Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

- It is a satire. (Webster: 1 : a literary work holding up human vices and follies to ridicule or scorn 2 : trenchant wit, irony, or sarcasm used to expose and discredit vice or folly)

How does it differ from sarcasm? (Webster: 1 : a sharp and often satirical or ironic utterance designed to cut or give pain)

- believes in human norms, cast derision on human folly
- One theme of Gulliver’s Travels is vanity

- Born in Ireland to English parents
- father dies before he is born
- Became an ordained Church of Ireland (Anglican) priest in 1695
- Shortly afterward he began writing satires of the “moderns”
- Critical of the Age of Reason and supports experience and common sense as guides to life
- Also critical of the contemporary optimism surrounding human perfectibility (omits consideration of human sinfulness)
- Installed as dean of St. Patrick’s cathedral in Dublin in 1713
- Dies in 1745 as is buried in St. Patrick’s Cathedral


Gulliver’s Travels is an account for the four voyages of Lemuel Gulliver. The one we’ll read is when he goes to Lilliput, whose inhabitants are 1/12 his size.