The Importance of Being "Gulliver"

Jonathan Swift´s masterpiece, Gulliver´s Travels was published in 1726. It had such an immense impact on the society of the time because it was, written in a unique form, so to speak. Up until then, only vague prose forms had been used that were not very “standardized” as in the case of Oronooko; or the Royal Slave, by Aphra Behn. However, Gulliver´s Travels was not the final form of the novel, but it is right in between the embryo and the final form, the one we know nowadays.

This book, that is divided in if four parts, was not only a hallmark for its form, but also for its content. In most occasions, any written form has an echo of the time it was written, or also of the personality of the authors, the point of view, and their own experiences. These reflect on their writing; an example of this is Gulliver´s Travels. In the book we can read between the lines, and extract a lot of inter-textual information that the author included in the text. References to politics, to both the Tories and the Whigs, or important political people like Robert Walpole. Also, like Diana said today, some information about the author´s own experience with the feral child Peter, and how it could have been (and probably is) his inspiration when writing about the yahoos in the fourth book. We can infer by this last book the love the author had for animals. Probably horses were one of his favorite’s ones, because he assigned them attributes that are very close to perfection. The only flaw that I can see in them, that is inhuman is their coldness. We as readers have to also take into account the fact that Swift is Irish. Like Carol Fabricant says in her article “Swift the Irishman”, beyond doubt he was a man that was attached to his homeland, not only for his family, traditions or childhood, but because it was part of him. It made him view the world from a different perspective. In a way, this is understandable because he is not from the powerful and glorious country, England, which is colonizing many parts of the world at that time; he is from a nation that is controlled in many ways by this power unit.  Therefore he belongs to the less privileged part of society, and this affected his way of thinking. Obviously, this was present in his writings in a very clear way. I understand that in the first and second books of Gulliver´s Travels the theme of colonialism is very clear in a very subtle way. When these two books are read by the first time, what catches our eye is the size metaphor. In connection with it I got to the conclusion that this metaphor is also a powerful – powerless relation. To my understanding, the Lilliputs size not only implies lack of morality and intelligence, but also lack of power. While Gulliver is in Lilliput, he is the biggest person and therefore the most powerful one. Here he represents the colonizers, he can do what he wants and doesn´t have to depend on anyone. In book two it is the other way around, he has to suffer the feeling of depending on everyone. In this last book he is representing the feeling of the colonized, the powerless, and the dependable.

To sum up, in my opinion this book is so diverse with all the inter-textual information that contains, that is a very complete work. It is not difficult to tackle the important topics of the book as you go along, but it is very important, in this occasion to bear in mind some autobiographical aspects, because they deeply influence the piece.

Travel Literature

Many people have connected Gulliver´s Travels with the Travel Literature of the time. It makes all the sense in the world, because in each book the main character, Gulliver, travels from one place to another. This method to present the story might have been influenced by the amount of travel literature that was written during the century.
It is said, that Jonathan Swift read a lot of travel literature; a proof of it is in a letter written by him to his friend Vanessa where he says “I know not how many diverting Books of History and Travels.” A place where he would read travel literature books was Moor Park. He owned several books many travel books by Francois Bernier, Peter Martyr, Thomas Herbert, Joseph Andrews and the great collections of Hakluyt and Purchas.
The beginning of travel literature can be considered to be at the end of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth century, with the travelogues of Ibn Jubayr and Ibn Batutta. Travel literature is present from a very early stage in the medieval Arabic literature. Also, Marco Polo´s travels in the thirteenth century in the Western World.
    However, the most important distinction is factional or fictional travel literature. Some fictional works are based on real journeys, like Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, or Homer´s Odyssey. Others are more fictional narratives with real aspects, like Divine Comedy, by Dante, or our satirical piece Gulliver´s Travels.
    In a nutshell, we can see how this great writer not only influenced the literature of his time with this satirical work, but how he was also influenced by many other writers of the past, and others more recent to his time. 



