， shèn zhì shì dǎo shī xìng zhì de zuò yòng。 zhè cóng zhèng zhì huò zhě qí tā jiào shí jì de jiǎo dù kàn， duì sī wēi fū tè kě néng shì yī zhǒng shī wàng， dàn jiù yī gè fěng cì zuò jiā lái shuō， jìn shí nián de shí jiān què shǐ tā dé dào liǎo chōng fēn de xué xí。 tā zǎo qī de liǎng bù fěng cì jié zuò《 tǒng de gù shì》 hé《 shì jì zhàn zhēng》 zhèng shì zài zhè lǐ xiě chéng de。
lí kāi mù 'ěr zhuāng yuán hòu， sī wēi fū tè huí dào 'ài 'ěr lán jì xù zuò tā de mù shī。 wèile jiào huì， tā tóu rù dào zhèng zhì huó dòng zhōng qù。 tā zài hòu bàn shēng xiě liǎo wú shù de zhèng zhì xiǎo cè zǐ， huò dé liǎo xiāng dāng de shēng yù。 suī rán tā yī shí jiān míng wén xiá 'ěr， kě tā de nèi xīn shì gū dú de。 tā shèn zhì yī bù bù zǒu dào liǎo jué wàng de biān yuán。 tā jīng lì liǎo yī qiē， yě kàn tòu liǎo yī qiē， yú shì， tā xiě liǎo《 gé liè fó yóu jì》。
《 gé liè fó yóu jì》《 gé liè fó yóu jì》
1745 nián 10 yuè 19 rì， sī wēi fū tè zài hēi 'àn hé gū kǔ zhōng gào bié liǎo rén shì， zhōng nián 78 suì。
《 gé liè fó yóu jì》 shì yī bù qí shū， tā bù shì dān chún de shǎo 'ér dú wù， ér shì bǎo yù fěng cì hé pī pàn de wén xué jié zuò， yīng guó zhù míng zuò jiā qiáo zhì · ào wēi 'ěr yī shēng zhōng dú liǎo bù xià liù cì， tā shuō：“ rú guǒ yào wǒ kāi yī fèn shū mù， liè chū nǎ pà qí tā shū dū bèi huǐ huài shí yě yào bǎo liú de liù běn shū， wǒ yī dìng huì bǎ《 gé liè fó yóu jì》 liè rù qí zhōng。” zài zhè běn shū zhōng， sī wēi fū tè de xù shì jì qiǎo hé fěng cì cái néng dé dào liǎo lín lí jìn zhì de fǎn yìng。
zuò pǐn de zhù rén gōng lǐ méi 'ěr · gé liè fó shì gè yīng guó wài kē yī shēng， hòu shēng rèn chuán cháng； tā shòu guò liáng hǎo jiào yù， wéi zǔ guó 'ér zì háo， zài zhí yè hé zhèng zhì liǎng fāng miàn sì hū dū pō yòu jiàn shí， kě shì tā běn zhì shàng què shì yī gè píng yōng de rén， ér sī wēi fū tè zhèng shì lì yòng liǎo zhù rén gōng de zhè zhǒng jú xiàn dá dào liǎo zuì chōng fēn de fěng cì xiào guǒ。 quán shū yóu sì juàn zǔ chéng， zài měi yī juàn zhōng gé liè fó dōuyào miàn lín cháng rén nán yǐ xiǎng xiàng de tè shū qíng kuàng。
《 gé liè fó yóu jì》 - gù shì gěng gài
xiǎo shuō yǐ wài kē yī shēng gé liè fó de sì cì chū hǎi háng xíng mào xiǎn de jīng lì wéi xiàn suǒ， yī gòng yóu sì bù fēn zǔ chéng。
dì yī juàn： lì lì pǔ tè（ xiǎo rén guó） yóu jì。 xù shù gé liè fó zài xiǎo rén guó de yóu lì jiàn wén。 zhè lǐ de rén， shēn cháng bù mǎn liù yīng cùn， tā zhì shēn qí zhōng， jiù xiàng wēi wēi de dà shān yī bān。 xiǎo cháo tíng lǐ chōng chì yīn móu guǐ jì、 qīngyà fēn zhēng。 chuān gāo gēn xié de yī pài yǔ chuān dī gēn xié de yī pài hù xiāng gōng jī， shì bù liǎng lì。
dì 'èr juàn： bù luó bǔ dīng nài gé（ dà rén guó） yóu jì。 gé liè fó zài lì lì pǔ tè rén de xīn mù zhōng shì gè chǒng rán dà wù， dàn yī dào bù luó bǔ dīng nài gé， tā jiù xiàng tián jiān de yòu shǔ yī bān xiǎo liǎo。 gé liè fó bèi dāng zuò xiǎo wán yì zhuāng rù shǒu tí xiāng lǐ， dài dào gè chéng zhèn biǎo yǎn zhǎn lǎn。 hòu lái， guó wáng zhào jiàn tā， tā kāng kǎi chén cí， kuā yào zì jǐ de zǔ guó de wěi dà， zhèng zhì de xián míng， fǎ lǜ de gōng zhèng， rán 'ér jūn yī yī zāo dào guó wáng de pēng jī yǔ bó chì。
