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How does Gulliver’s Travels parody popular travel narratives of the 18th century?

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Illustration of Lemuel Gulliver lying on the ground, tied down by tiny Lilliputians, with crowds and small buildings in the background, from Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. — Gulliver’s Travels Lemuel Gulliver in Lilliput, illustration from an edition of Jonathan Swift's *Gulliver's Travels*.

Jonathan Swift’s 1726 novel, Gulliver’s Travels, functions as a parody of the travel narratives that were highly popular during the 18th century.12

Swift employs a matter-of-fact, sober narrative style to mimic the conventions of authentic travelogues, creating an air of reality that contrasts sharply with the fantastical nature of the lands Gulliver visits. By adopting the persona of Lemuel Gulliver—a surgeon and sea captain—Swift uses the structure of a traditional voyage to remote regions to facilitate a biting satire of contemporary English customs, politics, and human nature.21

While travel narratives of the era often aimed to inform or entertain through descriptions of exotic locales, Swift subverts this by using Gulliver’s encounters with the Lilliputians, the giants of Brobdingnag, the impractical intellectuals of Laputa, and the rational Houyhnhnms to mock the follies and frailties of his own society. Through these adventures, the novel exposes the absurdity of political factions, the vanity of scientific pursuits, and the inherent flaws of humanity, ultimately transforming the popular travel genre into a profound critique of the human condition.12