History of Europeon Ideas, Vol. 14, No. 4, pp. 531-544. 1992 0191-6599/92 %5.OO+O.

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Printed m Great FInfain Pergamon Press Ltd

RELIGION, SATIRE, AND GULLIVER’S FOURTH VOYAGE

WILLIAM CASEMENT*

Critics have had much to say about Gulliver’s Travels, and perhaps receiving
the most attention has been Gulliver’s fourth voyage, the ‘Voyage to the Country
of the Houyhnhnms’. Two schools of interpretation have vied for dominance.
One school sees Swift as a misanthrope who is satirising the notion that humans
are rational creatures; he is telling us, it is said, that humans are governed by their
passions and are brutish and lacking morality. The Houyhnhnms’ highly refined
state of rationality is taken to represent a desirable but hopelessly utopian ideal.
The other school interprets Swift’s message to be less harsh and to tell us that
humanity integrates reason and passion. The life of pure rationality portrayed by
the Houyhnhnms, where reason is fully in control of passion, is seen as greatly
lacking rather than ideal.
A convenient terminological distinction between the two schools of
interpretation has labelled them the ‘hard’ school (misanthropy thesis) and the
‘soft’ school.’ Both were evident in early criticism of the fourth voyage, with such
figures as Samuel Johnson and Sir Walter Scott as ‘hard’ schoolers, and Deane
Swift and Thomas Sheridan as ‘soft’ schoolers.2 During the nineteenth century
the ‘hard’ school prevailed, with Thackeray leading the way.3 In the 1920s the
‘soft’ school again began to appear, and it gradually grew to dominate. By mid-
century ‘hard’ school reaction had gained strength, and during the 1970s and
1980s ‘soft’ school counterreaction was apparent.
While much has been said by and against both schools, the meaning of the
fourth voyage remains controversial. One of the most recent books on Swift calls
the ‘hard’ versus ‘soft’ controversy a ‘probably never-to-be-settled question’.4
While the question may continue unsettled in the sense that there will continue to
be advocates for both sides, my position is that the ‘soft’ school stands on
stronger ground: the ‘hard’ school is largely mistaken, and the ‘soft’ school
approaches a better understanding Houyhnhnmland. But the ‘soft’ school
stance and its superiority are in need of further clarification and extension.
Central to this venture, and related to the ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ school differences over
Swift’s portrayal of human nature, are three other key points of difference: the
type of satire he is engaged in, whether or not there is a message present (and if so,
of what sort) regarding religion, and the use of evidence outside the specific text
in interpretation. The ‘hard’ school finds the satire to be invective, and to carry
no religious message or a harsh one. Extra-textual evidence is shunned or very
limited. ‘Soft’ school thinking finds the satire to be instructive, and to carry a less
harsh and more important message about religion. And there is a willingness to
appeal to more and various extra-textual sources in interpretation.

*S.U.N.Y. at New Paltz, Department of Educational Studies, New Paltz, NY 12561,

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