The Representation of Jonathan Swift’s Human and Non-human Animals in Spain

Abstract

Gulliver’s Travels (1726), by Jonathan Swift, is one of the classics of English literature, a biting satire of English customs and politics in particular and of human foibles in general. While literary scholars have traditionally agreed that, in Part IV of Gulliver’s Travels, Swift uses his elegant anthropomorphic horses and his filthy human-like Yahoos to reflect on society and human nature, some recent studies highlight Swift’s ecocritical concern with animal issues, focusing on how the behaviour of the noble horses challenges the conventional hierarchies of the anthropocentric view of the world and anticipates values that are prominent in today’s society. However, this article aims to show that what has traditionally challenged and disturbed readers, publishers and critics for many years is the presence of the other race of the animal world, the Yahoos. Analysing the reception of Gulliver’s journey to the land of the Houyhnhnms helps understand how Swift’s early ecocritical ideas disturbed publishers and translators, who often rejected or modified the text, particularly those passages in which the filthy human-like Yahoos show their harsh and scatological behaviour.