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Post by Daniel on Nov 15, 2009 12:23:38 GMT -5
The Restoration and The Glorious Revolution
-Charles II, son of Charles I was restored to the English Throne in 1661. James II ruled from 1685 after his brother, Charles II died.
-Many of James’ subjects were unhappy with his interventions in Parliament, his belief in absolute monarchy and the Divine Right of Kings, and his Catholic Faith.
He was deposed during the Glorious Revolution: in 1688, a group of Parliamentarians invited Prince William of Orange, husband to James’ daughter Mary Stuart
Enlightenment
‘The term "Enlightenment" came into use in English during the mid-nineteenth century.The terminology Enlightenment or Age of Enlightenment does not represent a single movement or school of thought, for these philosophies were often mutually contradictory or divergent. The Enlightenment was less a set of ideas than it was a set of values. At its core was a critical questioning of traditional institutions, customs, and morals. Some classifications of this period also include the late seventeenth century, which is typically known as the Age of Reason or Age of Rationalism’
Quoted from Wikipedia.
Jonathan Swift
-Was born in 1667 and died in 1745 at the age of 78.
Graduated Trinity College, Dublin, receiving a B.A. He later received his M.A. From Hertford College, Oxford in 1692. In February 1702, Swift received his Doctor of Divinity degree from Trinity College, Dublin.
-Swift wrote political pamphlets for the Tory party in England, as well as writing such works as A Tale of the Tub(a Satire on Western Christianity), Gulliver’s Travels ( a Satire on Human Nature) and A Modest Proposal (A Satire on British rule in Ireland)
The most famous Satirist in English Literature.
Satire
Writing that sought to persuade and promote a moral viewpoint can be traced as far back as the Egyptian The Satire of the Trades and had roots in other classic civilizations such as Greek and Roman (Juvenal). Though the satire of these ancient cultures followed specific poetic patterns and rules, their purpose transcended metrical constraint and found its way into the evolving concept of literature. Their literature ‘has an aim, a preconceived purpose: to instill a given set of emotions or opinions into its reader’ (David Worcester)
We can separate Satire into two types: Horatian Satire and Juvenalian Satire.
There are also different features in Satire, and we shall look at Invective, Burlesque and Irony.
Types of Satire
Horatian
Named for the Roman satirist, Horace, this type of satire is meant to be playful. It seeks to criticize some vice in society (oftentimes identified as foolish rather than evil) through gentle, mild, and light-hearted humor
For example, Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels.
Juvenalian
Named after the Roman satirist Juvenal, this type of satire is far darker. Unlike Horatian satire, Juvenalian satire seeks to correct immediately some evil in society through scorn, outrage, and savage ridicule. This form is very pessimistic in tone.
For example, Swift’s ‘A Modest Proposal’
Features of Satire - Invective
Invective is one of the most direct and open methods of satire
It literally means ‘vehement or violent denunciation, censure, or reproach’, a ‘railing accusation’.
In literature is often an attack, sometimes thinly veiled but often obvious and full of anger/passion. It can also take the form of an accusation.
‘anger is the most repellent of emotions. It is acute discomfort to be present where a man has fallen into a furious passion’ (Worcester)
Features of Satire – Burlesque
Invective is less direct than Invection and operates through comparison, often to a ludicrous degree.
Operates through either glorifying a lowly subject (high-burlesque) or reducing an exalted one (low-burlesque)
High Burlesque
A story about gun-fights, and the final fight is in a church.
Your homework was so good I decided to replace my Bible and read your homework every-night before I sleep instead.
Low Burlesque
A story about religion, and the final scene involves a gun fight in a church.
I gave up reading the Bible: nothing happened, the plot was boring and the characters were not believable!
Features of Satire – Irony
Irony in less direct than both Burlesque and Satire, and is often the source of much confusion, especially amongst non-native speakers of English.
Functions through asserting a viewpoint we know to be false or contrary to the true meaning.
Verbal Irony/Irony of Manner/ Dramatic Irony/ Socratic Irony
For example:
I think he was doing the best he could.
Well done.
Good job.
Gulliver’s Travels
Gulliver’s Travels is a satire of human nature and also a parody of the travel-narrative that was popular during the 18th and 19th century. It’s full title is: Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of several Ships
Was published, secretly at first, in 1725. As the content of the book was viewed as anti-Whig and unkind to royalty, several parts were originally cut by the publisher. Swift also had the work copied so as to avoid prosecution based on his hand-writing.
