Swift's Alberti? The Geometrical Comedy of Gulliver's Travels
This article propounds that Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels develops a geometrical comedy in the Albertinian fashion. Starting with a specific reference to Momus in Puppet-Show, it will be maintained that Swift refers to an earlier tradition of criticism and transfers it to his prose writing. To...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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The English Language and Literature Research Association of Türkiye
2024-10-01
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| Series: | Ideas: Journal of English Literary Studies |
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| Online Access: | https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/4146201 |
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| author | Selena Özbas |
| author_facet | Selena Özbas |
| author_sort | Selena Özbas |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | This article propounds that Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels develops a geometrical comedy in the Albertinian fashion. Starting with a specific reference to Momus in Puppet-Show, it will be maintained that Swift refers to an earlier tradition of criticism and transfers it to his prose writing. To explore this point, the article will draw on the Italian Renaissance humanist, satirist, and architect Leon Battista Alberti’s Momus and De Pictura. It will be suggested that there is a corollary between the exilic vision of the picaresque anti-hero and the definitive quality of the centric ray which establishes the centre of meaning in painting in Alberti. In accordance, it will be maintained that Swift adapts Alberti’s critical rendition of the Momus story as a geometrical metaphor for linear perspective. Although Momus does not directly appear as part of the dramatis personae in Gulliver’s Travels, Lemuel Gulliver emerges as an eighteenth-century successor to Alberti’s geometrical designs since Swift adapts the Renaissance humanist’s method of geometrical optics which reveres ocularcentrism. By these standards, it will be propounded that this method informs the comedic programme of Gulliver’s Travels. In accordance, the conclusion draws on the point that Swiftian comedy owes a considerable debt to the mimetic concerns of Renaissance humanism which signals the birth of a posthumanist comedy through a re-mapping of Albertinian perspectivism. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-1923762bf91d4ceabc4950d2047cd23d |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2757-9549 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2024-10-01 |
| publisher | The English Language and Literature Research Association of Türkiye |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Ideas: Journal of English Literary Studies |
| spelling | doaj-art-1923762bf91d4ceabc4950d2047cd23d2025-01-05T18:41:09ZengThe English Language and Literature Research Association of TürkiyeIdeas: Journal of English Literary Studies2757-95492024-10-0142435710.62352/ideas.1533484Swift's Alberti? The Geometrical Comedy of Gulliver's TravelsSelena Özbas0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7710-9296Istanbul Yeni Yüzyil UniversityThis article propounds that Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels develops a geometrical comedy in the Albertinian fashion. Starting with a specific reference to Momus in Puppet-Show, it will be maintained that Swift refers to an earlier tradition of criticism and transfers it to his prose writing. To explore this point, the article will draw on the Italian Renaissance humanist, satirist, and architect Leon Battista Alberti’s Momus and De Pictura. It will be suggested that there is a corollary between the exilic vision of the picaresque anti-hero and the definitive quality of the centric ray which establishes the centre of meaning in painting in Alberti. In accordance, it will be maintained that Swift adapts Alberti’s critical rendition of the Momus story as a geometrical metaphor for linear perspective. Although Momus does not directly appear as part of the dramatis personae in Gulliver’s Travels, Lemuel Gulliver emerges as an eighteenth-century successor to Alberti’s geometrical designs since Swift adapts the Renaissance humanist’s method of geometrical optics which reveres ocularcentrism. By these standards, it will be propounded that this method informs the comedic programme of Gulliver’s Travels. In accordance, the conclusion draws on the point that Swiftian comedy owes a considerable debt to the mimetic concerns of Renaissance humanism which signals the birth of a posthumanist comedy through a re-mapping of Albertinian perspectivism. https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/4146201jonathan swiftgulliver’s travelscomedyleon battista albertigeometric perspective |
| spellingShingle | Selena Özbas Swift's Alberti? The Geometrical Comedy of Gulliver's Travels Ideas: Journal of English Literary Studies jonathan swift gulliver’s travels comedy leon battista alberti geometric perspective |
| title | Swift's Alberti? The Geometrical Comedy of Gulliver's Travels |
| title_full | Swift's Alberti? The Geometrical Comedy of Gulliver's Travels |
| title_fullStr | Swift's Alberti? The Geometrical Comedy of Gulliver's Travels |
| title_full_unstemmed | Swift's Alberti? The Geometrical Comedy of Gulliver's Travels |
| title_short | Swift's Alberti? The Geometrical Comedy of Gulliver's Travels |
| title_sort | swift s alberti the geometrical comedy of gulliver s travels |
| topic | jonathan swift gulliver’s travels comedy leon battista alberti geometric perspective |
| url | https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/4146201 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT selenaozbas swiftsalbertithegeometricalcomedyofgulliverstravels |