Beschrijving

Satire, long the most neglected of literary genres, has begun to claim its share of critical attention. And no book in the satiric tradition has generated more controversy that Gulliver’s Travels; since it was first published it has been the subject of an often passionate debate about its moral and esthetic value–a debate inseparable from the question of what Swift was really saying about us all, especially in Book IV. Despite the running controversy, this is the first extended study of the Travels to appear in over forty years. It places Swift’s masterpiece in the perspective of its own age, but also in relation to ours. First it reviews the philosophical doubts of the Augustans about the nature of man–doubts now recognized as a major force behind Swift’s satire. It examines Augustan satiric theory and its Continental background; and, coming to the Travels, treats them as one instance of a conventional form, the \