《格列佛遊記》-作品簡介
作者：（英）喬納森·斯威夫特
成書時間：1726年
特色之處：旨在抨擊當時英國的議會政治和反動宗教勢力的幻想遊記體諷刺小說
《格列佛遊記》-作者簡介
《格列佛遊記》喬納森·斯威夫特
喬納森·斯威夫特（1667～1745），以諷刺作傢名垂青史。他是一名牧師，一位政治撰稿人，一個才子。他出生於愛爾蘭首府都柏林，六歲上學，在基爾凱尼學校讀了八年。1682年進都柏林著名的三一學院學習，他除了對歷史和詩歌有興趣外，別的一概不喜歡。還是學校“特別通融”纔拿到學位。之後，他在三一學院繼續讀碩士，一直到一六八六年。 1688年，愛爾蘭面臨英國軍隊的入侵，他前往英國尋找出路。
接下來的十年是對斯威夫特一生中具有重要影響的關鍵時期。他通過親戚的關係，在穆爾莊園當私人秘書。穆爾莊園的主人坦普爾是一位經驗豐富的政治傢，也是位哲學家，修養極好，這無疑給斯威夫特起了積極的，甚至是導師性質的作用。這從政治或者其他較實際的角度看，對斯威夫特可能是一種失望，但就一個諷刺作傢來說，近十年的時間卻使他得到了充分的學習。他早期的兩部諷刺傑作《桶的故事》和《世紀戰爭》正是在這裏寫成的。
離開穆爾莊園後，斯威夫特回到愛爾蘭繼續做他的牧師。為了教會，他投入到政治活動中去。他在後半生寫了無數的政治小册子，獲得了相當的聲譽。雖然他一時間名聞遐邇，可他的內心是孤獨的。他甚至一步步走到了絶望的邊緣。他經歷了一切，也看透了一切，於是，他寫了《格列佛遊記》。
《格列佛遊記》《格列佛遊記》
1745年10月19日，斯威夫特在黑暗和孤苦中告別了人世，終年78歲。
《格列佛遊記》是一部奇書，它不是單純的少兒讀物，而是飽寓諷刺和批判的文學傑作，英國著名作傢喬治·奧威爾一生中讀了不下六次，他說：“如果要我開一份書目，列出哪怕其他書都被毀壞時也要保留的六本書，我一定會把《格列佛遊記》列入其中。” 在這本書中，斯威夫特的敘事技巧和諷刺才能得到了淋漓盡致的反映。
作品的主人公裏梅爾·格列佛是個英國外科醫生，後升任船長；他受過良好教育，為祖國而自豪，在職業和政治兩方面似乎都頗有見識，可是他本質上卻是一個平庸的人，而斯威夫特正是利用了主人公的這種局限達到了最充分的諷刺效果。 全書由四捲組成，在每一捲中格列佛都要面臨常人難以想象的特殊情況。
《格列佛遊記》-故事梗概
小說以外科醫生格列佛的四次出海航行冒險的經歷為綫索，一共由四部分組成。
第一捲：利立浦特（小人國）遊記。敘述格列佛在小人國的遊歷見聞。這裏的人，身長不滿六英寸，他置身其中，就象巍巍的大山一般。小朝廷裏充斥陰謀詭計、傾軋紛爭。穿高跟鞋的一派與穿低跟鞋的一派互相攻擊，誓不兩立。
第二捲：布羅卜丁奈格（大人國）遊記。格列佛在利立浦特人的心目中是個寵然大物，但一到布羅卜丁奈格，他就象田間的鼬鼠一般小了。格列佛被當作小玩藝裝入手提箱裏，帶到各城鎮表演展覽。後來，國王召見他，他慷慨陳辭，誇耀自己的祖國的偉大，政治的賢明，法律的公正，然而均一一遭到國王的抨擊與駁斥。
第三捲：勒皮他、巴爾尼巴比、拉格奈格、格勒大錐、日本遊記。主要描述格列佛在勒皮他（飛島）和格勒大錐（巫人島）的遊歷。飛島上的人長得畸形怪狀，整天擔憂天體會發生突變，地球會被彗星撞擊得粉碎，因而惶惶不可終日。在科學院裏，設計傢們正在從事研究如何從黃瓜中提取陽光取暖，把糞便還原為食物，繁殖無毛的綿羊，軟化大理石等課題。在巫人島上，島主精通巫術，擅長招魂，他們博覽古今，發現歷史真相被權貴歪麯，娼妓般的作傢在哄騙人世。
