Open Guides To Literature: Gulliver's Travels

Shortly after Gulliver's Travels was published, Swift told the story (or did he invent it?) of an Irish bishop who said that the 'Book was full of improbable lies, and for his part, he hardly believed a word of it'. This book written to 'vex the world rather then (sic) divert it' - has achieved the dubious status of a 'children's classic', albeit at the cost of total neglect of its most complex passages - those sections that engage most fiercely with the realities of Swift's own experience. In this Guide, Brean Hammond shows that reading Swift is not a passive form of consumption, but an active business of producing meaning. Swift's prose, despite its glittering clarity and aggressive straightforwardness, continually lays traps for the unwary reader. Vigilance is the best means of survival.