I've just published a post written after our discussion last meeting in L&C III, about Defoe's and Swift's relationship with the 18th-century British society. I'm inviting you all to If I may say so... to have a look at it. Just click here.
Working with values through folktales
12 years ago
2 comments:
It is clear that both, Defoe and Swift have different styles for writing. Their writing styles put into evidence each one conception of humanity and the way each of them interact in society during their periods. While Swift is so critical of the human conditon in general, satirisazing its origin, comparing people with animals putting them in the same level, or manifesting his clear oppossition to the differences among social classes condemning mainly the poor condition, Defoe tends to look for his place in the world through the heroical roles given to the characters of his masterpieces. He also cririzises but with the specific purpose of educating and shaping modern journalism and modern literature. Daniel Defoe work is even nowadays recognized and respected considering this writer as one of the most important modern novelists. On the contrary, Jonathan Swift work is not as well known these days, although he is considered the greatest English satirist. In my opinion, what is more clear between this two writers is that they are different is style but no so different in importance for English literature. Both of them contributes greatly in many pieces of English writing.
I've already picked up from the net a critical analysis by George Orwell towards Swift and Gulliver's Travels. There, the author of Animal Farm, expostulates a wide variety of negative aspects. One of these includes, as far as Orwell is concerned, Swift's elitist and non- egalitan point of view towards his contemporary education. By the end of part 1, Swift describes the Lilliputians' nurseries of the 17th Century, clearly referring that there are nurseries for the children of noble birth, for tradesmen's children, but there are not nurseries for the cottagers or Labourer's children, which depicts how asymetric it was the society of his own time in terms of social equality. Nevertheless, As Gulliver's is a fiction, one as a reader can think that this aprticular negative aspect on education was just Swift's mere classist point of view and for this matter not an aspect of the English society. But,to clarify this doubt, readers should revise constantly the historical context of the novel.
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