「ガリバァ族行記」の政治思想
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概要
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When we examine the political theory in Gulliver's Travels, we come upon an embarrassing contradiction. We feel that, without the more detailed study of the author's violent and inimitable pessimism, which, no doubt, forms the arm basis of the book itself, we can hardly blame his political view for its fault, its reactionism, but at the same time, we cannot forgive his political theory, which is found to be conspicuous for its reactionism, on any account. We do not think that the fault of political view will be toleated for some unpolitical reason. How the author failed to have a correct understanding of the actual situation of his time is to be disclosed in the following considerations: 1. It is wrong to interpret Gulliver's Travels exclusively as a Tory satire on the Whigs. To adopt this point of view is to miss the author's attack on the political party itself, which is the main point of the satire in the book. The fact is that Swift wrote in the traition of the theory of partyless state. 2. For old advocates of the idea of partyless state, such as Machiavelli and Harrington, the ideal form of government had been the mixed state, which was cherished also as an ideal by our author. 3. In Gulliver's Travels, we find many passages, especially in second and third voyages, which indicate political measures adopted by the author for the attainment of his political ideal, the mixed state. 4. The quality of those measures, however, proves that the author remained negatively oriented to the social forces of his time. Notice, for instance, the biased view that he holds concerning legislature. Now we can hardly say that the author did intend from the first to develop his political theory in order to meet the requirements of the times. On the contrary, our inquiry into the nature of his prejudice reveals that the essence of his political view was indissolubly associated with his secret but firm conviction, which was scarcely swayed by the circumstance. So we are embarrassed with the contradiction noticed above. It must be remarked that his personal conviction, which finally produced his deep pessimism in his isolation, was powerful enough to make him endure the high tension brought about by the contradictory character of his political theory.
- 財団法人日本英文学会の論文
- 1955-10-15
財団法人日本英文学会 | 論文
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