第四捲：慧駰國遊記。敘述格列佛在智馬國的遊歷。在這個國度裏，居主宰地位的是有理性的公正而誠實的智馬，供智馬驅使的是一種類似人形的畜類耶鬍，後者生性淫蕩、貪婪、好鬥。
《格列佛遊記》-主題思想
小說第一捲中所描繪的小人國的情景乃是大英帝國的縮影。英國國內托利黨和輝格黨常年不息的鬥爭和對外的戰爭，實質上衹是政客們在一些與國計民生毫不相幹的小節上勾心鬥角。
小說的第二捲則通過大人國國王對格列佛引以為榮的英國選舉制度、議會制度以及種種政教措施所進行的尖銳的抨擊，對英國各種制度及政教措施表示了懷疑和否定。
小說的第三捲，作者把諷刺的鋒芒指嚮了當代英國哲學家，脫離實際、沉溺於幻想的科學家，荒誕不經的發明傢和顛倒黑白的評論傢和歷史傢等。
小說第四捲，作者利用格列佛回答一連串問題而揭露了戰爭的實質、法律的虛偽和不擇手段以獲得官爵的可恥行為等。
綜觀小說的全部情節，《格列佛遊記》政治傾嚮鮮明。它的批判鋒芒，集中在抨擊當時英國的議會政治和反動的宗教勢力。
《格列佛遊記》-主要人物形象分析
格列佛：是十八世紀英國的普通人，他熱愛勞動，剛毅勇敢，心地善良。他在遊歷之中，洞察到社會現實的日趨墮落，得出英國社會並不文明的結論。格列佛的形象，是作者思想的體現者。作者將自己的種種美德賦予筆下的人物，格列佛不計較個人的得失，而對別人關懷備至。格列佛是個正面的理想的人物。他總是坦率地敘述自己的弱點和錯誤，而對自己的優點則衹字不提。他謙遜好學，努力用新眼光去認識新的現實。他從不自暴自棄，縱使將他當作玩物到各地供人觀賞，仍泰然自若，保持自身的尊嚴，以平等的姿態與大人國的國王交談。他勇於幫助小人國抵抗外族入侵，但斷然拒絶為小人國國王的侵略擴張政策效勞。
《格列佛遊記》-文學藝術特點
《格列佛遊記》的藝術特色主要體現在諷刺手法的運用上，尖銳深邃的諷刺是這部作品的靈魂。
當時的英國是作者抨擊和挖苦的對象。格列佛歷險的第一地是小人國。在這個縮微的國度裏，黨派之爭勢不兩立，鄰邦之間不但想戰勝而且要奴役對方。小人國的國王用比賽繩技的方法選拔官員，為獲得國王賞給的幾根彩色絲綫，官員不惜小醜似地做着可笑的表演。這個小朝廷是當時英國的縮影，連利立浦特的朝政風習和典章制度也同當時的英國政局一模一樣；在第二捲裏，作者更是指名道姓地批抨英國。格列佛長篇大論地嚮大人國國王介紹英國的歷史、制度和現狀，以及種種為國傢為自己辨解的事，可是從大人國的眼光看來，英國的歷史充斥着“貪婪、競爭、殘暴、偽善、淫欲、陰險和野心”産生的惡果。作者藉國王的話，“那樣一個卑微無能的小蟲”是“自然界中爬行於地面的小毒蟲最有害的一類”，諷刺了英國社會的方方面面；在第三捲裏，通過對拉格多科學院人士所從事的無聊而荒唐的科學研究，諷刺了英國當時的偽科學；有關勒皮他島的描繪則批評了英國對愛爾蘭的剝削壓迫。
小說不但抨擊了社會現狀，還在更深的層面上，直接諷刺了人性本身。在第四捲裏，關於“錢”的那段議論就是如此。格列佛來到沒有金錢，沒有軍隊警察的慧駰（馬）國，嚮他的馬主人解釋說：“我們那裏的野猢認為，不管是用還是攢，錢都是越多越好，沒有個夠的時候。因為他們天性如此，不是奢侈浪費就是貪得無厭。富人享受着窮人的勞動成果，而窮人和富人在數量上的比例是一千比一。因此我們的人民大多數被迫過着悲慘的生活……”。作者註意到資本主義社會人與人之間的純粹的金錢關係。並由此對人性産生了疑問。
