SWIFT'S PROSE STYLE (GULLIVER TRAVEL) BY JONATHAN SWIFT

    SWIFT'S PROSE STYLE      

Swift is undoubtedly, the greatest prose writer of his age and one of the greatest writers of all times. Many critics like Williams Deans, Howells, Dr. Johnson, Coleridge and T.S Eliot called Jonathan Swift the greatest writer of the prose. T.S Eliot goes so that as to call, Swift the greatest writer of English prose, and the greatest man who has ever written great English prose. Evidently there are some reasons for his greatness

  

One of the causes of the popularity of “Gulliver Travel” is the simple and direct narrative style of the book. The plain description gives us the impression that the author is describing which he has himself seen or experienced. Here, for example is his description of , How Gulliver was served good in Lilliput.

        “ I had three hundred cooks to dress my victuals .Dr Jonathan Style was pompous and bombastic, was the first to appreciate the simplicity of Swift’s style. He said, “The reader of Swift needs no previous knowledge.” Coleridge, whose own prose was marked by metaphysical subtlety, also paid a tribute to simplicity of Swift style. He said, “ Swift style is in its line: the manner is a complete expression of the matter."

  

When Swift started writing he did not adopt the prose style of his predecessors. Swift style is lucid and terse. He seems to have no difficulty in finding words to express exactly the impression which he wishes to convey. His sentences come home to the reader, like  the words of great orator or advocate with convincing force. He realizes so clearly what he is describing that the reader is , of necessity and impressed.

Swift defined style as “ proper words in proper places.” This definition fits his own writing perfectly well. Swift’s prose is an example of the right words in the right place. His words are selected that they convey exactly the impression he wishes to create. He  selects the most appropriate words to express his thoughts. The words suit the subject perfectly. Sometimes he even ignores the rules of grammar in order to express himself in a way which will create the correct impression. There is a little ornament: there is none of divine simplicity of Bunyan : there is none of the majesty of Milton, but there is workman-tike adaptation of means to end. Referring to his style, Dr. Jonathan has said; His style was well suited to his thoughts, which are never decorated by sparkling conceits, elevated by ambitious sentences or variegated by far-sought learning.”

According to Matthew Arnold, the qualities of good prose are are ‘unfairly’, regularity, precision and balance.” These are exactly the qualities of Swift’s prose. He always says clearly and precisely what he means. As an example, we can see the description of a minister of state given by Gulliver to his Honyhnhnm master.

                        “ I told him that a first or chief minister of state who was the person I intended to describe, was a creature wholly exempt from over joy and grief, love and hatred, pity and anger; at least make 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 if for a truth."

  These sentences are pointed and direct and the plain statement of the minister’s character only heightens the conformity of the hypocrisy and villainy. His style suits the matter precisely.

  As  a story teller Swift is unsuppressed for his approach to the art of fiction he combines the richness of adult intelligence with the clarity and directness of a child’s mind. As a result, his Gulliver’s Travel has a two-folded appeal. For a child, it is simple narrative of the travels of Gulliver to some strange lands, and his interesting experiences there. For the intellectuals it is a satire on the follies of his age as well as of human beings in general. His style enables him to tell a story clearly with exactly the right amount of detail and to describe equally clearly such complicated processes as the capture of the Blesfuscu fleet, or the schemes of projectors. The book is written with such consummate ease that we are apt to overlook the skill with with which Swift achieves this object.

It is often said that Swift’s prose style lacks imagination and passion. A French critic says: “ Swift style lacks eloquence of ideas and sentiments. Eloquence in his sense is mind’s highest reach and widest conquest. It is the creative energy of life itself, manifested on those frontiers which we call variously religion, philosophy and poetry.” But these views lack vitality and are deficient in truth.

The age of Swift is called “ The Age of Prose and Reason”. Swift came under the influence of his age—an age when imagination and emotions were subordinated to reason and wit. People believed in the supremacy of reason ; and their thoughts were determined by reason. Hence, Swift describes both imagination and emotions. He tries to convince his readers. He appeals to their minds not to their heats. Moreover, he offers a “ criticism of life” ; and criticism has no link, Whatsoever, with imagination and emotions. There are no imaginative flights, nor soaring into the infinite, no raptures of idealism, no fine frenzies of passion; there is just charity.