dì sān juàn： lè pí tā、 bā 'ěr ní bā bǐ、 lā gé nài gé、 gé lè dà zhuī、 rì běn yóu jì。 zhù yào miáo shù gé liè fó zài lè pí tā（ fēi dǎo） hé gé lè dà zhuī（ wū rén dǎo） de yóu lì。 fēi dǎo shàng de rén cháng dé jī xíng guài zhuàng， zhěng tiān dān yōu tiān tǐ huì fā shēng tū biàn， dì qiú huì bèi huì xīng zhuàng jī dé fěn suì， yīn 'ér huáng huáng bù kě zhōng rì。 zài kē xué yuàn lǐ， shè jì jiā men zhèng zài cóng shì yán jiū rú hé cóng huáng guā zhōng tí qǔ yáng guāng qǔ nuǎn， bǎ fèn biàn hái yuán wéi shí wù， fán zhí wú máo de mián yáng， ruǎn huà dà lǐ shí děng kè tí。 zài wū rén dǎo shàng， dǎo zhù jīng tōng wū shù， shàn cháng zhāo hún， tā men bó lǎn gǔ jīn， fā xiàn lì shǐ zhēn xiāng bèi quán guì wāi qū， chāng jì bān de zuò jiā zài hǒngpiàn rén shì。
dì sì juàn： huì yīn guó yóu jì。 xù shù gé liè fó zài zhì mǎ guó de yóu lì。 zài zhè gè guó dù lǐ， jū zhù zǎi dì wèi de shì yòu lǐ xìng de gōng zhèng 'ér chéng shí de zhì mǎ， gōng zhì mǎ qū shǐ de shì yī zhǒng lèi sì rén xíng de chù lèi yé hú， hòu zhě shēng xìng yín dàng、 tān lán、 hàodòu。
《 gé liè fó yóu jì》 - zhù tí sī xiǎng
xiǎo shuō dì yī juàn zhōng suǒ miáo huì de xiǎo rén guó de qíng jǐng nǎi shì dà yīng dì guó de suō yǐng。 yīng guó guó nèi tuō lì dǎng hé huī gé dǎng cháng nián bù xī de dǒu zhēng hé duì wài de zhàn zhēng， shí zhì shàng zhǐ shì zhèng kè men zài yī xiē yǔ guó jì mín shēng háo bù xiāng gān de xiǎo jié shàng gòu xīn dǒu jiǎo。
xiǎo shuō de dì 'èr juàn zé tōng guò dà rén guó guó wáng duì gé liè fó yǐn yǐ wéi róng de yīng guó xuǎn jǔ zhì dù、 yì huì zhì dù yǐ jí zhǒng zhǒng zhèng jiào cuò shī suǒ jìn xíng de jiān ruì de pēng jī， duì yīng guó gè zhǒng zhì dù jí zhèng jiào cuò shī biǎo shì liǎo huái yí hé fǒu dìng。
xiǎo shuō de dì sān juàn， zuò zhě bǎ fěng cì de fēng máng zhǐ xiàng liǎo dāng dài yīng guó zhé xué jiā， tuō lí shí jì、 chén nì yú huàn xiǎng de kē xué jiā， huāng dàn bù jīng de fā míng jiā hé diān dǎo hēi bái de píng lùn jiā hé lì shǐ jiā děng。
xiǎo shuō dì sì juàn， zuò zhě lì yòng gé liè fó huí dá yī lián chuàn wèn tí 'ér jiē lù liǎo zhàn zhēng de shí zhì、 fǎ lǜ de xū wěi hé bù zé shǒu duàn yǐ huò dé guān jué de kě chǐ xíng wéi děng。
zōng guān xiǎo shuō de quán bù qíng jié，《 gé liè fó yóu jì》 zhèng zhì qīng xiàng xiān míng。 tā de pī pàn fēng máng， jí zhōng zài pēng jī dāng shí yīng guó de yì huì zhèng zhì hé fǎn dòng de zōng jiào shì lì。
《 gé liè fó yóu jì》 - zhù yào rén wù xíng xiàng fēn xī