作者在對當時英國的議會政治和反動的宗教勢力進行無情、辛辣的諷刺、抨擊時，有的直言相譏，有的利用異邦人的唇舌，有的隱喻挖苦，有的以獸譏諷人，凡此種種，風趣滑稽，神情皆備。
情節的幻想性與現實的真實性有機結合，也給小說增添了獨特的藝術魅力。雖然作者展現的是一個虛構的童話般的神奇世界，但它是以當時英國社會生活的真實為基礎的。由於作者精確、細膩、貼切的描述，使人感覺不到它是虛構的幻景，似乎一切都是真情實事。例如，在描述小人與大人、人與物的比例關係時，一概按一與十二之比縮小或放大。小人國裏的小人比格列佛小十二倍；大人國的大人又比格列佛大十二倍。格列佛的一塊區區手帕，可以給小人國皇宮當地毯；大人國農婦的那塊手帕，蓋在格列佛身上，就變成一床被單了。在描述飛島的運行，宮殿的建築，城鎮的結構時，作者還有意運用了數學、物理、化學、天文、醫藥諸方面的知識與數據。這樣，就使人物局部細節的真實、和諧、勻稱，轉化為整個畫面、場景的真實、和諧、統一，極大地增強了作品的真實感和感染力。
作者的文筆樸素而簡練。例如文中寫到格列佛在小人國抄錄了一段官方文告，它贊頌國王是“舉世擁戴”的“萬王之王”，“腳踏地心、頭頂太陽”，等等。格列佛還在括號裏不動聲色地解釋道：“周界約十二英裏”。隨着這句解釋，那“直抵地球四極”的無邊領土陡然縮為周邊不過十餘裏的彈丸之地。這種反差令人捧腹。括號裏的話顯示出作者樸素又實事求是的敘述風格，他似乎無意對此評論，衹是在客觀忠實地為我們解釋利立浦特的尺度。他曾經聲明：“我寧願用最簡單樸素的文筆把平凡的事實敘述出來，因為我寫這本書主要是嚮你報道，而不是供你消遣。”儘管小人國、大人國、慧駰國的情景各異，主人公的境遇也不相同，但整部小說的佈局、風格前後一致，格列佛每次出海的前因後果都有詳盡的交待，復雜紛繁的情節均按時間、空間順序依次描述，文字簡潔生動，故事性強，因而數百年來，《格列佛遊記》在歐洲各國雅俗共賞，婦孺皆知。
作者可翻譯為約拿旦·斯威夫特、喬納森·斯威夫特、江奈生·斯威夫特，另外已有《新格列佛遊記》出版
《格列佛遊記》-名傢點評
斯威夫特以幽默豐富了作品的道德含義，以諷刺揭露荒誕，並通過人物性格和敘述框架使人難以置信的事件成為現實，即使《魯濱遜漂流記》也難以在敘述的刻薄性和多樣性方面與其媲美。——（英）司各特
《格列佛遊記》是一部獨具特色的小說傑作。它和18世紀歐洲衆多小說一樣，繼承了流浪漢小說的結構方法，襲用了當時流行的描寫旅行見聞的小說，尤其是航海冒險小說的模式，敘述主人公格列佛在海上漂流的一係列奇遇。它無疑在相當程度上受到笛福《魯濱遜漂流記》和其他一些遊記體冒險小說的影響。然而，《格列佛遊記》和他們雖然形式相似，性質卻截然不同。它是《桶的故事》和《書籍之戰》那類故事的進一步發展，具有與十八世紀開始興起的寫實主義小說不同的若幹獨特性質。——吳厚愷《簡論諷喻體小說《格列佛遊記》及其文學地位》
文學史對《格列佛遊記》的評價：作品假托主人公格列佛醫生自述他數次航海預先，漂流到小人國，大人國，飛島國和智馬國幾個童話式國傢的遭遇和見聞，全面諷刺，挪揄了英國的社會現實．其中“大人國”和“智馬國”社會所社會理想雖然保存了宗法社會的原始特點，但卻包含着啓蒙主義的社會原則和價值觀．作者把諷刺對象誇張變形到殘酷甚至荒誕的地步，與現代的“黑色幽默”有相通之處．
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）喬納森·斯威夫特
