A Lash for the World: Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels

Abstract

Gulliver's Travels is a landmark in world literature. Swift intended the work for the world and for all periods and the satire has a timelessness that makes it always contemporary. It has an enduring international multimedia presence. A mock travel book in a tradition of satirical imaginary voyages, Gulliver's Travels is confected from multiple genres and draws upon world literature, especially the literature of the classical world. What it isn't is a novel. Modern novelistic readings have led to a softening of what is an unpalatable hardcore misanthropic satire. Swift's work has multiple targets but a principal target is the reader. Aspects of Swift's satire are politically extremist. The work contains a famous denunciation of colonialism and provides an early astringent critique of a nascent global capitalism. A sensation and scandal at the time of its publication, the satire still arrests attention today.