The book is sectioned into four parts: A Voyage to Lilliput, A Voyage to Brobdingnag, A Voyage to Laputa and a Voyage to Houyhnhnms
A Voyage to Lilliput
Chapter 1
The novel begins with Lemuel Gulliver recounting the story of his life
His family is poor, and though he studies at Cambridge, he is sent to London to be asurgeon’s apprentice.
He later becomes a surgeon aboard a ship called the Swallow for three years. He the settles in London to work as a doctor and marries a woman named Mary Burton.
Faced with more money problems, he decides to return to sea and he travels for six years. He plans to return home at the end of this time, but he decides to take one more job on a ship called The Antelope.
The ship encounters a storm, and is destroyed. Gulliver lands on an island, and goes to sleep.
He wakes up...
Read the passage from the book.
Chapter 2
Gulliver is chained to the temple.
The Emperor vists on horseback. He is dressed plainly and carries a sword. He orders his servants to give Gulliver food and drink.They try to speak: Gulliver tries every language he knows but none work.
After two hours, Gulliver is left with a group of soldiers guarding him. Some of them, disobeying orders, shoot arrows at him. As punishment, the general of the army ties up six of them and puts them in Gulliver’s hand. Gulliver puts five of them into his pocket, pretends to eat the sixth and then sets him free. He repeats thet rick with each one. The court is pleased.
A bed is made for Gulliver: 600 small beds are sewn together. People come from all over the country to see and the government decide what to do with him. Many concerns are revealed: he will break loose, he will eat too much, and they argue they should kill him.
Officers who saw Gulliver’s treatment of the six soldiers report to the council, and they decide to respond with kindness. They arrange to deliver large amounts of food each morning, supply him with servants, talors to make him clothing and teachers to teach their language.
Gulliver persists in asking the Emperor for his freedom, and the Emperor keeps denying him, saying he should be patient.
Chapter 3
The Emperor decides to put on a show, including a performance of Rope-Dancers, people who are seeking employment in the goverment. Rope is suspended two feet above the ground and candidates try to jump the highest to earn the highest office.
Another performance is made for Gulliver: the Emperor lays three silken threads of different colors on a table. He then holds out a stick, and candidates are asked to leap over it or creep under it. Whoever shows the most dexterity wins one of the ribbons.
The Emperor asks Gulliver to pose like a giant statute so that his trops might march under his legs.
Gulliver is finally given his freedom, but first he must swear to assist the Lilliputians in times of war, survey the land around them, help with counstruction and deliver urgent messages. Gulliver agrees.
Chapter 4
After gaining his freedom, Gulliver goes to Mildendo, the capital city. The residents are told to stay indoors and they all sit on their roofs to see him.
Two weeks after Gulliver obtains his liberty, a government official comes to see him called Reldresal. He tells Gulliver that one rebel group and one foreign empire threaten the country. The rebel group exists because the Kingdom is separated into two factions: Tramecksan and Slamecksan. They are distuingished by the height of their heels: the emperor has chosen to employ primarily low-heeled Slamecksan in his administration. The Emperor himself has lower heels than his officials, but his heir has one heel higher than the other, which makes him walk unevenly.
There is also a threat from the country of Blefuscu, the ‘Other Great Empire of the Universe’. . Long ago, the Emperor’s grandfather, commanded all Lilliputians to break their eggs on the small end first. He made the decicion after breaking his egg in the old way, large end first, and cutting his finger. The people resented the law, and sex rebellisions were started in protest. The rebels fled to Blefuscu, and many books were written on the subject. Books written by Big-Endians were band in Lilliput. Blefuscu accused Lilliputians of disobeying religious dosctrine, the Brundrecral. The Lilliputians argued that the doctrine reads ‘That all true believers shall break their eggs at the convenient end’. Gulliver offers his services to the emperor.
Chapter 5
Gulliver spies on Blefuscu and devises a plan. He takes cables and a bar of iron, and swims the channel to Blefuscu. He attaches a hook to each of Blefuscu’s ships and pulls them all away to Lilliput.
