《格列佛游记》-作品简介
作者：（英）乔纳森·斯威夫特
成书时间：1726年
特色之处：旨在抨击当时英国的议会政治和反动宗教势力的幻想游记体讽刺小说
《格列佛游记》-作者简介
《格列佛游记》乔纳森·斯威夫特
乔纳森·斯威夫特（1667～1745），以讽刺作家名垂青史。他是一名牧师，一位政治撰稿人，一个才子。他出生于爱尔兰首府都柏林，六岁上学，在基尔凯尼学校读了八年。1682年进都柏林著名的三一学院学习，他除了对历史和诗歌有兴趣外，别的一概不喜欢。还是学校“特别通融”才拿到学位。之后，他在三一学院继续读硕士，一直到一六八六年。 1688年，爱尔兰面临英国军队的入侵，他前往英国寻找出路。
接下来的十年是对斯威夫特一生中具有重要影响的关键时期。他通过亲戚的关系，在穆尔庄园当私人秘书。穆尔庄园的主人坦普尔是一位经验丰富的政治家，也是位哲学家，修养极好，这无疑给斯威夫特起了积极的，甚至是导师性质的作用。这从政治或者其他较实际的角度看，对斯威夫特可能是一种失望，但就一个讽刺作家来说，近十年的时间却使他得到了充分的学习。他早期的两部讽刺杰作《桶的故事》和《世纪战争》正是在这里写成的。
离开穆尔庄园后，斯威夫特回到爱尔兰继续做他的牧师。为了教会，他投入到政治活动中去。他在后半生写了无数的政治小册子，获得了相当的声誉。虽然他一时间名闻遐迩，可他的内心是孤独的。他甚至一步步走到了绝望的边缘。他经历了一切，也看透了一切，于是，他写了《格列佛游记》。
《格列佛游记》《格列佛游记》
1745年10月19日，斯威夫特在黑暗和孤苦中告别了人世，终年78岁。
《格列佛游记》是一部奇书，它不是单纯的少儿读物，而是饱寓讽刺和批判的文学杰作，英国著名作家乔治·奥威尔一生中读了不下六次，他说：“如果要我开一份书目，列出哪怕其他书都被毁坏时也要保留的六本书，我一定会把《格列佛游记》列入其中。” 在这本书中，斯威夫特的叙事技巧和讽刺才能得到了淋漓尽致的反映。
作品的主人公里梅尔·格列佛是个英国外科医生，后升任船长；他受过良好教育，为祖国而自豪，在职业和政治两方面似乎都颇有见识，可是他本质上却是一个平庸的人，而斯威夫特正是利用了主人公的这种局限达到了最充分的讽刺效果。 全书由四卷组成，在每一卷中格列佛都要面临常人难以想象的特殊情况。
《格列佛游记》-故事梗概
小说以外科医生格列佛的四次出海航行冒险的经历为线索，一共由四部分组成。
第一卷：利立浦特（小人国）游记。叙述格列佛在小人国的游历见闻。这里的人，身长不满六英寸，他置身其中，就象巍巍的大山一般。小朝廷里充斥阴谋诡计、倾轧纷争。穿高跟鞋的一派与穿低跟鞋的一派互相攻击，誓不两立。
第二卷：布罗卜丁奈格（大人国）游记。格列佛在利立浦特人的心目中是个宠然大物，但一到布罗卜丁奈格，他就象田间的鼬鼠一般小了。格列佛被当作小玩艺装入手提箱里，带到各城镇表演展览。后来，国王召见他，他慷慨陈辞，夸耀自己的祖国的伟大，政治的贤明，法律的公正，然而均一一遭到国王的抨击与驳斥。
第三卷：勒皮他、巴尔尼巴比、拉格奈格、格勒大锥、日本游记。主要描述格列佛在勒皮他（飞岛）和格勒大锥（巫人岛）的游历。飞岛上的人长得畸形怪状，整天担忧天体会发生突变，地球会被彗星撞击得粉碎，因而惶惶不可终日。在科学院里，设计家们正在从事研究如何从黄瓜中提取阳光取暖，把粪便还原为食物，繁殖无毛的绵羊，软化大理石等课题。在巫人岛上，岛主精通巫术，擅长招魂，他们博览古今，发现历史真相被权贵歪曲，娼妓般的作家在哄骗人世。
