The story revolves around Captain Lemuel Gulliver, who finds himself in various strange lands filled with peculiar inhabitants. In one of his adventures, he encounters the Lilliputians, a race of tiny people led by an emperor.
He actively participated in politics, even writing pamphlets against the Whigs, who were the rivals of the Tories, whom he supported.
His masterpiece, the novel that we already mentioned at the beginning of the article, was originally titled Travels to various remote nations.
You may not know it, but he is considered to be the creator of the feminine name Vanessa, which he devised to name a young woman with whom he shared part of his life and who, in reality, responded to the identity of Esther Vanhomrigh.
His father passed away before he was born
Fundamental ideas
Gulliver's Travels is one of the classics of English literature.
The work is a clever mix of a travel story, an intimate diary, and utopia.
The book was a formidable success, despite the fact that some partly explicit descriptions were removed and even banned.
Anglo-Irish writer Jonathan Swift published the novel anonymously in 1726.
A satire of society
Behind the facade of strange adventures, we find a general criticism not only of English society in Swift's time, but of humanity and its dubious evolution.
It is the height of absurdity for the literature of the time
Although Swift's work (especially the first two chapters) ended up becoming a classic of youth literature
Characters
Mrs. Mary Burton Gulliver
Gulliver's wife.
Flimnap
Gulliver's enemy in Lilliput, accuses Gulliver of picking up his wife.
The emperor
The leader of the Lilliputians. He is initially friendly with Gulliver, but changes his mind about him when Gulliver refuses to continue fighting Blefuscu and puts out a fire in the Empress chamber by urinating on him.
Blefuscudians
The sworn enemies of the Lilliputians, live on a neighboring island. Gulliver flees to his island when the Lilliputians convict him of treason.
Gulliver
El Capitán Lemuel Gulliver, el narrador.
Type of text
Of adventures
Literary
Narrativo
Adaptations to the big screen.
The best known is that of 2010 starring actor Jack Black which makes this fabulous novel look like a comedy genre