Gulliver is greeted as a hero. The Emperor asks him to return and destroy all of the country’s ships, but Gulliver refuses, saying he does not want to encourage slavery and injustice. There is some disagreement in the court.
Three weeks later, Blefuscu surrender and a delegation asks Gulliver to visit their kingdom.
Gulliver is also called upon to help when the emperor’s wife’s room catches fire. He forgets his coat and cannot put the flames out with his clothing, so instead he urinates on the palace, putting out the fire but breaking the law against public urination. The Emperor tells him he will be pardoned but the Emperor’s wife is unhappy with Gulliver’s solution.
Chapter 6
Gulliver describes Lilliput in greater detail.
They are well educated, but their writing system is different, as they write from ‘one corner of the page to the other’
They are buried with their heads pointing directly downward because they believe the dead will rise, the earth is flat and it will turn upside down.
Deceit is considered worse than theft, because honest people are more vulnerable to liars than to thieves, since commerce requires trust.
Children are not raised by individual parents but by the kingdom as a whole. They are sent to live in schools at a young age. The schools are chosen according to the station of their parents, whom they see only twice a year.
Ingratitude is punishable by death, for instance, because anybody who would treat a benefactor badly must be an enemy to all mankind
Chapter 7
Gulliver goes on to describe the “intrigue” that precipitates his departure from Lilliput. While he prepares to make his trip to Blefuscu, a court official tells Gulliver that he has been charged with treason by enemies in the government. He shows Gulliver the document calling for his execution: Gulliver is charged with public urination, refusing to obey the emperor’s orders to seize the remaining Blefuscu ships, aiding enemy ambassadors, and traveling to Blefuscu.
Gulliver is told that Reldresal has asked for his sentence to be reduced, calling not for execution but for putting his eyes out. This punishment has been agreed upon, along with a plan to starve him to death slowly. The official tells Gulliver that the operation to blind him will take place in three days. Fearing this resolution, Gulliver crosses the channel and arrives in Blefuscu.
Chapter 8
Three days later, he sees a boat of normal size—that is, big enough to carry him—overturned in the water. He asks the emperor of Blefuscu to help him fix it. At the same time, the emperor of Lilliput sends an envoy with the articles commanding Gulliver to give up his eyesight. The emperor of Blefuscu sends it back with the message that Gulliver will soon be leaving both their kingdoms. After about a month, the boat is ready and Gulliver sets sail. He arrives safely back in England, where he makes a good profit showing miniature farm animals that he carried away from Blefuscu in his pockets..
A Voyage to Brobdingnag
Chapter 1
After two months back in England, Gulliver decides to sail again
The ship arrives at an unknown island: there are no inhabitants and the landscape is barren. Gulliver is walking back to the boat but sees it is leaving.
Read the passage from the text-book.
Chapter 2
The farmer’s daughter becomes Gulliver’s guardian, and makes him a bed out of a doll’s cradle and teaches him the language.
The farmer begins to talk about Gulliver in the town and people come to see him. Gulliver is then taken to town and displayed to the people there. He does ‘tricks’ to amuse them.
People come from far around to see Gulliver and the farmer, thinking he can make a fortune through Gulliver, begins to take him to the largest cities of the country.
Chapter 3
The strain of performing has made Gulliver weak and thin.
The farmer notices this and resolves to make as much money as he can from Gulliver before he dies.
Meanwhile, an order from the court commanding the farmer to bring Gulliver to the Queen for entertainment. The Queen, being very pleased with Gulliver, purchases him for 1,000 gold pieces.
Gulliver explains his suffering ot the Queen, and she is impressed with his intelligence. She shows him to the King, who at first thinks he is a mechanical creation and then sends for the best scholars to come and observe Gulliver.
The King talks to Gulliver about politics, and laughs at his descriptions of European governments and events.
Meanwhile, the Queen’s dwarf is not happy with Gulliver’s arrival. Previously, he was the smallest man in the kingdom and the source of royal entertainment, but Gulliver has supplanted him.
Chapter 4
Gulliver describes the geography of Brobdingnag, noting first that since the land stretches out about 6,000 miles there must be a severe error in European maps. The kingdom is bounded on one side by mountains and on the other three sides by the sea. The water is so rough that there is no trade with other nations. The rivers are well stocked with giant fish, but the fish in the sea are of the same size as those in the rest of the world—and therefore not worth catching.
