乔纳森·斯威夫特的《格列佛游记》是一部充满了不同寻常的人物和地方的奇妙冒险。这本书是一部政治讽刺小说，讲述了莱缪尔·格列佛（Lemuel Gulliver）回国后向同行陪审团讲述的冒险经历。

虽然起初被认为是个疯子，但格列佛最终说服了他访问过的四个陌生国度的同龄人，同时当面嘲笑担任陪审员的贵族！

下面的引文强调了斯威夫特作品中荒谬的现实主义，以及他通过命名Liliputia（小人之地）和观察奇怪但高度智慧的Houyhnhms等地方所作的政治评论。以下是乔纳森·斯威夫特（Jonathan Swift）的《格列佛游记》（Gulliver's Travels）中的几句话，分为本书的四个部分。

引自第一部分

当格列佛在小人岛上醒来时，他浑身裹着小绳子，周围围着6英寸高的男人。斯威夫特在第一章写道：

"I attempted to rise, but was not able to stir: for as I happened to lie on my back, I found my arms and legs were strongly fastened on each side to the ground; and my hair, which was long and thick, tied down I the same manner. I likewise felt several slender ligatures across my body, from my armpits to my thighs. I could only look upwards, the sun began to grow hot, and the light offended mine eyes. I heard a confused noise about me, but in the posture I lay, could see nothing except the sky."

他沉思着“这些矮小的凡人的无畏”，并通过讽刺将他们与英国辉格党进行了比较，甚至在第三章小人给格列佛的以下8条规则中讽刺了辉格党的一些规则：

"First, The Man-Mountain shall not depart from our dominions, without our license under our great seal. "2nd, He shall not presume to come into our metropolis, without our express order; at which time the inhabitants shall have two hours warning to keep within their doors. "3rd, The said Man-Mountain shall confine his walks to our principal high roads, and not offer to walk or lie down in a meadow or field of corn. "4th, As he walks the said roads, he shall take the utmost care not to trample upon the bodies of any of our loving subjects, their horses, or carriages, nor take any of our said subjects into his hands, without their own consent. "5th, If an express require extraordinary dispatch, the Man-Mountain shall be obliged to carry in his pocket the messenger and hors a six days' journey once in every moon, and return the said messenger back (if so required) safe to our Imperial Presence. "6th, He shall be our ally against our enemies in the island of Blefescu, and do his utmost to destroy their fleet, which is now preparing to invade us. "7th, That the said Man-Mountain shall, at his times of leisure, be aiding and assisting to our workmen, in helping to raise certain great stones, towards covering the wall of the principal park, and other our royal buildings. "8th, That the said Man-Mountain shall, in two moons' time, deliver in an exact survey of the circumference of our dominions by a computation of his own paces round the coast. Lastly, That upon his solemn oath to observe all the above articles, the said Man-Mountain shall have a daily allowance of meat and drink sufficient for the support of 1728 of our subjects, with free access to our Royal Person, and other marks of our favor."

格列佛指出，这些人也有自己的传统，尽管他们很容易承认这些意识形态是以荒谬为基础的。在第六章中，斯威夫特写道：“他们中的博学者承认这一学说的荒谬，但实践仍在继续，符合庸俗。”

此外，斯威夫特继续形容该社会缺乏基础教育，但确实为他们的病人和老年人提供服务，就像英国的辉格党人一样，他说“他们的教育对公众影响不大，但他们中的老年人和患病者得到了医院的支持：因为乞讨在这个帝国是一种未知的行业。”

在小利浦特之行的总结中，格列佛在审判期间告诉法庭，“失明是勇气的补充，它向我们隐瞒了危险；你对自己眼睛的恐惧，是控制敌人舰队的最大困难，只要你能从大臣们的眼睛里看到就足够了，因为最伟大的王子们不再这样做了。”

引自第二部分

这本书的第二部分发生在他第一次去小人国旅行回家几个月后，格列佛这次发现自己在一个岛上，岛上居住着被称为布罗丁纳吉安人的巨人，在那里他遇到了一个友好的人，带他回到他的农场。