第四卷：慧駰国游记。叙述格列佛在智马国的游历。在这个国度里，居主宰地位的是有理性的公正而诚实的智马，供智马驱使的是一种类似人形的畜类耶胡，后者生性淫荡、贪婪、好斗。
《格列佛游记》-主题思想
小说第一卷中所描绘的小人国的情景乃是大英帝国的缩影。英国国内托利党和辉格党常年不息的斗争和对外的战争，实质上只是政客们在一些与国计民生毫不相干的小节上勾心斗角。
小说的第二卷则通过大人国国王对格列佛引以为荣的英国选举制度、议会制度以及种种政教措施所进行的尖锐的抨击，对英国各种制度及政教措施表示了怀疑和否定。
小说的第三卷，作者把讽刺的锋芒指向了当代英国哲学家，脱离实际、沉溺于幻想的科学家，荒诞不经的发明家和颠倒黑白的评论家和历史家等。
小说第四卷，作者利用格列佛回答一连串问题而揭露了战争的实质、法律的虚伪和不择手段以获得官爵的可耻行为等。
综观小说的全部情节，《格列佛游记》政治倾向鲜明。它的批判锋芒，集中在抨击当时英国的议会政治和反动的宗教势力。
《格列佛游记》-主要人物形象分析
格列佛：是十八世纪英国的普通人，他热爱劳动，刚毅勇敢，心地善良。他在游历之中，洞察到社会现实的日趋堕落，得出英国社会并不文明的结论。格列佛的形象，是作者思想的体现者。作者将自己的种种美德赋予笔下的人物，格列佛不计较个人的得失，而对别人关怀备至。格列佛是个正面的理想的人物。他总是坦率地叙述自己的弱点和错误，而对自己的优点则只字不提。他谦逊好学，努力用新眼光去认识新的现实。他从不自暴自弃，纵使将他当作玩物到各地供人观赏，仍泰然自若，保持自身的尊严，以平等的姿态与大人国的国王交谈。他勇于帮助小人国抵抗外族入侵，但断然拒绝为小人国国王的侵略扩张政策效劳。
《格列佛游记》-文学艺术特点
《格列佛游记》的艺术特色主要体现在讽刺手法的运用上，尖锐深邃的讽刺是这部作品的灵魂。
当时的英国是作者抨击和挖苦的对象。格列佛历险的第一地是小人国。在这个缩微的国度里，党派之争势不两立，邻邦之间不但想战胜而且要奴役对方。小人国的国王用比赛绳技的方法选拔官员，为获得国王赏给的几根彩色丝线，官员不惜小丑似地做着可笑的表演。这个小朝廷是当时英国的缩影，连利立浦特的朝政风习和典章制度也同当时的英国政局一模一样；在第二卷里，作者更是指名道姓地批抨英国。格列佛长篇大论地向大人国国王介绍英国的历史、制度和现状，以及种种为国家为自己辨解的事，可是从大人国的眼光看来，英国的历史充斥着“贪婪、竞争、残暴、伪善、淫欲、阴险和野心”产生的恶果。作者借国王的话，“那样一个卑微无能的小虫”是“自然界中爬行于地面的小毒虫最有害的一类”，讽刺了英国社会的方方面面；在第三卷里，通过对拉格多科学院人士所从事的无聊而荒唐的科学研究，讽刺了英国当时的伪科学；有关勒皮他岛的描绘则批评了英国对爱尔兰的剥削压迫。
小说不但抨击了社会现状，还在更深的层面上，直接讽刺了人性本身。在第四卷里，关于“钱”的那段议论就是如此。格列佛来到没有金钱，没有军队警察的慧駰（马）国，向他的马主人解释说：“我们那里的野猢认为，不管是用还是攒，钱都是越多越好，没有个够的时候。因为他们天性如此，不是奢侈浪费就是贪得无厌。富人享受着穷人的劳动成果，而穷人和富人在数量上的比例是一千比一。因此我们的人民大多数被迫过着悲惨的生活……”。作者注意到资本主义社会人与人之间的纯粹的金钱关系。并由此对人性产生了疑问。
