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Many readers of today are acquainted – or think they are – with Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. What they really know are watered-down versions or film adaptations re-packaging the text as an example of children’s literature. However, Swift’s texts were most definitely written with adult readers in mind. They are witty, entertaining, provocative and full of biting satire. In them, we find a wide range of ideas - an obsession with the grosser aspects of the human body as well as a passionate interest in politics. As an Irishman, Swift addressed the colonial condition of Ireland in various ways, some of them extremely drastic, seeming to advocate cannibalism as a way of fighting poverty.
In this seminar, we are going to discuss Gulliver’s Travels, shorter satirical prose such as A Modest Proposal, and a selection of his poems. These will be connected with their cultural and historical contexts and various theoretical approaches (including post-colonial ones) that may enhance our understanding of these texts.
Please buy the following editions (and none other!): Swift, Jonathan, (ed. Rawson, Claude, with notes by Higgins, Ian), Gulliver’s Travels (Oxford World’s Classics) and Swift, Jonathan (edd.: Ross, Angus, and Woolley, David), Major Works including A Tale of a Tub and The Battle of the Books (Oxford World’s Classics).
Requirements: reading the assigned texts, thorough preparation, active participation, and written work according to your particular Studienordnung. As always: read, think, enjoy (!!), annotate (!) and look things up if necessary. The first texts to be discussed will be A Description of the Morning, Modest Proposal and Gulliver’s Travels. |