gé liè fó： shì shí bā shì jì yīng guó de pǔ tōng rén， tā rè 'ài láo dòng， gāng yì yǒng gǎn， xīn dì shàn liáng。 tā zài yóu lì zhī zhōng， dòng chá dào shè huì xiàn shí de rì qū duò luò， dé chū yīng guó shè huì bìng bù wén míng de jié lùn。 gé liè fó de xíng xiàng， shì zuò zhě sī xiǎng de tǐ xiàn zhě。 zuò zhě jiāng zì jǐ de zhǒng zhǒng měi dé fù yú bǐ xià de rén wù， gé liè fó bù jì jiào gè rén de dé shī， ér duì bié rén guān huái bèi zhì。 gé liè fó shì gè zhèng miàn de lǐ xiǎng de rén wù。 tā zǒng shì tǎn shuài dì xù shù zì jǐ de ruò diǎn hé cuò wù， ér duì zì jǐ de yōu diǎn zé zhǐ zì bù tí。 tā qiān xùn hàoxué， nǔ lì yòng xīn yǎn guāng qù rèn shí xīn de xiàn shí。 tā cóng bù zì bào zì qì， zòng shǐ jiāng tā dāng zuò wán wù dào gè dì gōng rén guān shǎng， réng tài rán zì ruò， bǎo chí zì shēn de zūn yán， yǐ píng děng de zī tài yǔ dà rén guó de guó wáng jiāo tán。 tā yǒng yú bāng zhù xiǎo rén guó dǐ kàng wài zú rù qīn， dàn duàn rán jù jué wéi xiǎo rén guó guó wáng de qīn lüè kuò zhāng zhèng cè xiào láo。
《 gé liè fó yóu jì》 - wén xué yì shù tè diǎn
《 gé liè fó yóu jì》 de yì shù tè sè zhù yào tǐ xiàn zài fěng cì shǒu fǎ de yùn yòng shàng， jiān ruì shēn suì de fěng cì shì zhè bù zuò pǐn de líng hún。
dāng shí de yīng guó shì zuò zhě pēng jī hé wā kǔ de duì xiàng。 gé liè fó lì xiǎn de dì yī dì shì xiǎo rén guó。 zài zhè gè suō wēi de guó dù lǐ， dǎng pài zhī zhēng shì bù liǎng lì， lín bāng zhī jiān bù dàn xiǎng zhàn shèng 'ér qiě yào nú yì duì fāng。 xiǎo rén guó de guó wáng yòng bǐ sài shéng jì de fāng fǎ xuǎn bá guān yuán， wéi huò dé guó wáng shǎng gěi de jǐ gēn cǎi sè sī xiàn， guān yuán bù xī xiǎo chǒu sì dì zuò zhe kě xiào de biǎo yǎn。 zhè gè xiǎo cháo tíng shì dāng shí yīng guó de suō yǐng， lián lì lì pǔ tè de cháo zhèng fēng xí hé diǎn zhāng zhì dù yě tóng dāng shí de yīng guó zhèng jú yī mó yī yàng； zài dì 'èr juàn lǐ， zuò zhě gèng shì zhǐ míng dào xìng dì pī pēng yīng guó。 gé liè fó cháng piān dà lùn dì xiàng dà rén guó guó wáng jiè shào yīng guó de lì shǐ、 zhì dù hé xiàn zhuàng， yǐ jí zhǒng zhǒng wèiguó jiā wéi zì jǐ biàn jiě de shì， kě shì cóng dà rén guó de yǎn guāng kàn lái， yīng guó de lì shǐ chōng chì zhe“ tān lán、 jìng zhēng、 cán bào、 wěi shàn、 yín yù、 yīn xiǎn hé yě xīn” chǎn shēng de 'è guǒ。 zuò zhě jiè guó wáng de huà，“ nà yàng yī gè bēi wēi wú néng de xiǎo chóng” shì“ zì rán jiè zhōng pá xíng yú dì miàn de xiǎo dú chóng zuì yòu hài de yī lèi”， fěng cì liǎo yīng guó shè huì de fāng fāng miàn miàn； zài dì sān juàn lǐ， tōng guò duì lā gé duō kē xué yuàn rén shì suǒ cóng shì de wú liáo 'ér huāng táng de kē xué yán jiū， fěng cì liǎo yīng guó dāng shí de wěi kē xué； yòu guān lè pí tā dǎo de miáo huì zé pī píng liǎo yīng guó duì 'ài 'ěr lán de bō xuē yā pò。
xiǎo shuō bù dàn pēng jī liǎo shè huì xiàn zhuàng， hái zài gēngshēn de céng miàn shàng， zhí jiē fěng cì liǎo rén xìng běn shēn。 zài dì sì juàn lǐ， guān yú“ qián” de nà duàn yì lùn jiù shì rú cǐ。 gé liè fó lái dào méi yòu jīn qián， méi yòu jūn duì jǐng chá de huì yīn（ mǎ） guó， xiàng tā de mǎ zhù rén jiě shì shuō：“ wǒ men nà lǐ de yě hú rèn wéi， bù guǎn shì yòng hái shì cuán， qián dōushì yuè duō yuè hǎo， méi yòu gè gòu de shí hòu。 yīn wéi tā men tiān xìng rú cǐ， bù shì shē chǐ làng fèi jiù shì tān dé wú yàn。 fù rén xiǎng shòu zhe qióng rén de láo dòng chéng guǒ， ér qióng rén hé fù rén zài shù liàng shàng de bǐ lì shì yī qiān bǐ yī。 yīn cǐ wǒ men de rén mín dà duō shù bèi pò guò zhe bēi cǎn de shēng huó ……”。 zuò zhě zhù yì dào zī běn zhù yì shè huì rén yǔ rén zhī jiān de chún cuì de jīn qián guān xì。 bìng yóu cǐ duì rén xìng chǎn shēng liǎo yí wèn。