成書時間：1726年
特色之處：旨在抨擊當時英國的議會政治和反動宗教勢力的幻想遊記體諷刺小說
《格列佛遊記》-作者簡介
《格列佛遊記》喬納森·斯威夫特
喬納森·斯威夫特（1667～1745），以諷刺作傢名垂青史。他是一名牧師，一位政治撰稿人，一個才子。他出生於愛爾蘭首府都柏林，六歲上學，在基爾凱尼學校讀了八年。1682年進都柏林著名的三一學院學習，他除了對歷史和詩歌有興趣外，別的一概不喜歡。還是學校“特別通融”纔拿到學位。之後，他在三一學院繼續讀碩士，一直到一六八六年。 1688年，愛爾蘭面臨英國軍隊的入侵，他前往英國尋找出路。
接下來的十年是對斯威夫特一生中具有重要影響的關鍵時期。他通過親戚的關係，在穆爾莊園當私人秘書。穆爾莊園的主人坦普爾是一位經驗豐富的政治傢，也是位哲學家，修養極好，這無疑給斯威夫特起了積極的，甚至是導師性質的作用。這從政治或者其他較實際的角度看，對斯威夫特可能是一種失望，但就一個諷刺作傢來說，近十年的時間卻使他得到了充分的學習。他早期的兩部諷刺傑作《桶的故事》和《世紀戰爭》正是在這裏寫成的。
離開穆爾莊園後，斯威夫特回到愛爾蘭繼續做他的牧師。為了教會，他投入到政治活動中去。他在後半生寫了無數的政治小册子，獲得了相當的聲譽。雖然他一時間名聞遐邇，可他的內心是孤獨的。他甚至一步步走到了絶望的邊緣。他經歷了一切，也看透了一切，於是，他寫了《格列佛遊記》。
《格列佛遊記》《格列佛遊記》
1745年10月19日，斯威夫特在黑暗和孤苦中告別了人世，終年78歲。
《格列佛遊記》是一部奇書，它不是單純的少兒讀物，而是飽寓諷刺和批判的文學傑作，英國著名作傢喬治·奧威爾一生中讀了不下六次，他說：“如果要我開一份書目，列出哪怕其他書都被毀壞時也要保留的六本書，我一定會把《格列佛遊記》列入其中。” 在這本書中，斯威夫特的敘事技巧和諷刺才能得到了淋漓盡致的反映。
作品的主人公裏梅爾·格列佛是個英國外科醫生，後升任船長；他受過良好教育，為祖國而自豪，在職業和政治兩方面似乎都頗有見識，可是他本質上卻是一個平庸的人，而斯威夫特正是利用了主人公的這種局限達到了最充分的諷刺效果。 全書由四捲組成，在每一捲中格列佛都要面臨常人難以想象的特殊情況。
《格列佛遊記》-故事梗概
小說以外科醫生格列佛的四次出海航行冒險的經歷為綫索，一共由四部分組成。
第一捲：利立浦特（小人國）遊記。敘述格列佛在小人國的遊歷見聞。這裏的人，身長不滿六英寸，他置身其中，就象巍巍的大山一般。小朝廷裏充斥陰謀詭計、傾軋紛爭。穿高跟鞋的一派與穿低跟鞋的一派互相攻擊，誓不兩立。
第二捲：布羅卜丁奈格（大人國）遊記。格列佛在利立浦特人的心目中是個寵然大物，但一到布羅卜丁奈格，他就象田間的鼬鼠一般小了。格列佛被當作小玩藝裝入手提箱裏，帶到各城鎮表演展覽。後來，國王召見他，他慷慨陳辭，誇耀自己的祖國的偉大，政治的賢明，法律的公正，然而均一一遭到國王的抨擊與駁斥。
第三捲：勒皮他、巴爾尼巴比、拉格奈格、格勒大錐、日本遊記。主要描述格列佛在勒皮他（飛島）和格勒大錐（巫人島）的遊歷。飛島上的人長得畸形怪狀，整天擔憂天體會發生突變，地球會被彗星撞擊得粉碎，因而惶惶不可終日。在科學院裏，設計傢們正在從事研究如何從黃瓜中提取陽光取暖，把糞便還原為食物，繁殖無毛的綿羊，軟化大理石等課題。在巫人島上，島主精通巫術，擅長招魂，他們博覽古今，發現歷史真相被權貴歪麯，娼妓般的作傢在哄騙人世。