Sources: 
http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/4211/1/WRAP_THESIS_Jones_1987.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travel_literature

Music in The Beggar´s Opera

This play was first performed in 1728. It was written by John Gay, who was a member of the Scriblerus club, and a friend of Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift among other important writers of the time.
    The play is considered to be the starting point of a new type of representation. To start with, it was completely different from the Italian Opera that was so popular in the seventeenth and first half of the eighteenth century. The author wanted to make a point by making it drastically different. Thanks to this play, he was also able to mock the political thinking of the time, and the politics of Robert Walpole, the first prime minister.  These changes were partly the reason that made the play so important; the most outstanding change is the incorporation of musical pieces called arias. These were an accompanied song or melody in usually strophic form. They are typical of the Elizabethan and the Jacobean period. In this play there are 68 airs. They are very different, because some were popular tunes of the time; others were songs with political content. As an example we can take aria number 67, which is an adaptation of the famous tune “Green sleeves”; thanks to it Gay mocks the sentimental love songs of the past and the ignored corruption that had been taking place in Newgate Prison for son long:

                Air 67 Green sleeves (p. 2654)
"Since laws were made for every degree,
To curb vice in others, as well as me,
I wonder we han´t better company,
Upon Tyburn Tree!
But gold from law can take out the sting;
And if rich men like us were to swing,
'Twould thin the land, such numbers to string
Upon Tyburn Tree!"

    Gay uses both dialogue and music to further the action of the story. Forty-one of the sixty-nine airs were broadside ballads of the time. The other tunes were borrowed from contemporary composers. To these tunes he wrote lyrics to fit the play.
Moreover, Gay and George Handel were very close friends; he was a very well know musician and composer of the time. Because of the social impact and popularity that this play had, Handel got very mad, because several of the plays he wrote music for didn´t succeed, and this one did for a very long time.
    Its impact was of such magnitude that it is even considered to be the first musical. It was performed internationally in Dublin, Glasgow, Jamaica and New York. Only twenty-two years later, The Beggar´s Opera was performed in America as one of the first musical comedies. It included a lot of musical pieces that no other play had during the 18th century, and for this it is considered to be the origin of the musicals, like Aphra Behn´s Oroonoko; or Royal Slave and Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe are considered to be the starting point of the novel as we know it today.















http://www.contemplator.com/history/johngay.html
http://www.umich.edu/~ece/student_projects/beggars_opera/music.html

The New Opera

The Beggar´s Opera is a satirical ballad. It was first performed in 1728, and written by John Gay. At first, he wanted the play to be performed in the popular playhouse Drury Lane. However, the owners were not willing, and, at the end it was performed in the Lincoln´s Inn Fields Theatre, thanks to John Rich, who was interested in the play. This play became so popular, that after the first few months John Gay had become very rich, and as a joke, it is said that John Rich, the manager of the theatre, became gay.

In a way, this play had such an impact in the society of the time because it was a total change from what had been preformed until then. To start with, it was the Italian opera that was in fashion then. Therefore, the language used in these was Italian. This fact affected the understanding of what was being said, and it began to be very uncomfortable for the audience, that could barely understand the actors. Moreover, the way in which the actors talked was as if they were reciting, that is, the actors would talk by singing throughout the whole play. This could be a little too heavy and slow for the audience, because it would make the action of the play go slower. The characters in these plays belonged to the high Italian class, to noble families. Therefore, it was difficult for the audience to identify themselves with them, because they did not belong to the high English classes or noble families.  The Beggar´s Opera contrasted enormously with this. Mainly, because it was meant to make fun of the Italian opera.

To begin with, in The Beggar´s Opera, the language barrier does not exist anymore, because it is represented in English. Not only that, the language used is very vulgar and typical of people that belong to the low class. Moreover, this language matched with the characters of the play, because now, instead of noble families being the main characters, it was more normal people that carry the action of the story. Normal people, and people that represent the corruption of the London streets at this time, criminals and prostitutes.  Another difference was the mixture between normal spoken discourse and little recitatives, or airs that was present in this play, and that contrasted with the continuous singing of the Italian operas. This made it much easier too, to keep up with the plot of the story. These airs were popular songs of the time that everyone knew, so this would also involucrate the audience and made them feel closer to what was happening in the play.