在本节的第一章中，他将巨人家族的女性与家乡的女性进行了比较，他说：“这让我想起了英国女性的白皙肌肤，她们在我们看来如此美丽，只是因为她们与我们的身材相仿，而且她们的缺陷无法通过放大镜看到，我们通过实验发现，最光滑、最白的皮肤看起来粗糙、粗糙，而且颜色不好。”

在苏拉特岛上，格列佛遇到了巨人女王和她的人民，他们吃得太多，喝得太多，患上了第四章描述的可怕的疾病：

"There was a woman with a cancer in her breast, swelled to a monstrous size, full of holes, in two or three of which I could have easily crept, and covered my whole body. There was a fellow with a wen in his neck, larger than five woolpacks, and another with a couple of wooden legs, each about twenty foot high. But, the most hateful sight of all was the lice crawling on their clothes. I could see distinctly the limbs of these vermin with my naked eyes, much better than those of an European louse through a microscope, and their snouts with which they rooted like swine."

这让格列佛严重质疑自己与他人相比的价值，以及人们试图融入他人文化的结果，因为他遭受了女仆和一只偷他的巨猴的折磨和羞辱：

"This made me reflect how vain an attempt it is for a man to endeavor doing himself honor among those who are out of all degree of equality or comparison with him. And yet I have seen the moral of my own behavior very frequent in England since my return, where a little contemptible varlet, without the least title to birth, person, wit, or common sense, shall presume to look with importance, and put himself upon a foot with the greatest persons of the kingdom."

在第八章中，格列佛回到家中，被自己在巨人中的经历所蒙羞，并形容自己与他的仆人相比就像一个巨人：

"When I came to my own house, for which I was forced to enquire, one of the servants opening the door, I bent down to go in (like a goose under a gate) for fear of striking my head. My wife ran out to embrace me, but I stooped lower than her knees, thinking she could otherwise never be able to reach my mouth. My daughter kneeled to ask me blessing, but I could not see her till she arose, having been so long used to stand with my head an eyes erect to above sixty foot; and then I went to take her up with one hand, by the waist. I looked down upon the servants and one or two friends who were in the house, as if they had been pygmies, and I a giant."

引自第三部分

在第三部分中，格列佛发现自己在拉普塔的浮岛上，在那里他遇到了岛上的居民，这群人的注意力非常有限，对音乐和占星术特别感兴趣：

"Their heads were all reclined either to the right, or the left; one of their eyes turned inward, and the other directly up to the zenith. Their outward garments were adorned with the figures of suns, moons, and stars, interwoven with those of fiddles, flutes, harps, trumpets, guitars, harpsichords, and many more instruments of music, unknown to us in Europe. I observed here and there many in the habit of servants, with a blown bladder fastened like a flail to the end of a short stick, which they carried in their hands. In each bladder was a small quantity of dried pease or little pebbles (as I was afterward informed). With these bladders they now and then flapped the mouths and ears of those who stood near them, of which practice I could not then conceive the meaning; it seems, the minds of these people are so taken up with intense speculations, that they neither can speak, nor attend to the discourses of others, without being roused by some external taction upon the organs of speech and hearing."

在第四章中，格列佛对他在飞岛的逗留越来越不满，他指出，他“从未见过一片土地耕种得如此不愉快，一座房屋设计得如此拙劣，破坏性如此之大，或者一个面容和习惯表现出如此痛苦和匮乏的民族。”

斯威夫特描述说，这是由飞岛的新来者造成的，他们想改变数学、科学和农业的基础，但他们的计划失败了。只有一个人遵循了祖先的传统，拥有一块肥沃的土地：

"By all which, instead of being discouraged, they are fifty times more violently bent upon prosecuting their schemes, driven equally on by hope and despair; that as for himself, being not of an enterprising sprit, he was content to go on in the old forms, to live in the houses his ancestors had built, and act as they did in every part of life without innovation. That, some few other persons of quality and gentry had done the same, but were looked on with an eye of contempt and ill-will, as enemies to art, ignorant, and ill commonwealth's-men, preferring their own ease and sloth before the general improvement of their country."

