Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift was a man of letters, a politically engaged pamphleteer, poet and satirist (when he wasn't doing his main work of being the Dean of St Patrick's in Dublin), and he wanted to make a few sharp and pertinent points. To do this, he created the tiny world of Lilliput and the huge one of Brobdingnag. The peoples of these places being remarkably human in aspect, Swift could explore facets of European civilisation from two completely opposing but complementary perspectives. At the same time, he could let Gulliver pass comment on the strange new worlds he was entering; and the different peoples he met could offer opinions on the world Gulliver represented. This matter of scale, which so brilliantly illumines and focuses the objects of concern, seems so simple; but its pleasing simplicity is that of complex genius. Once established, it allows Swift to develop his theme of the traveller visiting strange lands, and in the voyage to Laputa and the land of the Houyhnhnms, his satire develops into more surreal and then far darker territories. —Naxos Audiobooks