『ガリヴァー旅行記第三部』における'Playfulness'について
スポンサーリンク
概要
- 論文の詳細を見る
Kathleen William defended Swift against Thackeray's charges of absolute misanthropy in her Jonathan Swift and the Age of Compromise (1958), and what James L. Clifford has called the 'soft' school of Gulliver interpretation continues to be preferred to the 'hard' school. Not the unhappy Swift filled with a savage indignation, but the happy Swift sustained by enormous gaiety has been continued to be explored until Swift Tercentenary (1967). In Gulliver's Travels, the third voyage, compared with the first, second, and fourth voyages, is full of gaiety, and in it 'Playfulness' is most predominant. Why ? (1) Swift began to write the 'Voyage to Laputa' (last in order of composition) around January 1724 and finished it sometime in 1725. In 1724 and 1725, Swift and Rev. Thomas Sheridan were meeting constantly, and Sheridan's good-naturedness and absent-mindedness are reflected in the characterizations of the King of Laputa and Laputians, and this produces the effect of 'Playfulness'. (2) In 1724 the Drapier's Letters (I-VII) interrupted the writing of Gulliver's Travels, and scoring a complete triumph against England, he was received in Ireland as a Hibernian Patriot. Swift could now influence not only Church of Ireland but Irish government. Now Swift was not 'a poisoned rat in hole', but a national hero. He was full of happiness and gaiety. In the third voyage, the description and allusion to Ireland is not so tragical as in Drapier's Letters (1724) and A Modest Prosopal (1729). (3) During 1723, Vanessa died and the compromise with Stella was completed. Now he was free from the misfortune that was to be attended with shame, guilt and ruin. Swift again was in a position to banter a woman in 'Voyage to Laputa' (1724-1725).
- 東海大学の論文