zuò zhě zài duì dāng shí yīng guó de yì huì zhèng zhì hé fǎn dòng de zōng jiào shì lì jìn xíng wú qíng、 xīn là de fěng cì、 pēng jī shí， yòu de zhí yán xiāng jī， yòu de lì yòng yì bāng rén de chún shé， yòu de yǐn yù wā kǔ， yòu de yǐ shòu jī fěng rén， fán cǐ zhǒng zhǒng， fēng qù huá jī， shén qíng jiē bèi。
qíng jié de huàn xiǎng xìng yǔ xiàn shí de zhēn shí xìng yòu jī jié hé， yě gěi xiǎo shuō zēng tiān liǎo dú tè de yì shù mèi lì。 suī rán zuò zhě zhǎn xiàn de shì yī gè xū gòu de tóng huà bān de shén qí shì jiè， dàn tā shì yǐ dāng shí yīng guó shè huì shēng huó de zhēn shí wéi jī chǔ de。 yóu yú zuò zhě jīng què、 xì nì、 tiē qiē de miáo shù， shǐ rén gǎn jué bù dào tā shì xū gòu de huàn jǐng， sì hū yī qiēdōu shì zhēn qíng shí shì。 lì rú， zài miáo shù xiǎo rén yǔ dà rén、 rén yǔ wù de bǐ lì guān xì shí， yī gài 'àn yī yǔ shí 'èr zhī bǐ suō xiǎo huò fàng dà。 xiǎo rén guó lǐ de xiǎo rén bǐ gé liè fó xiǎo shí 'èr bèi； dà rén guó de dà rén yòu bǐ gé liè fó dà shí 'èr bèi。 gé liè fó de yī kuài qū qū shǒu pà， kě yǐ gěi xiǎo rén guó huáng gōng dāng dì tǎn； dà rén guó nóng fù de nà kuài shǒu pà， gài zài gé liè fó shēn shàng， jiù biàn chéng yī chuáng bèi dān liǎo。 zài miáo shù fēi dǎo de yùn xíng， gōng diàn de jiàn zhù， chéng zhèn de jié gòu shí， zuò zhě hái yòu yì yùn yòng liǎo shù xué、 wù lǐ、 huà xué、 tiān wén、 yī yào zhū fāng miàn de zhī shí yǔ shù jù。 zhè yàng， jiù shǐ rén wù jú bù xì jié de zhēn shí、 hé xié、 yúnchèn， zhuǎn huà wéi zhěng gè huà miàn、 chǎng jǐng de zhēn shí、 hé xié、 tǒng yī， jí dà dì zēng qiáng liǎo zuò pǐn de zhēn shí gǎn hé gǎn rǎn lì。
zuò zhě de wén bǐ pǔ sù 'ér jiǎn liàn。 lì rú wén zhōng xiě dào gé liè fó zài xiǎo rén guó chāo lù liǎo yī duàn guān fāng wén gào， tā zàn sòng guó wáng shì“ jǔ shì yōng dài” de“ wàn wáng zhī wáng”，“ jiǎo tà dì xīn、 tóu dǐng tài yáng”， děng děng。 gé liè fó hái zài kuò hào lǐ bù dòng shēng sè dì jiě shì dào：“ zhōu jiè yuē shí 'èr yīng lǐ”。 suí zhe zhè jù jiě shì， nà“ zhí dǐ dì qiú sì jí” de wú biān lǐng tǔ dǒu rán suō wéi zhōu biān bù guò shí yú lǐ de dàn wán zhī dì。 zhè zhǒng fǎn chā lìng rén pěng fù。 kuò hào lǐ de huà xiǎn shì chū zuò zhě pǔ sù yòu shí shì qiú shì de xù shù fēng gé， tā sì hū wú yì duì cǐ píng lùn， zhǐ shì zài kè guān zhōng shí dì wèiwǒ men jiě shì lì lì pǔ tè de chǐ dù。 tā céng jīng shēng míng：“ wǒ nìngyuàn yòng zuì jiǎn dān pǔ sù de wén bǐ bǎ píng fán de shì shí xù shù chū lái， yīn wéi wǒ xiě zhè běn shū zhù yào shì xiàng nǐ bào dào， ér bù shì gōng nǐ xiāo qiǎn。” jìn guǎn xiǎo rén guó、 dà rén guó、 huì yīn guó de qíng jǐng gè yì， zhù rén gōng de jìng yù yě bù xiāng tóng， dàn zhěng bù xiǎo shuō de bù jú、 fēng gé qián hòu yī zhì， gé liè fó měi cì chū hǎi de qián yīn hòu guǒ dōuyòu xiáng jìn de jiāo dài， fù zá fēn fán de qíng jié jūn 'àn shí jiān、 kōng jiān shùn xù yǐ cì miáo shù， wén zì jiǎn jié shēng dòng， gù shì xìng qiáng， yīn 'ér shù bǎi nián lái，《 gé liè fó yóu jì》 zài 'ōu zhōu gè guó yǎ sú gòng shǎng， fù rú jiē zhī。
