Swift's Alberti? The Geometrical Comedy of Gulliver's Travels

Year 2024, Volume: 4 Issue: 2, 43 - 57, 31.10.2024

Selena Özbaş

https://doi.org/10.62352/ideas.1533484

Abstract

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.

Keywords

Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, comedy, Leon Battista Alberti, geometric perspective

Ethical Statement

I hereby declare that this work has been autonomously produced and complies with all principles of academic integrity. I take full responsibility of the submitted work's authenticity and I fully acknowledge the consequences of any violation.

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Thanks

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Swift’in Alberti’si? Gulliver’ın Gezileri’nin Geometrik Komedisi

Abstract

Bu makale, Jonathan Swift’in Gulliver’ın Gezileri isimli eserinde Albertinyen tarzda bir geometrik komedi geliştirdiği tezini savunmaktadır. Puppet-Show (Kukla Gösterisi) şiirinde Momus’a yapılan özel bir referanstan başlanarak, yazarın erken bir eleştiri geleneğine referansta bulunduğu ve bunu düz yazılarına aktardığı ortaya konulacaktır. Bu noktayı araştırmak amacıyla, makale İtalyan Rönesans hümanisti, hicivcisi ve mimarı Leon Battista Alberti’nin Momus ve De Pictura eserlerine dikkat çekecektir. Alberti’nin pikaresk anti-kahramanının sürgünsel bakışı ile resim sanatında anlamın merkezini oluşturan merkezî ışının belirleyici niteliği arasında bir ilişki olduğu düşüncesi öne sürülecektir. Bununla ilişkili olarak, Swift’in, Alberti’nin eleştirel biçimde ele aldığı Momus öyküsünü doğrusal perspektifin geometrik bir metaforu olarak uyarladığı düşüncesi savunulacaktır. Her ne kadar Momus Gulliver’ın Gezileri’nin dramatis personae’sinde bir yer edinmese de, Swift’in Rönesans hümanistinin okülarsantrizmi yücelten geometrik optiğinin yöntemlerini kullanmasından dolayı, Lemuel Gulliver’ın Alberti’nin geometrik tasarımının on sekizinci yüzyıldaki mirasçısı olduğu savunulacaktır. Bu standartlar altında, bu yöntemin Gulliver’ın Gezileri’nin komedik programını beslediği öne sürülecektir. Bu konuyla bağlantılı olarak, sonuç kısmı Swiftyen komedinin Rönesans hümanizminin mimetik ilgilerine ne denli borçlu olduğu ve buradan hareketle Swift’in Albertinyen doğrusallığı yeniden konumlandırma yoluyla posthümanist bir komedinin doğuşunu müjdelediği sonucuna ulaşacaktır.

Keywords

Gulliver’ın Gezileri, Komedi, Leon Battista Alberti, Geometrik perspektif, Jonathan Swift

Project Number

None.

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