第四捲：慧駰國遊記。敘述格列佛在智馬國的遊歷。在這個國度裏，居主宰地位的是有理性的公正而誠實的智馬，供智馬驅使的是一種類似人形的畜類耶鬍，後者生性淫蕩、貪婪、好鬥。
《格列佛遊記》-主題思想
小說第一捲中所描繪的小人國的情景乃是大英帝國的縮影。英國國內托利黨和輝格黨常年不息的鬥爭和對外的戰爭，實質上衹是政客們在一些與國計民生毫不相幹的小節上勾心鬥角。
小說的第二捲則通過大人國國王對格列佛引以為榮的英國選舉制度、議會制度以及種種政教措施所進行的尖銳的抨擊，對英國各種制度及政教措施表示了懷疑和否定。
小說的第三捲，作者把諷刺的鋒芒指嚮了當代英國哲學家，脫離實際、沉溺於幻想的科學家，荒誕不經的發明傢和顛倒黑白的評論傢和歷史傢等。
小說第四捲，作者利用格列佛回答一連串問題而揭露了戰爭的實質、法律的虛偽和不擇手段以獲得官爵的可恥行為等。
綜觀小說的全部情節，《格列佛遊記》政治傾嚮鮮明。它的批判鋒芒，集中在抨擊當時英國的議會政治和反動的宗教勢力。
《格列佛遊記》-主要人物形象分析
格列佛：是十八世紀英國的普通人，他熱愛勞動，剛毅勇敢，心地善良。他在遊歷之中，洞察到社會現實的日趨墮落，得出英國社會並不文明的結論。格列佛的形象，是作者思想的體現者。作者將自己的種種美德賦予筆下的人物，格列佛不計較個人的得失，而對別人關懷備至。格列佛是個正面的理想的人物。他總是坦率地敘述自己的弱點和錯誤，而對自己的優點則衹字不提。他謙遜好學，努力用新眼光去認識新的現實。他從不自暴自棄，縱使將他當作玩物到各地供人觀賞，仍泰然自若，保持自身的尊嚴，以平等的姿態與大人國的國王交談。他勇於幫助小人國抵抗外族入侵，但斷然拒絶為小人國國王的侵略擴張政策效勞。
《格列佛遊記》-文學藝術特點
《格列佛遊記》的藝術特色主要體現在諷刺手法的運用上，尖銳深邃的諷刺是這部作品的靈魂。
當時的英國是作者抨擊和挖苦的對象。格列佛歷險的第一地是小人國。在這個縮微的國度裏，黨派之爭勢不兩立，鄰邦之間不但想戰勝而且要奴役對方。小人國的國王用比賽繩技的方法選拔官員，為獲得國王賞給的幾根彩色絲綫，官員不惜小醜似地做着可笑的表演。這個小朝廷是當時英國的縮影，連利立浦特的朝政風習和典章制度也同當時的英國政局一模一樣；在第二捲裏，作者更是指名道姓地批抨英國。格列佛長篇大論地嚮大人國國王介紹英國的歷史、制度和現狀，以及種種為國傢為自己辨解的事，可是從大人國的眼光看來，英國的歷史充斥着“貪婪、競爭、殘暴、偽善、淫欲、陰險和野心”産生的惡果。作者藉國王的話，“那樣一個卑微無能的小蟲”是“自然界中爬行於地面的小毒蟲最有害的一類”，諷刺了英國社會的方方面面；在第三捲裏，通過對拉格多科學院人士所從事的無聊而荒唐的科學研究，諷刺了英國當時的偽科學；有關勒皮他島的描繪則批評了英國對愛爾蘭的剝削壓迫。
小說不但抨擊了社會現狀，還在更深的層面上，直接諷刺了人性本身。在第四捲裏，關於“錢”的那段議論就是如此。格列佛來到沒有金錢，沒有軍隊警察的慧駰（馬）國，嚮他的馬主人解釋說：“我們那裏的野猢認為，不管是用還是攢，錢都是越多越好，沒有個夠的時候。因為他們天性如此，不是奢侈浪費就是貪得無厭。富人享受着窮人的勞動成果，而窮人和富人在數量上的比例是一千比一。因此我們的人民大多數被迫過着悲慘的生活……”。作者註意到資本主義社會人與人之間的純粹的金錢關係。並由此對人性産生了疑問。