zuò zhě kě fān yì wéi yuē ná dàn · sī wēi fū tè、 qiáo nà sēn · sī wēi fū tè、 jiāng nài shēng · sī wēi fū tè， lìng wài yǐ yòu《 xīn gé liè fó yóu jì》 chū bǎn
《 gé liè fó yóu jì》 - míng jiā diǎn píng
sī wēi fū tè yǐ yōu mò fēng fù liǎo zuò pǐn de dào dé hán yì， yǐ fěng cì jiē lù huāng dàn， bìng tōng guò rén wù xìng gé hé xù shù kuàng jià shǐ rén nán yǐ zhì xìn de shì jiàn chéng wéi xiàn shí， jí shǐ《 lǔ bīn xùn piào liú jì》 yě nán yǐ zài xù shù de kè bó xìng hé duō yàng xìng fāng miàn yǔ qí pì měi。 héng héng（ yīng） sī gè tè
《 gé liè fó yóu jì》 shì yī bù dú jù tè sè de xiǎo shuō jié zuò。 tā hé 18 shì jì 'ōu zhōu zhòng duō xiǎo shuō yī yàng， jì chéng liǎo liú làng hàn xiǎo shuō de jié gòu fāng fǎ， xí yòng liǎo dāng shí liú xíng de miáo xiě lǚ xíng jiàn wén de xiǎo shuō， yóu qí shì háng hǎi mào xiǎn xiǎo shuō de mó shì， xù shù zhù rén gōng gé liè fó zài hǎi shàng piào liú de yī xì liè qí yù。 tā wú yí zài xiāng dāng chéng dù shàng shòu dào dí fú《 lǔ bīn xùn piào liú jì》 hé qí tā yī xiē yóu jì tǐ mào xiǎn xiǎo shuō de yǐng xiǎng。 rán 'ér，《 gé liè fó yóu jì》 hé tā men suī rán xíng shì xiāng sì， xìng zhì què jié rán bù tóng。 tā shì《 tǒng de gù shì》 hé《 shū jí zhī zhàn》 nà lèi gù shì de jìn yī bù fā zhǎn， jù yòu yǔ shí bā shì jì kāi shǐ xīng qǐ de xiě shí zhù yì xiǎo shuō bù tóng de ruò gān dú tè xìng zhì。 héng héng wú hòu kǎi《 jiǎn lùn fěng yù tǐ xiǎo shuō《 gé liè fó yóu jì》 jí qí wén xué dì wèi》
wén xué shǐ duì《 gé liè fó yóu jì》 de píng jià： zuò pǐn jiǎ tuō zhù rén gōng gé liè fó yī shēng zì shù tā shù cì háng hǎi yù xiān， piào liú dào xiǎo rén guó， dà rén guó， fēi dǎo guó hé zhì mǎ guó jǐ gè tóng huà shì guó jiā de zāo yù hé jiàn wén， quán miàn fěng cì， nuó yú liǎo yīng guó de shè huì xiàn shí ． qí zhōng“ dà rén guó” hé“ zhì mǎ guó” shè huì suǒ shè huì lǐ xiǎng suī rán bǎo cún liǎo zōng fǎ shè huì de yuán shǐ tè diǎn， dàn què bāo hán zhe qǐ méng zhù yì de shè huì yuán zé hé jià zhí guān． zuò zhě bǎ fěng cì duì xiàng kuā zhāng biàn xíng dào cán kù shèn zhì huāng dàn de dì bù， yǔ xiàn dài de“ hēi sè yōu mò” yòu xiāng tōng zhī chù．
The book became tremendously popular as soon as it was published (John Gay said in a 1726 letter to Swift that "it is universally read, from the cabinet council to the nursery"); since then, it has never been out of print.
Plot summary
The book presents itself as a simple traveller's narrative with the disingenuous title Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, its authorship assigned only to "Lemuel Gulliver, first a surgeon, then a captain of several ships". Different editions contain different versions of the prefatory material which are basically the same as forewords in modern books. The book proper then is divided into four parts, which are as follows.