作者在对当时英国的议会政治和反动的宗教势力进行无情、辛辣的讽刺、抨击时，有的直言相讥，有的利用异邦人的唇舌，有的隐喻挖苦，有的以兽讥讽人，凡此种种，风趣滑稽，神情皆备。
情节的幻想性与现实的真实性有机结合，也给小说增添了独特的艺术魅力。虽然作者展现的是一个虚构的童话般的神奇世界，但它是以当时英国社会生活的真实为基础的。由于作者精确、细腻、贴切的描述，使人感觉不到它是虚构的幻景，似乎一切都是真情实事。例如，在描述小人与大人、人与物的比例关系时，一概按一与十二之比缩小或放大。小人国里的小人比格列佛小十二倍；大人国的大人又比格列佛大十二倍。格列佛的一块区区手帕，可以给小人国皇宫当地毯；大人国农妇的那块手帕，盖在格列佛身上，就变成一床被单了。在描述飞岛的运行，宫殿的建筑，城镇的结构时，作者还有意运用了数学、物理、化学、天文、医药诸方面的知识与数据。这样，就使人物局部细节的真实、和谐、匀称，转化为整个画面、场景的真实、和谐、统一，极大地增强了作品的真实感和感染力。
作者的文笔朴素而简练。例如文中写到格列佛在小人国抄录了一段官方文告，它赞颂国王是“举世拥戴”的“万王之王”，“脚踏地心、头顶太阳”，等等。格列佛还在括号里不动声色地解释道：“周界约十二英里”。随着这句解释，那“直抵地球四极”的无边领土陡然缩为周边不过十余里的弹丸之地。这种反差令人捧腹。括号里的话显示出作者朴素又实事求是的叙述风格，他似乎无意对此评论，只是在客观忠实地为我们解释利立浦特的尺度。他曾经声明：“我宁愿用最简单朴素的文笔把平凡的事实叙述出来，因为我写这本书主要是向你报道，而不是供你消遣。”尽管小人国、大人国、慧駰国的情景各异，主人公的境遇也不相同，但整部小说的布局、风格前后一致，格列佛每次出海的前因后果都有详尽的交待，复杂纷繁的情节均按时间、空间顺序依次描述，文字简洁生动，故事性强，因而数百年来，《格列佛游记》在欧洲各国雅俗共赏，妇孺皆知。
作者可翻译为约拿旦·斯威夫特、乔纳森·斯威夫特、江奈生·斯威夫特，另外已有《新格列佛游记》出版
《格列佛游记》-名家点评
斯威夫特以幽默丰富了作品的道德含义，以讽刺揭露荒诞，并通过人物性格和叙述框架使人难以置信的事件成为现实，即使《鲁滨逊漂流记》也难以在叙述的刻薄性和多样性方面与其媲美。——（英）司各特
《格列佛游记》是一部独具特色的小说杰作。它和18世纪欧洲众多小说一样，继承了流浪汉小说的结构方法，袭用了当时流行的描写旅行见闻的小说，尤其是航海冒险小说的模式，叙述主人公格列佛在海上漂流的一系列奇遇。它无疑在相当程度上受到笛福《鲁滨逊漂流记》和其他一些游记体冒险小说的影响。然而，《格列佛游记》和他们虽然形式相似，性质却截然不同。它是《桶的故事》和《书籍之战》那类故事的进一步发展，具有与十八世纪开始兴起的写实主义小说不同的若干独特性质。——吴厚恺《简论讽喻体小说《格列佛游记》及其文学地位》
文学史对《格列佛游记》的评价：作品假托主人公格列佛医生自述他数次航海预先，漂流到小人国，大人国，飞岛国和智马国几个童话式国家的遭遇和见闻，全面讽刺，挪揄了英国的社会现实．其中“大人国”和“智马国”社会所社会理想虽然保存了宗法社会的原始特点，但却包含着启蒙主义的社会原则和价值观．作者把讽刺对象夸张变形到残酷甚至荒诞的地步，与现代的“黑色幽默”有相通之处．
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.