这些变化来自一个叫大学院的地方，格列佛在第5章和第6章参观了这个地方，描述了新来者在拉普塔尝试的各种社会项目，称“第一个项目是通过将多音节词切割成一个，省略动词和助词来缩短语篇，因为在现实中，所有可以想象的东西都不过是名词而已。”

"The highest tax was upon men who are the greatest favorites of the other sex, an the assessments according to the number and natures of the favors they have received; for which they are allowed to be their own vouchers. Wit, valor, and politeness were likewise proposed to be largely taxed, and collected in the same manner, by every person's giving his own word for the quantum of what he possessed. But as to honor, justice, wisdom and learning, they should not be taxed at all, because they are qualifications of so singular a kind, that no man will either allow them in his neighbor, or value them in himself."

到了第十章，格列佛对飞岛的管理感到极度厌倦，他终于开始抱怨：

"That the system of living contrived by me was unreasonable and unjust, because it supposed a perpetuity of youth, health, and vigor, which no man could be so foolish to hope, however extravagant he might be in his wishes. That the question therefore was not whether a man would choose to be always in the primes of youth, attended with prosperity and health, but how he would pass a perpetual life under all the usual disadvantages which old age brings along with it. For although few men will avow their desires of being immortal upon such hard conditions, yet in the two kingdoms before-mentioned of Balnibari an Japan, he observed that every man desired to put off death for some time longer, let it approach ever so late, and he rarely heard of any man who died willingly, except he were incited by the extremity of grief or torture. And he appealed to me whether in those countries I had traveled, as well as my own, I had not observed the same general disposition."

引自第四部分

在《格列佛游记》的最后一节中，这个有名无实的角色发现自己被困在一个岛上，岛上居住着一种类似灵长类的人形动物Yahoos和一种类似马的动物Houyhnms，斯威夫特在第一章中描述了前者：

"Their heads and breasts were covered with a thick hair, some frizzled and others lank; they had beards like goats, and a long ridge of hair down their backs, and the foreparts of their legs and feet, but the rest of their bodies were bare, so that I might see their skins, which were of a brown buff color. They had no tails, nor any hair at all on their buttocks, except about the anus; which, I presume, Nature had placed there to defend them as they sat on the ground; for this posture they used, as well as lying down, and often stood on their hind feet."

在遭到雅胡人的攻击后，格列佛被高贵的Houyhnhms救了出来，并被带回了他们的家，在那里他被视为是Houyhnhms文明和理性与雅胡人野蛮和堕落之间的中间点：

"My master heard me with great appearances of uneasiness in his countenance, because doubting and not believing, are so little known in this country, that the inhabitants cannot tell how to behave themselves under such circumstances. And I remember in frequent discourses with my master concerning the nature of manhood, in other parts of the world, having occasion to talk of lying, and false representation, it was with much difficulty that he comprehended what I meant, although he had otherwise a most acute judgment."

这些高贵骑士的领袖首先是无情的，他们严重依赖理性而非情感。在第6章中，斯威夫特写了更多关于首席国务部长的内容：

"A First or Chief Minister of State, whom I intended to describe, was a creature wholly exempt from joy and grief, love and hatred, pity and anger; at least made use of no other passions but a violent desire of wealth, power, and titles; that he applies his words to all uses, except to the indication of his mind; that he never tells a truth, but with an intent that you should take it for a lie; nor a lie, but with a design that you should take it for a truth; that those he speaks worst of behind their backs are in the surest way to preferment; and whenever he begins to praise you to others or to yourself, you are from that day forlorn. The worst mark you can receive is a promise, especially when it is confirmed with an oath; after which every wise man retires, and gives over all hopes."

斯威夫特在小说结尾对他写作《格列佛游记》的意图进行了一些观察，在第12章中说：

"I write without any view towards profit or praise. I never suffered a word to pass that may look like reflection, or possibly give the lease offense even to those who are most ready to take it. So that I hope I may with justice pronounce myself an author perfectly blameless, against whom the tribe of answers, considerers, observers, reflectors, detecters, remarkers, will never be able to find matter for exercising their talents."

最后，他将自己的同胞比作两个岛国人民的混血儿，野蛮人与理性人、感性人与务实人：

"But the Houyhnhms, who live under the government of Reason, are no more proud of the good qualities they posses, than I should be for not wanting a leg or an arm, which no man in this wits would boast of, although he must be miserable without them. I dwell the longer upon this subject from the desire I have to make the society of an English Yahoo by any means not insupportable, and therefore I here entreat those who have any tincture of this absurd vice, that they will not presume to appear in my sight."