Part I: A Voyage to Lilliput
Mural depicting Gulliver surrounded by citizens of Lilliput.
May 4, 1699 — April 13, 1702
The book begins with a short preamble in which Gulliver, in the style of books of the time, gives a brief outline of his life and history prior to his voyages. He enjoys traveling, although it is that love of travel that is his downfall.
On his first voyage, Gulliver is washed ashore after a shipwreck and awakes to find himself a prisoner of a race of people one-twelfth the size of normal human beings, less than 6 inches high/15 cm high, who are inhabitants of the neighbouring and rival countries of Lilliput and Blefuscu. After giving assurances of his good behaviour, he is given a residence in Lilliput and becomes a favourite of the court. From there, the book follows Gulliver's observations on the Court of Lilliput, which is intended to satirise the court of George I (King of England at the time of the writing of the Travels). Gulliver assists the Lilliputians to subdue their neighbours the Blefuscudians by stealing their fleet. However, he refuses to reduce the country to a province of Lilliput, displeasing the King and the court. Gulliver is charged with treason and sentenced to be blinded. With the assistance of a kind friend, Gulliver escapes to Blefuscu, where he spots and retrieves an abandoned boat and sails out to be rescued by a passing ship which safely takes him back home. The Building of residence that Gulliver is given in Lilliput is of note, as in this section he describes it as a temple in which there had some years ago been a murder and the building had been abandoned. Swift in this section, is revealing himself as a member of the Freemasons; this being an allusion to the murder of the grand master of the Freemasons, Hiram Abiff.
Part II: A Voyage to Brobdingnag
Gulliver Exhibited to the Brobdingnag Farmer by Richard Redgrave
June 20, 1702 — June 3, 1706
When the sailing ship Adventure is steered off course by storms and forced to go in to land for want of fresh water, Gulliver is abandoned by his companions and found by a farmer who is 72 feet (22 m) tall (the scale of Lilliput is approximately 1:12; of Brobdingnag 12:1, judging from Gulliver estimating a man's step being 10 yards (9.1 m)). He brings Gulliver home and his daughter cares for Gulliver. The farmer treats him as a curiosity and exhibits him for money. The word gets out and the Queen of Brobdingnag wants to see the show. She loves Gulliver and he is then bought by her and kept as a favourite at court.
Since Gulliver is too small to use their huge chairs, beds, knives and forks, the queen commissions a small house to be built for Gulliver so that he can be carried around in it. This box is referred to as his travelling box. In between small adventures such as fighting giant wasps and being carried to the roof by a monkey, he discusses the state of Europe with the King. The King is not impressed with Gulliver's accounts of Europe, especially upon learning of the usage of guns and cannons. On a trip to the seaside, his "travelling box" is seized by a giant eagle which drops Gulliver and his box right into the sea where he is picked up by some sailors, who return him to England.
Part III: A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, Glubbdubdrib, and Japan
August 5, 1706 — April 16, 1710
After Gulliver's ship is attacked by pirates, he is marooned near a desolate rocky island, near India. Fortunately he is rescued by the flying island of Laputa, a kingdom devoted to the arts of music and mathematics but utterly unable to use these for practical ends.
Laputa's method of throwing rocks at rebellious surface cities also seems the first time that aerial bombardment was conceived as a method of warfare. While there, he tours the country as the guest of a low-ranking courtier and sees the ruin brought about by blind pursuit of science without practical results in a satire on the Royal Society and its experiments.
While waiting for passage Gulliver takes a short side-trip to the island of Glubbdubdrib, where he visits a magician's dwelling and discusses history with the ghosts of historical figures, the most obvious restatement of the "ancients versus moderns" theme in the book. He also encounters the struldbrugs, unfortunates who are immortal, but not forever young, but rather forever old, complete with the infirmities of old age. Gulliver is then taken to Balnibarbi to await a Dutch trader who can take him on to Japan. While there, Gulliver asks the Emperor "to excuse my performing the ceremony imposed upon my countrymen of trampling upon the crucifix", which the Emperor grants. Gulliver returns home, determined to stay there for the rest of his days.