作者：（英）乔纳森·斯威夫特
成书时间：1726年
特色之处：旨在抨击当时英国的议会政治和反动宗教势力的幻想游记体讽刺小说
《格列佛游记》-作者简介
《格列佛游记》乔纳森·斯威夫特
乔纳森·斯威夫特（1667～1745），以讽刺作家名垂青史。他是一名牧师，一位政治撰稿人，一个才子。他出生于爱尔兰首府都柏林，六岁上学，在基尔凯尼学校读了八年。1682年进都柏林著名的三一学院学习，他除了对历史和诗歌有兴趣外，别的一概不喜欢。还是学校“特别通融”才拿到学位。之后，他在三一学院继续读硕士，一直到一六八六年。 1688年，爱尔兰面临英国军队的入侵，他前往英国寻找出路。
接下来的十年是对斯威夫特一生中具有重要影响的关键时期。他通过亲戚的关系，在穆尔庄园当私人秘书。穆尔庄园的主人坦普尔是一位经验丰富的政治家，也是位哲学家，修养极好，这无疑给斯威夫特起了积极的，甚至是导师性质的作用。这从政治或者其他较实际的角度看，对斯威夫特可能是一种失望，但就一个讽刺作家来说，近十年的时间却使他得到了充分的学习。他早期的两部讽刺杰作《桶的故事》和《世纪战争》正是在这里写成的。
离开穆尔庄园后，斯威夫特回到爱尔兰继续做他的牧师。为了教会，他投入到政治活动中去。他在后半生写了无数的政治小册子，获得了相当的声誉。虽然他一时间名闻遐迩，可他的内心是孤独的。他甚至一步步走到了绝望的边缘。他经历了一切，也看透了一切，于是，他写了《格列佛游记》。
《格列佛游记》《格列佛游记》
1745年10月19日，斯威夫特在黑暗和孤苦中告别了人世，终年78岁。
《格列佛游记》是一部奇书，它不是单纯的少儿读物，而是饱寓讽刺和批判的文学杰作，英国著名作家乔治·奥威尔一生中读了不下六次，他说：“如果要我开一份书目，列出哪怕其他书都被毁坏时也要保留的六本书，我一定会把《格列佛游记》列入其中。” 在这本书中，斯威夫特的叙事技巧和讽刺才能得到了淋漓尽致的反映。
作品的主人公里梅尔·格列佛是个英国外科医生，后升任船长；他受过良好教育，为祖国而自豪，在职业和政治两方面似乎都颇有见识，可是他本质上却是一个平庸的人，而斯威夫特正是利用了主人公的这种局限达到了最充分的讽刺效果。 全书由四卷组成，在每一卷中格列佛都要面临常人难以想象的特殊情况。
《格列佛游记》-故事梗概
小说以外科医生格列佛的四次出海航行冒险的经历为线索，一共由四部分组成。
第一卷：利立浦特（小人国）游记。叙述格列佛在小人国的游历见闻。这里的人，身长不满六英寸，他置身其中，就象巍巍的大山一般。小朝廷里充斥阴谋诡计、倾轧纷争。穿高跟鞋的一派与穿低跟鞋的一派互相攻击，誓不两立。
第二卷：布罗卜丁奈格（大人国）游记。格列佛在利立浦特人的心目中是个宠然大物，但一到布罗卜丁奈格，他就象田间的鼬鼠一般小了。格列佛被当作小玩艺装入手提箱里，带到各城镇表演展览。后来，国王召见他，他慷慨陈辞，夸耀自己的祖国的伟大，政治的贤明，法律的公正，然而均一一遭到国王的抨击与驳斥。
第三卷：勒皮他、巴尔尼巴比、拉格奈格、格勒大锥、日本游记。主要描述格列佛在勒皮他（飞岛）和格勒大锥（巫人岛）的游历。飞岛上的人长得畸形怪状，整天担忧天体会发生突变，地球会被彗星撞击得粉碎，因而惶惶不可终日。在科学院里，设计家们正在从事研究如何从黄瓜中提取阳光取暖，把粪便还原为食物，繁殖无毛的绵羊，软化大理石等课题。在巫人岛上，岛主精通巫术，擅长招魂，他们博览古今，发现历史真相被权贵歪曲，娼妓般的作家在哄骗人世。
