Horses and Apes
In concluding his celebration of Gulliver's Travels, Ian confronts the challenge of the final voyage in which Gulliver chooses the rational wisdom of horses over his fellow men.
In the fourth book of Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift has his protagonist arriving in a land in which horses who operate with an absolute rationality, rule. The land of these Houyhnhnms is also peopled by foul creatures who share an uncanny resemblance to Gulliver himself, but are referred to throughout as Yahoos. Gulliver's sympathy for the horses and their uncompromising rationality leads to self-loathing, when he has to confront the reality of his being a Yahoo.
The book has always troubled readers and contributed to it being dropped for much of the 19th century in favour of abridged versions in which Gulliver became little more than a Children's hero rather than an ugly misanthropist.
Ian talks to scholars Hester Grant, Prof Abigail Williams and the Irish writer Fintan O'toole to try and establish what Swift's intentions were and why Gulliver's Travels should never be limited to the canon of children's literature.
Producer: Tom Alban
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Broadcasts
- Fri 30 Oct 202611:45BBC Radio 4
- Sat 31 Oct 202600:30BBC Radio 4