Part IV: A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms
September 7, 1710 – July 2, 1715
Despite his earlier intention of remaining at home, Gulliver returns to sea as the captain of a 35ton merchant man as he is bored of his employment as a surgeon. On this voyage he is forced to find new additions to his crew who he believes to have turned the rest of the crew against him. His pirates then mutiny and after keeping him contained for some time resolve to leave him on the first piece of land they come across and continue on as pirates. He is abandoned in a landing boat and comes first upon a race of (apparently) hideous deformed creatures to which he conceives a violent antipathy. Shortly thereafter he meets a horse and comes to understand that the horses (in their language Houyhnhnm or "the perfection of nature") are the rulers and the deformed creatures ("Yahoos") are human beings in their base form. Gulliver becomes a member of the horse's household, and comes to both admire and emulate the Houyhnhnms and their lifestyle, rejecting humans as merely Yahoos endowed with some semblance of reason which they only use to exacerbate and add to the vices Nature gave them. However, an Assembly of the Houyhnhnms rules that Gulliver, a Yahoo with some semblance of reason, is a danger to their civilization and he is expelled. He is then rescued, against his will, by a Portuguese ship, and is surprised to see that Captain Pedro de Mendez, a Yahoo, is a wise, courteous and generous person. He returns to his home in England. However, he is unable to reconcile himself to living among Yahoos; he becomes a recluse, remaining in his house, largely avoiding his family and his wife, and spending several hours a day speaking with the horses in his stables.
Composition and history
It is uncertain exactly when Swift started writing Gulliver's Travels, but some sources suggest as early as 1713 when Swift, Gay, Pope, Arbuthnot and others formed the Scriblerus Club, with the aim of satirising then-popular literary genres. Swift, runs the theory, was charged with writing the memoirs of the club's imaginary author, Martinus Scriblerus. It is known from Swift's correspondence that the composition proper began in 1720 with the mirror-themed parts I and II written first, Part IV next in 1723 and Part III written in 1724, but amendments were made even while Swift was writing Drapier's Letters. By August 1725 the book was completed, and as Gulliver's Travels was a transparently anti-Whig satire it is likely that Swift had the manuscript copied so his handwriting could not be used as evidence if a prosecution should arise (as had happened in the case of some of his Irish pamphlets). In March 1726 Swift travelled to London to have his work published; the manuscript was secretly delivered to the publisher Benjamin Motte, who used five printing houses to speed production and avoid piracy. Motte, recognising a bestseller but fearing prosecution, simply cut or altered the worst offending passages (such as the descriptions of the court contests in Lilliput or the rebellion of Lindalino), added some material in defence of Queen Anne to book II, and published it anyway. The first edition was released in two volumes on October 26, 1726, priced 8s. 6d. The book was an instant sensation and sold out its first run in less than a week.
Motte published Gulliver's Travels anonymously and, as was often the way with fashionable works, several follow-ups (Memoirs of the Court of Lilliput), parodies (Two Lilliputian Odes, The first on the Famous Engine With Which Captain Gulliver extinguish'd the Palace Fire...) and "keys" (Gulliver Decipher'd and Lemuel Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Regions of the World Compendiously Methodiz'd, the second by Edmund Curll who had similarly written a "key" to Swift's Tale of a Tub in 1705) were produced over the next few years. These were mostly printed anonymously (or occasionally pseudonymously) and were quickly forgotten. Swift had nothing to do with any of these and specifically disavowed them in Faulkner's edition of 1735. However, Swift's friend Alexander Pope wrote a set of five Verses on Gulliver's Travels which Swift liked so much that he added them to the second edition of the book, though they are not nowadays generally included.
Faulkner's 1735 edition
In 1735 an Irish publisher, George Faulkner, printed a complete set of Swift's works to date, Volume III of which was Gulliver's Travels. As revealed in Faulkner's "Advertisement to the Reader", Faulkner had access to an annotated copy of Motte's work by "a friend of the author" (generally believed to be Swift's friend Charles Ford) which reproduced most of the manuscript free of Motte's amendments, the original manuscript having been destroyed. It is also believed that Swift at least reviewed proofs of Faulkner's edition before printing but this cannot be proven. Generally, this is regarded as the editio princeps of Gulliver's Travels with one small exception, discussed below.
This edition had an added piece by Swift, A letter from Capt. Gulliver to his Cousin Sympson which complained of Motte's alterations to the original text, saying he had so much altered it that "I do hardly know mine own work" and repudiating all of Motte's changes as well as all the keys, libels, parodies, second parts and continuations that had appeared in the intervening years. This letter now forms part of many standard texts.
Lindalino
The short (five paragraph) episode in Part III, telling of the rebellion of the surface city of Lindalino against the flying island of Laputa, was an obvious allegory to the affair of Drapier's Letters of which Swift was proud. Lindalino represented Dublin and the impositions of Laputa represented the British imposition of William Wood's poor-quality copper currency. Faulkner had omitted this passage, either because of political sensitivities raised by being an Irish publisher printing an anti-British satire or possibly because the text he worked from didn't include the passage. It wasn't until 1899 that the passage was finally included in a new edition of the Collected Works. Modern editions thus derive from the Faulkner edition with the inclusion of this 1899 addendum.
Isaac Asimov notes in The Annotated Gulliver that Lindalino is composed of double lins; hence, Dublin.
Major themes
Gulliver's Travels has been the recipient of several designations: from Menippean satire to a children's story, from proto-Science Fiction to a forerunner of the modern novel.