Gulliver is carried around the city in a special traveling-box, and people always crowd around to see him. He asks to see the largest temple in the country and is not overwhelmed by its size, since at a height of 3,000 feet it is proportionally smaller than the largest steeple in England.
Chapter 5
Gulliver is mostly happy in Brobdingnag except for a few incidents.
The dwarf, angry at Gulliver teasing him, shakes an apply tree over his head, and one apple knocks him over.
Another time, Gulliver is left outside during a hail storm and he is so bruised that he cannot leave the house for ten days.
He is also invited the ladies apartments, and treated as a plaything. Here the ladies would strip his clothes and place him in their bosoms, and strip in front of him. He notes their horrible smell and terrible skin. (Discovery of the Microscope)
Another danger arises when a monkey enters the palace and captures Gulliver, holding him like a baby and force-feeding him. He is rescued, the monkey is killed and orders are sent out that no other monkeys be kept in the palace
Chapter 6
Gulliver makes himself a comb from the stumps of hair left by the King after he has shaven.
Gulliver thinks the King has come to regard England as insignificant and laughable, so Gulliver tries to tell him more by describing the culture and the government there. The King asks many questions as is struck by the violent history of the country.
He tells Gulliver that he finds the world that Gulliver describes to be ridiculous, contemptuous and strange, and tells him that he concludes that most Englishmen sound like ‘odious vermin’
Chapter 7
Gulliver tries to offer the King gunpowder as a great invention and gesture of friendship. The king is appalled.
Gulliver finds the King to be narrow-minded and not open to Gulliver’s inventions. He then reflects that most people in Brobdingnag are ignorant and poorly educated.
Chapter 8
The king orders any small ship to be brought to the city, hoping that they might find a woman with whom Gulliver can propagate. He has been in Brobdingnag for two years.
Gulliver is taken to the south coast, Gulliver says that he wants fresh air, and a page carries him out to the shore in his traveling-box. He asks to be left to sleep in his hammock, and the boy wanders off. An eagle grabs hold of Gulliver’s box and flies off with him, and then suddenly Gulliver feels himself falling and lands in the water. He hears a voice telling him that his box is tied to a ship and that a carpenter will come to drill a hole in the top.
Gulliver begins to recover on the ship, and he tries to tell the sailors the story of his recent journey. He shows them things he saved from Brobdingnag, like his comb. He has trouble adjusting to the sailors’ small size, and he finds himself shouting all the time. When he reaches home, it takes him some time to grow accustomed to his old life, and his wife asks him to never go to sea again
A Voyage to Laputa
Chapter 1
After just ten days at home, Gulliver receives a mysterious visit from a captain asking him to sail about his ship in two months’ time, and Gulliver agrees.
On the voyage, the ship is attacked by pirates. Gulliver hears a Dutch voice and speaks to the pirate in Dutch, begging for mercy since they are both Christians.
A Japanese pirate tells them they will not die, and Gulliver says he is surprised to see more mercy in a heathen than a Christian.
The Dutchman is angry and sets Gulliver out to sea with only four days worth of food.
Gulliver finds some islands, and then notices the sun is obscured for some time.
He then sees a landmass dropping down from the sky and notices that it is full of people. He shouts to them, and they lower a chain for him to climb up to the island in the sky.
Chapter 2
Gulliver is immediately surrounded by people and he notices they are quite odd. Their heads are tilted to one side or the other, with one eye turned inward and the other look up. Some of the people are servants, and each of them carries a ‘flapper’ made ofa stick with a pouch tied to the end. Their job is to striek the ear of the listener and the mouth of the speaker at the appropriate times to prevent their minds wandering off.
Gulliver meets the king, who sits behind a table full of instruments
They realise they cannot understand each other, and Gulliver is sent away to learn the language and is supplied with tailors and servants. Meanwhile, the island is taken to Lagado, the capital city of the kingdom, passing villages along the way and collecting petitions from the king’s subjects by means of ropes sent down to the lands below.
