Episode 816: Gulliver's Travels at 300 with David Womersley

In Episode 816, Jacke talks to David Womersley about Jonathan Swift, the nature of satire, and The Cambridge Anniversary Edition of Gulliver's Travels, which Womersley edited. David Womersley is the Thomas Warton Professor of Literature at the University of Oxford.

As Gulliver's Travels turns 300, Womersley notes, it "remains a famous and celebrated book. But it is also a much misunderstood book, and possesses important hidden aspects." This new edition provides a delightful occasion to revisit this literary classic and consider it anew, as you accompany Gulliver on his encounters with the flying island inhabitants, the rational horses of Houyhnmhnmland, and the tiny Lilliputians.

From Part I. A Voyage to Lilliput:

The author gives some account of himself and family. His first inducements to travel. He is shipwrecked, and swims for his life, gets safe on shore in the country of Lilliput; is made a prisoner, and carried up the country.

If you enjoyed this conversation, you might take a listen to Episode 798.5, in which Jacke talks to David Womersley about his book Thinking Through Shakespeare. Womersely also edited the works of Edward Gibbon and James Boswell.