Published seven years after Daniel Defoe's wildly successful Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels may be read as a systematic rebuttal of Defoe's optimistic account of human capability. In The Unthinkable Swift: The Spontaneous Philosophy of a Church of England Man Warren Montag argues that Swift was concerned to refute the notion that the individual precedes society, as Defoe's novel seems to suggest. Swift regarded such thought as a dangerous endorsement of Thomas Hobbes' radical political philosophy and for this reason Gulliver repeatedly encounters established societies rather than desolate islands. The captain who invites Gulliver to serve as a surgeon aboard his ship on the disastrous third voyage is named Robinson.
Possibly one of the reasons for the book's classic status is that it can be seen as many things to many different people. Broadly, the book has three themes:
* a satirical view of the state of European government, and of petty differences between religions.
* an inquiry into whether men are inherently corrupt or whether they become corrupted.
* a restatement of the older "ancients versus moderns" controversy previously addressed by Swift in The Battle of the Books.
In terms of storytelling and construction the parts follow a pattern:
* The causes of Gulliver's misadventures become more malignant as time goes on - he is first shipwrecked, then abandoned, then attacked by strangers, then attacked by his own crew.
* Gulliver's attitude hardens as the book progresses — he is genuinely surprised by the viciousness and politicking of the Lilliputians but finds the behaviour of the Yahoos in the fourth part reflective of the behaviour of people.
* Each part is the reverse of the preceding part — Gulliver is big/small/sensible/ignorant, the countries are complex/simple/scientific/natural, forms of Government are worse/better/worse/better than England's.
* Gulliver's view between parts contrasts with its other coinciding part — Gulliver sees the tiny Lilliputians as being vicious and unscrupulous, and then the king of Brobdingnag sees Europe in exactly the same light. Gulliver sees the Laputians as unreasonable, and Gulliver's Houyhnhnm master sees humanity as equally so.
* No form of government is ideal — the simplistic Brobdingnagians enjoy public executions and have streets infested with beggars, the honest and upright Houyhnhnms who have no word for lying are happy to suppress the true nature of Gulliver as a Yahoo and are equally unconcerned about his reaction to being expelled.
* Specific individuals may be good even where the race is bad — Gulliver finds a friend in each of his travels and, despite Gulliver's rejection and horror toward all Yahoos, is treated very well by the Portuguese captain, Don Pedro, who returns him to England at the novel's end.
Of equal interest is the character of Gulliver himself — he progresses from a cheery optimist at the start of the first part to the pompous misanthrope of the book's conclusion and we may well have to filter our understanding of the work if we are to believe the final misanthrope wrote the whole work. In this sense Gulliver's Travels is a very modern and complex novel. There are subtle shifts throughout the book, such as when Gulliver begins to see all humans, not just those in Houyhnhnm-land, as Yahoos.
Despite the depth and subtlety of the book, it is often classified as a children's story because of the popularity of the Lilliput section (frequently bowdlerised) as a book for children. It is still possible to buy books entitled Gulliver's Travels which contain only parts of the Lilliput voyage.
Cultural influences
From 1738 to 1746, Edward Cave published in occasional issues of The Gentleman's Magazine semi-fictionalized accounts of contemporary debates in the two Houses of Parliament under the title of Debates in the Senate of Lilliput. The names of the speakers in the debates, other individuals mentioned, politicians and monarchs present and past, and most other countries and cities of Europe ("Degulia") and America ("Columbia") were thinly disguised under a variety of Swiftian pseudonyms. The disguised names, and the pretence that the accounts were really translations of speeches by Lilliputian politicians, were a reaction to a Parliamentary act forbidding the publication of accounts of its debates. Cave employed several writers on this series: William Guthrie (June 1738-Nov. 1740), Samuel Johnson (Nov. 1740-Feb. 1743), and John Hawkesworth (Feb. 1743-Dec. 1746).
The popularity of Gulliver is such that the term "Lilliputian" has entered many languages as an adjective meaning "small and delicate". There is even a brand of cigar called Lilliput which is (not surprisingly) small. In addition to this there are a series of collectible model-houses known as "Lilliput Lane". The smallest light bulb fitting (5mm diameter) in the Edison screw series is called the "Lilliput Edison screw". In Dutch, the word "Lilliputter" is used for adults shorter than 1.30 meters. Conversely, "Brobdingnagian" appears in the Oxford English Dictionary as a synonym for "very large" or "gigantic".
In like vein, the term "yahoo" is often encountered as a synonym for "ruffian" or "thug".
In the discipline of computer architecture, the terms big-endian and little-endian are used to describe two possible ways of laying out bytes in memory; see Endianness. One of the satirical conflicts in the book is between two religious sects of Lilliputians, some of whom who prefer cracking open their soft-boiled eggs from the little end, while others prefer the big end.