Chapter 3
This floating island is circular with a 4 1/2 mile diameter equalling 10,000 acres. The bottom is made of thick iron-rich soil/rock. A chasm in the center top collects rain but it can rise above the clouds if there is too much rain. A magnet is suspended in this chasm and can be turned to attact or repell the island to/from the earth as well as hover in place. The people who man the magnet are great astromoners with powerful telescopes. The King controls the people down below his floating island by hovering over them to deprive them of sun and water, pelting them with stones or even destroying the whole town by squashing them with the floating island. One city, Lindalino, rebelled and built towers, topped with magnets, hoping to attract the floating island and crack the bottom layerof soil/rock, thus destroying it. The astronomers were able to keep the island afloat but the King was forced to give the town their own conditions. The King and two eldest sons are not allowed to leave the island; the queen can leave when she is no longer of child-bearing age.
Chapter 4
After two months, Gulliver asks to leave this floating island of disagreeable companions. He was let down in Lagado on the continnent of Balnibarbi with a letter recommendation for an ex-governor named Munodi. Munodi had been discharged as governor due to his inability to adapt to the new methods of farming, building etc. The new ideas, started about 40 years ago, promised wondrous improvements but to date, the homes were poorly built, the people were poorly clothed, the fields yielded little food. Munodi still had his old country home where everything ran smoothly, usi
Munodi explains that forty years ago some people went to Laputa and returned with new ideas about mathematics and art. They decided to establish an academy in Lagado to develop new theories on agriculture and construction and to initiate projects to improve the lives of the city’s inhabitants. However, the theories have never produced any results and the new techniques have left the country in ruin..
Chapter 5
Gulliver visits their Academy and finds people working on all sorts of projects: extracting sunbeams from cucumbers, changing human excrement back to food, identifying colors of paint by smell and feel, etc. Another part of the Academy was less scientific. Projects included writing books by tossing words in a frame to find groups of words that made at least broken sentences, eliminating all parts of speech except nouns, even eliminating all speech and just carrying around actual nouns (women objected to this), eating papers with math problems written on them to help solve the comptutions. Nothing was really working but they were hopeful and persistent.
Another was trying to build houses from the roof down
Another is attempting to turn ice into gunpowder
Chapter 6
Gulliver then visits professors who are studying issues of government. One claims that women should be taxed according to their beauty and skill at dressing, and another claims that conspiracies against the government could be discovered by studying the excrement of subjects. Gulliver grows tired of the academy and begins to yearn for a return to England.
Chapter 7
Gulliver tries to travel to Luggnagg, but he finds no ship available. Since he has to wait a month, he is advised to take a trip to Glubbdubdrib, the island of magicians. Gulliver visits the governor of Glubbdubdrib, and he finds that servants who appear and disappear like spirits attend the governor. The governor tells Gulliver that he has the power to call up any shade he would like. Gulliver chooses Alexander the Great, who assures him that he died not from poison but from excessive drinking. He then sees the Carthaginian general Hannibal and the Roman leaders Caesar, Pompey, and Brutus.
Chapter 8
Gulliver sets apart one day to speak with the most venerated people in history, starting with Homer and Aristotle. He asks the French philosophers René Descartes and Pierre Gassendi to describe their systems to Aristotle, who freely acknowledges his own mistakes while pointing out that systems of nature will always vary from age to age.
Chapter 9
Gulliver then returns to Luggnagg, where he is confined despite his desire to return to England. He is ordered to appear at the king’s court and is given lodging and an allowance. He learns that subjects are expected to lick the floor as they approach the king, and that the king sometimes gets rid of opponents in the court by coating the floor with poison.
Chapter 10
The Luggnaggians tell Gulliver about certain immortal people, children born with a red spot on their foreheads who are called Struldbrugs. Gulliver devises a whole system of what he would do if he were immortal, starting with the acquisition of riches and knowledge. Contrary to his fantasy, however, he is told that after the age of thirty, most Struldbrugs grow sad and dejected, and by eighty, they are incapable of affection and envious of those who are able to die. If two of the Struldbrugs marry, the marriage is dissolved when one reaches eighty, because “those who are condemned without any fault of their own to a perpetual continuance in the world should not have their misery doubled by the load of a wife.” He meets some of these people and finds them to be unhappy and unpleasant, and he regrets ever wishing for their state.
Chapter 11
Gulliver is finally able to depart from Luggnagg, after refusing employment there, and he arrives safely in Japan. From there he gains passage on a Dutch ship by pretending to be from Holland and sets sail from Amsterdam to England, where he finds his family in good health.
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