Description
Jonathan Swift's satirical masterpiece, Gulliver's Travels, has shocked and delighted readers worldwide since its publication in 1726. At turns a humorous and harrowing indictment of human behaviour, it has been endlessly reinterpreted by critics and adapted across media by other artists. The Cambridge Companion to Gulliver's Travels comprises 17 original chapters by leading scholars, written in a theoretically-informed but accessible style. As well as providing detailed close readings of each part of the narrative, this Companion relates Gulliver's Travels to the political, religious, scientific, colonial, and intellectual debates in which Swift was engaged, and it assesses the form of the book as a novel, travel book, philosophical treatise, and satire. Finally, it explores the Travels' rich and varied afterlives: the controversies it has fuelled, the films and artworks it has inspired, and the enduring need authors have felt to 'write back' to Swift's original, disturbing, and challenging story.
Table of Contents
Part I. Contexts: 1. Politics Joseph Hone; 2. Religion Ian Higgins; 3. Bodies and Gender Liz Bellamy; 4. Science, Empire, and Observation Gregory Lynall; Part II. Genres: 5. Popular Fiction J. A. Downie; 6. Satire Pat Rogers; 7. Travel Writing Dirk F. Passmann; 8. Philosophical Tale Paddy Bullard; Part III. Reading Gulliver's Travels: 9. Advertisements and Authorship Brean Hammond; 10. A Voyage to Lilliput Melinda Alliker Rabb; 11. A Voyage to Brobdingnag Nicholas Seager; 12. A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, &c. Barbara M. Benedict; 13. A Voyage to the Land of the Houyhnhnms Judith Hawley; Part IV. Afterlives: 14. Critical Reception Jack Lynch; 15. Further Voyages Daniel Cook; 16. Visual Culture Ruth Menzies; 17. Screen Media Emrys Jones.
