Gulliver's Travels: A Pre-Analysis

For my class' upcoming book analysis, I wanted to read something that I could find interesting. I first looked to literature from the Scientific Revolution and settled on a work about Galileo. Unfortunately, that book was not available at my local or school library when in came time to acquire my book, so I was forced to look elsewhere. Nothing else caught my eye in the list of pre-approved readings from the Scientific Revolution, so I moved over to the next best era: the Age of Enlightenment. While glancing through the list, one name popped out at me: Gulliver's Travels, a name I had heard in passing, but had never really known about. I thought this would be a great opportunity to see what it was about.

The story of Gulliver's Travels is told from the first-person experience of Lemuel Gulliver, a man with a heart for adventure and a background in medicine. Gulliver wants to explore the world and see what few others have witnessed. By chance, he gets his wish, seeing fantastical lands only ever described in fantasy stories. From the nations of people only inches tall, to the world of giants taller that buildings, Gulliver sees the world like no other Englishman would, and lives to tell the tales. It is a lighthearted work of literature, and could easily be seen as another story of fantasy adventure and discovery, if not for the more learned meanings behind each of Gulliver's travels. 

Written by Jonathan Swift in the 18th century, and published Oct. 28, 1726, Gulliver's Travels is much less about storytelling, and much more about real-life issues (at least of that time). Swift, an Irish satirist who lived during the Age of Enlightenment, was known for his cheeky criticisms and critiques of Europe during that day. He was one of the first writers to largely use satire as a literary form to provide commentary on issues through stories, like those seen in Gulliver's Travels. Each of the different worlds Gulliver visits in his travels is actually representative of some group or idea from 18th century Europe, but none of this is explicitly stated in the book (at least not as far as I have read). The satirical themes are hard to see if you don't know what they mean, and are easily overlooked. It is interesting to me, to see such a great deal of work go into such a great story, and also have so much meaning under the surface. 

In all, I am enjoying my read of this book. It is well-written, clever, and takes on an interesting view from the shoes of Gulliver, who talks and refers directly to the reader. I would gladly recommend this work to anyone, and I look forward to completing a detailed analysis of this literature.