The paper investigates the symbolic implications of the topos of the island in two early eighteenth-century novels, «Robinson Crusoe» (1719) and «Gulliver's Travels» (1726) where, besides constituting the setting of the story, it turns out to represent an important metaphor for human reason, in its being closely related to the idea of steadiness and firmness as opposed to the dangerous fluctuations of the sea. However, while Defoe exalts human reason by making it the very basis of Robinson’s success, the Scriblerian Swift turns the topos upside down, offering the reader a “floating island” in which reason itself is satirized through a peculiar portrait of its most representative spokesman, the scientist.
Islands of Reason/Islands of Folly: Metamorphoses of a Topos in Defoe and Swift
FERRARI, ROBERTA
1998-01-01
Abstract
The paper investigates the symbolic implications of the topos of the island in two early eighteenth-century novels, «Robinson Crusoe» (1719) and «Gulliver's Travels» (1726) where, besides constituting the setting of the story, it turns out to represent an important metaphor for human reason, in its being closely related to the idea of steadiness and firmness as opposed to the dangerous fluctuations of the sea. However, while Defoe exalts human reason by making it the very basis of Robinson’s success, the Scriblerian Swift turns the topos upside down, offering the reader a “floating island” in which reason itself is satirized through a peculiar portrait of its most representative spokesman, the scientist.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
