Gulliver's Travels

A satirical novel by British author J. Swift. Published in 1726. 4 volumes. The story follows Gulliver, who is shipwrecked during a voyage and is washed up in Little People, Adults, the Flying Island, and the Horse Country, where he has strange experiences in each country. It is a work that makes full use of unrestrained imagination, and is still loved by people all over the world today. The chapter in Little People, in which Gulliver is treated like a giant, and the chapter in Adults, in which he is played with, remain particularly popular as children's books. Originally, the entire work was a scathing satire of humanity; for example, the Flying Island chapter puts on the chopping block the natural scientists who spend all their time conducting useless experiments and research. The most scathing chapter is The Country of Horses, in which horses acquire reason and assume the position of rulers, while human-like animals called Yahoos, both domestic and wild, are depicted as extremely ugly, shameless, vile and filthy. It is said that the bitter feelings of the author in the first half of his life, when he had aspired to enter politics but was disappointed, led him to write such a scathing work. The writing is clear and the work is considered a model of British prose. In Japan, Natsume Soseki was the first to review it in his Literary Criticism. It is a strange work that weaves together a spirit of misanthropy and an extraordinary idea.

[Akamuta Natsuo]

"Gulliver's Travels" translated by Masao Hirai (Iwanami Bunko)

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

イギリスの作家、J・スウィフトの風刺小説。1726年刊。4巻。主人公ガリバーが航海中に難船し、順次、小人国、大人国、空飛ぶ島の国、馬の国に漂着し、それぞれの国で奇異な経験をする物語。奔放な空想力を駆使した作品で、今日なお世界各国で愛読される。ガリバーが巨人扱いされる小人国の巻、逆に愛玩(あいがん)物となる大人国の巻が、児童読み物としてもとくに人気を保つ。本来は、全編が痛烈な人間揶揄(やゆ)の風刺作品で、たとえば空飛ぶ島の巻では、無用な実験、探究に明け暮れる自然科学者を俎上(そじょう)にのせる。もっとも辛辣(しんらつ)なのは馬の国の巻で、ここでは馬が理性を備えて支配者の地位にたち、人間そっくりのヤフーという動物は、家畜も野生種もきわめて醜悪、無恥、下劣、不潔な動物として描かれる。政界進出を志しながら、失意を味わわされた作者前半生の苦い思いが、かかる辛辣な作品を書かせたといわれる。文章は平明で、イギリス散文の模範と目される。日本では夏目漱石(そうせき)がいち早く『文学評論』で評論している。まさに人間憎悪の精神と非凡な着想との織り成した奇作である。

［朱牟田夏雄］

『平井正穂訳『ガリバー旅行記』（岩波文庫）』

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