Religion, satire, and Gulliver's fourth voyage
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11344790 |
|---|---|
| Authors | William Casement (SUNY New Paltz, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1992 |
| Volume | 14 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 531-544 |
| Publication date | 1992-07-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | History of European Ideas (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0191-6599 • E-ISSN: 1873-541X |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1016/0191-6599(92)90184-e |
| OpenAlex | W1979531345 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 10 |
Critics have had much to say about Gulliver’s Travels, and perhaps receiving the most attention has been Gulliver’s fourth voyage, the ‘Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms’. Two schools of interpretation have vied for dominance. One school sees Swift as a misanthrope who is satirising the notion that humans are rational creatures; he is telling us, it is said, that humans are governed by their passions and are brutish and lacking morality. The Houyhnhnms’ highly refined state of rationality is taken to represent a desirable but hopelessly utopian ideal. The other school interprets Swift’s message to be less harsh and to tell us that humanity integrates reason and passion. The life of pure rationality portrayed by the Houyhnhnms, where reason is fully in control of passion, is seen as greatly lacking rather than ideal. A convenient terminological distinction between the two schools of interpretation has labelled them the ‘hard’ school (misanthropy thesis) and the ‘soft’ school.’ Both were evident in early criticism of the fourth voyage, with such figures as Samuel Johnson and Sir Walter Scott as ‘hard’ schoolers, and Deane Swift and Thomas Sheridan as ‘soft’ schoolers.2 During the nineteenth century the ‘hard’ school prevailed, with Thackeray leading the way.3 In the 1920s the ‘soft’ school again began to appear, and it gradually grew to dominate. By midcentury ‘hard’ school reaction had gained strength, and during the 1970s and 1980s ‘soft’ school counterreaction was apparent. While much has been said by and against both schools, the meaning of the fourth voyage remains controversial. One of the most recent books on Swift calls the ‘hard’ versus ‘soft’ controversy a ‘probably never-to-be-settled question’.4 While the question may continue unsettled in the sense that there will continue to be advocates for both sides, my position is that the ‘soft’ school stands on stronger ground: the ‘hard’ school is largely mistaken, and the ‘soft’ school approaches a better understanding Houyhnhnmland. But the ‘soft’ school stance and its superiority are in need of further clarification and extension. Central to this venture, and related to the ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ school differences over Swift’s portrayal of human nature, are three other key points of difference: the type of satire he is engaged in, whether or not there is a message present (and if so, of what sort) regarding religion, and the use of evidence outside the specific text in interpretation. The ‘hard’ school finds the satire to be invective, and to carry no religious message or a harsh one. Extra-textual evidence is shunned or very limited. ‘Soft’ school thinking finds the satire to be instructive, and to carry a less harsh and more important message about religion. And there is a willingness to appeal to more and various extra-textual sources in interpretation
Art · Literature · Political science · History · Philosophy · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity
| Highly cited | No |
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