第四卷：慧駰国游记。叙述格列佛在智马国的游历。在这个国度里，居主宰地位的是有理性的公正而诚实的智马，供智马驱使的是一种类似人形的畜类耶胡，后者生性淫荡、贪婪、好斗。
《格列佛游记》-主题思想
小说第一卷中所描绘的小人国的情景乃是大英帝国的缩影。英国国内托利党和辉格党常年不息的斗争和对外的战争，实质上只是政客们在一些与国计民生毫不相干的小节上勾心斗角。
小说的第二卷则通过大人国国王对格列佛引以为荣的英国选举制度、议会制度以及种种政教措施所进行的尖锐的抨击，对英国各种制度及政教措施表示了怀疑和否定。
小说的第三卷，作者把讽刺的锋芒指向了当代英国哲学家，脱离实际、沉溺于幻想的科学家，荒诞不经的发明家和颠倒黑白的评论家和历史家等。
小说第四卷，作者利用格列佛回答一连串问题而揭露了战争的实质、法律的虚伪和不择手段以获得官爵的可耻行为等。
综观小说的全部情节，《格列佛游记》政治倾向鲜明。它的批判锋芒，集中在抨击当时英国的议会政治和反动的宗教势力。
《格列佛游记》-主要人物形象分析
格列佛：是十八世纪英国的普通人，他热爱劳动，刚毅勇敢，心地善良。他在游历之中，洞察到社会现实的日趋堕落，得出英国社会并不文明的结论。格列佛的形象，是作者思想的体现者。作者将自己的种种美德赋予笔下的人物，格列佛不计较个人的得失，而对别人关怀备至。格列佛是个正面的理想的人物。他总是坦率地叙述自己的弱点和错误，而对自己的优点则只字不提。他谦逊好学，努力用新眼光去认识新的现实。他从不自暴自弃，纵使将他当作玩物到各地供人观赏，仍泰然自若，保持自身的尊严，以平等的姿态与大人国的国王交谈。他勇于帮助小人国抵抗外族入侵，但断然拒绝为小人国国王的侵略扩张政策效劳。
《格列佛游记》-文学艺术特点
《格列佛游记》的艺术特色主要体现在讽刺手法的运用上，尖锐深邃的讽刺是这部作品的灵魂。
当时的英国是作者抨击和挖苦的对象。格列佛历险的第一地是小人国。在这个缩微的国度里，党派之争势不两立，邻邦之间不但想战胜而且要奴役对方。小人国的国王用比赛绳技的方法选拔官员，为获得国王赏给的几根彩色丝线，官员不惜小丑似地做着可笑的表演。这个小朝廷是当时英国的缩影，连利立浦特的朝政风习和典章制度也同当时的英国政局一模一样；在第二卷里，作者更是指名道姓地批抨英国。格列佛长篇大论地向大人国国王介绍英国的历史、制度和现状，以及种种为国家为自己辨解的事，可是从大人国的眼光看来，英国的历史充斥着“贪婪、竞争、残暴、伪善、淫欲、阴险和野心”产生的恶果。作者借国王的话，“那样一个卑微无能的小虫”是“自然界中爬行于地面的小毒虫最有害的一类”，讽刺了英国社会的方方面面；在第三卷里，通过对拉格多科学院人士所从事的无聊而荒唐的科学研究，讽刺了英国当时的伪科学；有关勒皮他岛的描绘则批评了英国对爱尔兰的剥削压迫。
小说不但抨击了社会现状，还在更深的层面上，直接讽刺了人性本身。在第四卷里，关于“钱”的那段议论就是如此。格列佛来到没有金钱，没有军队警察的慧駰（马）国，向他的马主人解释说：“我们那里的野猢认为，不管是用还是攒，钱都是越多越好，没有个够的时候。因为他们天性如此，不是奢侈浪费就是贪得无厌。富人享受着穷人的劳动成果，而穷人和富人在数量上的比例是一千比一。因此我们的人民大多数被迫过着悲惨的生活……”。作者注意到资本主义社会人与人之间的纯粹的金钱关系。并由此对人性产生了疑问。