作者在對當時英國的議會政治和反動的宗教勢力進行無情、辛辣的諷刺、抨擊時，有的直言相譏，有的利用異邦人的唇舌，有的隱喻挖苦，有的以獸譏諷人，凡此種種，風趣滑稽，神情皆備。
情節的幻想性與現實的真實性有機結合，也給小說增添了獨特的藝術魅力。雖然作者展現的是一個虛構的童話般的神奇世界，但它是以當時英國社會生活的真實為基礎的。由於作者精確、細膩、貼切的描述，使人感覺不到它是虛構的幻景，似乎一切都是真情實事。例如，在描述小人與大人、人與物的比例關係時，一概按一與十二之比縮小或放大。小人國裏的小人比格列佛小十二倍；大人國的大人又比格列佛大十二倍。格列佛的一塊區區手帕，可以給小人國皇宮當地毯；大人國農婦的那塊手帕，蓋在格列佛身上，就變成一床被單了。在描述飛島的運行，宮殿的建築，城鎮的結構時，作者還有意運用了數學、物理、化學、天文、醫藥諸方面的知識與數據。這樣，就使人物局部細節的真實、和諧、勻稱，轉化為整個畫面、場景的真實、和諧、統一，極大地增強了作品的真實感和感染力。
作者的文筆樸素而簡練。例如文中寫到格列佛在小人國抄錄了一段官方文告，它贊頌國王是“舉世擁戴”的“萬王之王”，“腳踏地心、頭頂太陽”，等等。格列佛還在括號裏不動聲色地解釋道：“周界約十二英裏”。隨着這句解釋，那“直抵地球四極”的無邊領土陡然縮為周邊不過十餘裏的彈丸之地。這種反差令人捧腹。括號裏的話顯示出作者樸素又實事求是的敘述風格，他似乎無意對此評論，衹是在客觀忠實地為我們解釋利立浦特的尺度。他曾經聲明：“我寧願用最簡單樸素的文筆把平凡的事實敘述出來，因為我寫這本書主要是嚮你報道，而不是供你消遣。”儘管小人國、大人國、慧駰國的情景各異，主人公的境遇也不相同，但整部小說的佈局、風格前後一致，格列佛每次出海的前因後果都有詳盡的交待，復雜紛繁的情節均按時間、空間順序依次描述，文字簡潔生動，故事性強，因而數百年來，《格列佛遊記》在歐洲各國雅俗共賞，婦孺皆知。
作者可翻譯為約拿旦·斯威夫特、喬納森·斯威夫特、江奈生·斯威夫特，另外已有《新格列佛遊記》出版
《格列佛遊記》-名傢點評
斯威夫特以幽默豐富了作品的道德含義，以諷刺揭露荒誕，並通過人物性格和敘述框架使人難以置信的事件成為現實，即使《魯濱遜漂流記》也難以在敘述的刻薄性和多樣性方面與其媲美。——（英）司各特
《格列佛遊記》是一部獨具特色的小說傑作。它和18世紀歐洲衆多小說一樣，繼承了流浪漢小說的結構方法，襲用了當時流行的描寫旅行見聞的小說，尤其是航海冒險小說的模式，敘述主人公格列佛在海上漂流的一係列奇遇。它無疑在相當程度上受到笛福《魯濱遜漂流記》和其他一些遊記體冒險小說的影響。然而，《格列佛遊記》和他們雖然形式相似，性質卻截然不同。它是《桶的故事》和《書籍之戰》那類故事的進一步發展，具有與十八世紀開始興起的寫實主義小說不同的若幹獨特性質。——吳厚愷《簡論諷喻體小說《格列佛遊記》及其文學地位》
文學史對《格列佛遊記》的評價：作品假托主人公格列佛醫生自述他數次航海預先，漂流到小人國，大人國，飛島國和智馬國幾個童話式國傢的遭遇和見聞，全面諷刺，挪揄了英國的社會現實．其中“大人國”和“智馬國”社會所社會理想雖然保存了宗法社會的原始特點，但卻包含着啓蒙主義的社會原則和價值觀．作者把諷刺對象誇張變形到殘酷甚至荒誕的地步，與現代的“黑色幽默”有相通之處．
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.