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View Full Version : Gulliver's Travels--- Anybody here read it?



furious
17th June 2007, 21:59
http://www.orwelltoday.com/gulliver1.jpg

I'm enjoying Gulliver's Travels right now. It's very satiric. There is one part there that had me chortling---when Gulliver meets the tiny Lilliputians they take him to their king and this is how they describe their leader:

"GOLBASTO MOMAREN EVLAME GURDILO SHEFIN MULLY ULLY GUE, most Mighty Emperor of Lilliput, Delight and Terror of the Universe, whose Dominions extend five thousand Blustrugs (about twelve miles in circumference) to the Extremities of the Globe; Monarch of all Monarchs, taller than the Sons of Men; whose Feet press down to the Center, and whose Head strikes against the Sun: At whose Nod the Princes of the Earth shake their Knees; pleasant as the Spring, comfortable as the Summer, fruitful as Autumn, dreadful as Winter."

He was surely making fun of kings in the above passage.

In another part after he puts out a fire in the queen's palace by urinating on it. In another part after defecating he writes:

"I hope the gentle Reader will excuse me for dwelling on these and the like Particulars; which however insignificant they may appear to grovelling vulgar Minds, yet will certainly help a Philosopher to enlarge his Thoughts and Imagination, and apply them to the Benefit of publick as well as private Life, which was my sole Design in presenting this and other Accounts of my Travels to the World; wherein I have been chiefly studious of Truth, without affecting any Ornaments of Learning or of Style."

luxemburg89
18th June 2007, 16:07
Yeah I studied Gulliver's Travels YEARS ago. I remember seeing a really shit stage production of it lol. I think it's alright...

blackstone
18th June 2007, 16:15
If you don't understand his satire of the monarchy then you won't appreciate it as good literature.

bezdomni
18th June 2007, 17:30
The ending was great.

Angry Young Man
18th June 2007, 18:36
Originally posted by [email protected] 18, 2007 03:15 pm
If you don't understand his satire of the monarchy then you won't appreciate it as good literature.
I thought Swift was a conservative. :huh:

furious
30th June 2007, 00:48
Originally posted by Romantic Revolutionary+June 18, 2007 05:36 pm--> (Romantic Revolutionary @ June 18, 2007 05:36 pm)
[email protected] 18, 2007 03:15 pm
If you don't understand his satire of the monarchy then you won't appreciate it as good literature.
I thought Swift was a conservative. :huh: [/b]
Jonathan Swift may have been religious but if you read Gulliver's Travels he writes about how the rich live off the poor and the poor have nothing (that's in Book 4). This is all way before Marx, Lenin and Castro.

CornetJoyce
30th June 2007, 01:11
Swift was satirizing the monarchy, religion, English imperialism (see his Modest Proposal), and the human race (yahoos). And yes, people noticed that the poor were poor even before Marx. Golly gee whiz, they even walked upright.