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What is Gulliver’s Travels a parody of?

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Jonathan Swift’s novel Gulliver’s Travels (1726) is a parody of the travel narratives that were popular in Swift’s day. Lemuel Gulliver, the novel’s narrator, is a surgeon and sea captain who visits remote parts of the world during four adventures. His travels take him to Lilliput, where the people are tiny; Brobdingnag, where the people are giants; the flying island of Laputa, where the people are preoccupied with science and mathematics; and the land of the intelligent horses called Houyhnhnms. He also encounters the brutish, greedy humanoid Yahoos, and he is mistaken for one of them. He eventually returns to England after each journey. The book’s description of the different lands and peoples and their conflicts and beliefs mocks English customs and politics of the 18th century.