Gulliver's Voyage to the Houyhnhnms
1951; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 18; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/2871830
ISSN1080-6547
Autores Tópico(s)Historical and Literary Analyses
ResumoIt has long been recognised that the fourth Voyage of Gulliver's Travels, far from being the outburst of a misanthrope who delighted in degrading human Nature, is the culmination of Swift's lifelong attack on the pride of man, especially the pride which convinces him that he can live by the light of his unaided reason, the pride that Swift himself sums up, in the title of one of his imaginary discourses in A Tale of A Tub, as An Universal Rule of Reason, or Every Man his own Carver. In particular, he is taking up a position opposed to the doctrines of natural goodness which pervade eighteenth century thought and which find systematic expression in the writings of Toland, Collins, Tindal, and others of the fraternity, who, as Swift remarks, all talk much the same language and whose ideas are dismissed in the Argument against A bolishing Christianity as Trumpery. It is clear, both from the satires and the religious writings, that Swift was hostile to all doctrines of the natural self-sufficiency of man, whether they were expressed in Deistic terms or in the related pride of neoStoicism; and the Fourth Voyage of Gulliver's Travels embodies that hostility. But while the object of attack is established, it is not immediately clear, from the Voyage itself, whether any positive position is implied in the Houyhnhnms or in the other characters. The Yahoos, clearly, embody the negative intention, and are to be condemned. This is what happens to man when he tries to live by reason and nature; he falls, as has been pointed out,1 into a state of nature nearer to that envisaged by Hobbes than that of Locke's Two, Treatises of Government. It is significant that, according to one Hounyhnhnm theory, the Yahoos were descended from a pair of human beings, driven to the country by sea: coming to Land and being forsaken by their Companions, they retired to the Mountains, and degenerating by Degrees, became in Process of Time, much
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