作者在对当时英国的议会政治和反动的宗教势力进行无情、辛辣的讽刺、抨击时，有的直言相讥，有的利用异邦人的唇舌，有的隐喻挖苦，有的以兽讥讽人，凡此种种，风趣滑稽，神情皆备。
情节的幻想性与现实的真实性有机结合，也给小说增添了独特的艺术魅力。虽然作者展现的是一个虚构的童话般的神奇世界，但它是以当时英国社会生活的真实为基础的。由于作者精确、细腻、贴切的描述，使人感觉不到它是虚构的幻景，似乎一切都是真情实事。例如，在描述小人与大人、人与物的比例关系时，一概按一与十二之比缩小或放大。小人国里的小人比格列佛小十二倍；大人国的大人又比格列佛大十二倍。格列佛的一块区区手帕，可以给小人国皇宫当地毯；大人国农妇的那块手帕，盖在格列佛身上，就变成一床被单了。在描述飞岛的运行，宫殿的建筑，城镇的结构时，作者还有意运用了数学、物理、化学、天文、医药诸方面的知识与数据。这样，就使人物局部细节的真实、和谐、匀称，转化为整个画面、场景的真实、和谐、统一，极大地增强了作品的真实感和感染力。
作者的文笔朴素而简练。例如文中写到格列佛在小人国抄录了一段官方文告，它赞颂国王是“举世拥戴”的“万王之王”，“脚踏地心、头顶太阳”，等等。格列佛还在括号里不动声色地解释道：“周界约十二英里”。随着这句解释，那“直抵地球四极”的无边领土陡然缩为周边不过十余里的弹丸之地。这种反差令人捧腹。括号里的话显示出作者朴素又实事求是的叙述风格，他似乎无意对此评论，只是在客观忠实地为我们解释利立浦特的尺度。他曾经声明：“我宁愿用最简单朴素的文笔把平凡的事实叙述出来，因为我写这本书主要是向你报道，而不是供你消遣。”尽管小人国、大人国、慧駰国的情景各异，主人公的境遇也不相同，但整部小说的布局、风格前后一致，格列佛每次出海的前因后果都有详尽的交待，复杂纷繁的情节均按时间、空间顺序依次描述，文字简洁生动，故事性强，因而数百年来，《格列佛游记》在欧洲各国雅俗共赏，妇孺皆知。
作者可翻译为约拿旦·斯威夫特、乔纳森·斯威夫特、江奈生·斯威夫特，另外已有《新格列佛游记》出版
《格列佛游记》-名家点评
斯威夫特以幽默丰富了作品的道德含义，以讽刺揭露荒诞，并通过人物性格和叙述框架使人难以置信的事件成为现实，即使《鲁滨逊漂流记》也难以在叙述的刻薄性和多样性方面与其媲美。——（英）司各特
《格列佛游记》是一部独具特色的小说杰作。它和18世纪欧洲众多小说一样，继承了流浪汉小说的结构方法，袭用了当时流行的描写旅行见闻的小说，尤其是航海冒险小说的模式，叙述主人公格列佛在海上漂流的一系列奇遇。它无疑在相当程度上受到笛福《鲁滨逊漂流记》和其他一些游记体冒险小说的影响。然而，《格列佛游记》和他们虽然形式相似，性质却截然不同。它是《桶的故事》和《书籍之战》那类故事的进一步发展，具有与十八世纪开始兴起的写实主义小说不同的若干独特性质。——吴厚恺《简论讽喻体小说《格列佛游记》及其文学地位》
文学史对《格列佛游记》的评价：作品假托主人公格列佛医生自述他数次航海预先，漂流到小人国，大人国，飞岛国和智马国几个童话式国家的遭遇和见闻，全面讽刺，挪揄了英国的社会现实．其中“大人国”和“智马国”社会所社会理想虽然保存了宗法社会的原始特点，但却包含着启蒙主义的社会原则和价值观．作者把讽刺对象夸张变形到残酷甚至荒诞的地步，与现代的“黑色幽默”有相通之处．
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.