Swift's Gulliver, no friend to science (Q1899835)

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), categorized as the greatest of English satirists, wrote `Gulliver's travels' intending it properly to be accepted as an attack on many contemporary notions or beliefs in the England of his day. This famous book was, however, read from the beginning, as now, simply as a children's story. The target of institutions and opinions at which Swift aimed, he completely missed. Part III of the four which make up `Gulliver's travels', describes his journeys and stay in and around fictional Laputa; in this part especially, Swift satirized the science of his time and the young Royal Society of his day in particular. Swift's biography, vital and literary, is sketched out and some of the details of his scientific hostility are weighted.