Exercises

1. Tell the story of Swift's life.

2. Tell the content of "Gulliver's Travels" according to the following plan:

1) Gulliver in lilliput.

a) Gulliver's impressions of the court and the courtiers as told by himself.

b) The two political parties.

c) The cause of the war between Lilliput and Blefuscu.

2) Gulliver's voyage to Brobdingnag, the country of the giants. Gulliver's conversation with the ideal king of the giants on matters of war and peace.

3) The voyage to Laputa and the other dominions of the king of Laputa.

a) The flying island and how it helped the king to collect taxes from his people.

b) Gulliver's visit to the academy of sciences in Lagado.

c) Glubdubdrib, the island of sorcerers, or magicians. Gulliver compares a modern government with the senate of Rome.

4) Gulliver's voyage to the ideal country of the Houyhnhnms.

3. Whom did Swift mean to ridicule when describing the country of Lilliput and the Lilliputians?

4. Is Swift's description of the life of the giants as vivid and satirical as that of the life of the Lilliputians? Why not?

5. Against whom is Swift's satire directed when he describes the flying islandand the way taxes were collected from the people?

6. What was Swift's idea in inventing the academy of sciences and its absurd projects? Is it really science that Swift ridicules?

7. What was Swift's attitude towards England's war policy as seen in Gulliver's description of the innumerable causes of war?