This play was not only a criticism against the Italian opera, but it was a way to make the Londoners realize the big problem that they had in their city. To start with, the amount of criminals that would threat their wellbeing, and the prostitutes, which were always surrounded by money problems, or others of the sort. It was also a clear criticism against Robert Walpole´s corruption policy. He was the first Prime Minister, and was criticized by many in his time. He was even compared to a very famous criminal called John Wild, like it can be seen in this play. Moreover, this man was also very important because he was the one who persuaded the Parliament to pass the Licensing Act in the year 1737. As a result, London´s theatres had to make sure that the plays that were going to be presented were going to be appropriate from his point of view. The writers that disapproved of this were among others Swift, Pope, and Fielding.    

Christmas Banned

To my surprise, I have learned that Christmas was banned in England while the Puritans were in power. Some historians say, that in 1647 it was Oliver Cromwell who decided to ban Christmas. He banned it because he thought it was immoral to feast and celebrate on such a holy day. However, others say that the Parliament decided to make the English people not celebrated it. Who is responsible for this, is not clear. However, what we do know is that people still celebrated it in their houses, although they had to be very careful not to get caught, because if they did they would get arrested. This prohibition kept on until the Restoration of the king Charles II, in 1660. This festivity, among others that were also banned during the Republic, was restored very fast. This can give us a hint of how popular it was at the time. In the United States, Christmas was banned too, because of the Puritans. In Boston, celebrating Christmas was banned form 1659 to 1681. That year, the ban was revoked, although celebrating Christimas in Boston did not become popular until the 19th century.

The Tatler and The Spectator

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, some people started to write differently than before. We can say that it was the beginning of Journalism as we know it today with the magazines “The Tatler” and “The Spectator”.  This type of journalism was a sociological study of the reality, in a way, because it was not so concentrated in the news, but more on the depiction of society, on gossip, on the traditions of the English people.

Aspects that influenced the creation of these magazines are, for example, the tradition of describing everything in seventeenth century literary works, especially the description of the characters. Also, thanks to the author Eduard Ward, and his work “London Spy”; this, by the way, was published in 18 installments. The first one was published in 1698.  It was considered to be a “complete survey” of the London of that time, and its people.  Therefore, this was a perfect predecessor of these magazines because it set an example for them. Moreover, “The Spectator” and “The Tatler” were written in an epistolary way, style that was going to be used a lot during this century.  

The first magazine to be published was The Tatler, in the year 1709. It was created by Richard Steele. In this magazine, they talked about news and gossip. Nowadays, we normally do not have both things together, but one magazine that talks about the news and others that talk about gossip. Anybody could get this information in the coffeehouses of the time, but this was a way to have all the gossip and news in one place, and available for everyone. It was distributed three times a week, and at the beginning, he did not charge for them, but after some time he asked for a penny. Steele’s style was simple. The main purpose of the author was to teach the people that belonged to the middle class how to behave, because this was a new class, and they did not know how to behave in a formal situation; also, how to carry out a conversation, how to dress accordingly to their status, etc. It was published for two years. Two months after quitting “The Tatler”, Richard Steele and Joseph Addison began writing “The Spectator”. 

The aims of the Spectator were “to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality”. Like we said Tuesday morning, in a way it is always good to listen to popular music and classical music, because you can get the best of both. In the magazine, they treated important aspects of life in London, and gossip that everyone was interested in knowing.

Also, another aim was “to bring philosophy out of the closets and libraries, and school and collages to dwell in clubs and assemblies”. Here we can see the lifestyle of the society of the time, because everyone would get together in clubs and assemblies to talk about important things, so debating about these aspects was not only related to schools and libraries any more. Therefore, learning starts to be placed in a much more casual atmosphere. This is a very important change in their society that still affects us today. 

            The magazine became so popular, that it had imitations in other countries like in Germany and France. 

Another important aspect is that Steele gave a lot of importance to women. As far as he could, he wanted to change their inferior situation. Addison´s style was sophisticated and precise. He was also very good in describing his characters. It is said that he was also able of understanding inner qualities and relationships. This made describing his characters very easy.

Apple Pie recipe

www.ehow.com/video_2935_make-apple-pie.html

Here is the recipe of the apple pie I took yesterday to class! Just in case you feel like making it, this is a very easy way of  making one, and it is very clearly explained! =)