Gulliver's Travels
by Jonathan Swift
Gulliver's Travels
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| lading | cargo |
| Lagado | capital and principal city on the island of Balnibarbi; one of the main features of the city is its Academy of Projectors; the name translates into "London" [Clark] |
| Lalcon | Lilliput: chamberlain, who joins in a conspiracy to impeach Gulliver; "[Wh]arton" or "falcon" or "rare Tom" per Clark and therefore likely modeled on the Thomas, Earl of Wharton. |
| Langden | anagram of England; |
| Langro Dehul san | (Lill.); undefined, but from context probably means something like "release him" or "untie him"; per Clark "Run from the wild man!" or "Run from the Devil man!"
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Laputa | island located in the Pacific, somewhere east of Japan, which is one of the locations visited by Gulliver during his third recorded voyage (Part III); capital of a group of islands and dominions which include:
'Laputa' is often translated as "the whore" based on the Romantic language root "puta"; Clark offers alternatve renderings of "all up at" and "far into" or "high onto"; "put" was also common slang for a "blockhead"; |
| latitude | location on the Earth's surface north or south of the Equator indicated in degrees, with the Equator at 0° the North Pole at 90° North and the South Pole at 90° South; latitude is indicated as east-west lines and rings, called 'parallels,' on maps and globes; latitude is readily calculated by taking an observation of the position of the Sun at its apex (i.e. noon).
There was no reliable method of ascertaining the other coordinate, Longitude -- the position east or west from any point -- during Swift's lifetime, particularly once at sea.
Latitude 30 degrees 2 minutes South Latitude 30 degrees South -- on leaving Blefuscu, Lilliput's neighboring island, Gulliver sails north for three days, about "twenty-four Leagues from Blefuscu" when he is rescued by an English ship. He gives their current position as "in the Latitude of 30 Degrees south," or about 2 minutes north of where his ship was before wrecking him near Lilliput at the beginning of Book I. As before, Gulliver's position would likely be inland on the yet uncharted east coast of Australia. |
| incapable by Law of holding Employments | English Test Acts prevented Catholics from holding office.
"the books of the Big-Endians have been long forbidden, and the whole Party rendered incapable by Law of holding Employments." (I:4;4) |
| lawn | finely woven cloth; see also cloth |
| league | distance of about 3 miles |
| Leeward Islands | group of islands in the eastern Caribbean Sea, including Antigua, Guadeloupe; "I was forced to get Recruits out of Barbadoes, and the Leeward Islands" (IV:1;2) |
| Lemuel | given name of the main character; Lemuel Gulliver: "devoted to God" or "belonging to God" (Hebrew). (Source: Etymology of First Names; king mentioned in Proverbs 31:1 and 31:4 (Source: Bible Gateway) |
| lenity | leniency; mercy; " his Majesty gave many marks of his great Lenity" (I:7;13) |
| "A Letter from Capt. Gulliver, to his Cousin Sympson" | This letter from the fictional Gulliver to the fictional Sympson, which first appeared in the 1735 Faulker edition, has two main functions. On one hand, it appears to be Swift's attempt to add a preface after the fact in order to respond to his critics. He did the same thing with his A Tale of a Tub. In the process the letter distorts some features of the narrative. For instance, the letter reveals certain points about the story which Swift had been otherwise careful to conceal until the most dramatically effective moment. For this reason, some researchers believe that the letter was a better epilogue than a preface.
Another distortion is the letter's portrayal of a different Gulliver than we find at the end of the story. The letter replaces the recovering Gulliver, reconciling himself to human society ("I began last Week to permit my Wife to sit at Dinner with me..." IV:12;13) with an angrier, unreformed, ranting disciple of his Master Houyhnhnm. In the process, Swift has effectively rewritten the conclusion of his work. The Travels with the letter and without have a different sensibility. With the letter, Swift's point is harsher and one can easily imagine Swift wanting to sharpen the edge of his satire after the fact. Gulliver's letter is also one of Swift's attempts to set the record straight about errors and changes made by earlier printers. Motte, particularly, had taken liberties with the text. Swift complained where he could -- ("[H]is copy was basely mangled, and abused, and added to, and blotted out by the printer" letter to A. Pope, 27 Nov 1726.) -- with little effect until Faulker undertook an edition of Swift's works in 1735. "In this impression several errors in the London and Dublin editions are corrected." Swift used this printing to highlight some of the most worst offenses, notably the reference to the ministers under Queen Anne, in Part IV (IV:6;10). |
| Levant | eastern part of the Mediterranean; destination of Gulliver's first, but uneventful, voyages as ship's surgeon. (I:1;1) |
| Leyden | Leiden; city in Netherlands, site of Rijksuniversiteit Leiden (University of Leiden), founded 1575; important medical school; Gulliver studied "Physick" (medicine) at Leyden for two years and seven months (I:1) |
| Lhnuwnh | Houy; to die; "to retire to his first Mother"
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Lilliput | island nation in the south Pacific, in the vicinity of Tasmania; ruled by human-like creatures "not six Inches high" (I:1;4); center of action of first book of the Travels; Lilliput shares its tiny universe with the island nation of Blefuscu.
The name Lilliput may have any number of meanings, according to Clark. "lilli" is most likely "little" but "put" offers several choices. "The small representative of a lordly man has a name of contempt familiar in Swift's time; he was a 'put.'" (Clark, p. 16.) "put" can also be translated as "prostitute" or a term with a similar root, meaning "stinking" or "disgusting." "put," as it is, could create the phrase "put little," as in "made little," as in Lilliput is England made little. Applying Swift's methods of wordplay also renders "put" into "pretty" and thus "pretty little," which Lilliput was. People: general discussion of the people and their customs is found in Chapter 6. Government: In chusing Persons for all Employments, they have more regard to good Morals than to great Abilities; (I:6;7)
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| Lilliput, Imperial Family |
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| Lilliput, Imperial Palace | named Belfaborac; "is in the Center of the City, where the two great Streets meet. It is enclosed by a Wall of two foot high, and twenty foot distant from the buildings... The outward Court is a Square of forty foot, and includes two other Courts: in the inmost are the Royal Apartments...the great Gates, from one Square into another, were but eighteen Inches high and seven Inches wide...the Buildings of the outer Court were at least five foot high ... the Walls were strongly built of hewn Stone, and
four Inches thick." (I:4)
In Chapter V, the palace catches fire, but Gulliver extinguishes the blaze by urinating on it. However "it is Capital in any Person . . . to make water within the Precincts of the Palace." (I:5;9-10) |
| Limtoc | Lilliput: a general, who joins in a conspiracy to impeach Gulliver; "risk it" or "risk (his) coat" [Clark]
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| Lindalino | "second City in the Kingdom" of Laputa (III:3;14; name translates into "Ireland" [Clark] |
| Lingua Franca | combination of several languages used to communicate between different nationalities in the Eastern Mediterranean; i.e. pidgin |
| Linnen | linen; cloth made from flax; see cloth. |
| Little-Endian / Big-Endian | see Big-Endian |
| logwood | Haematoxylon campechianum or "campeachy wood"; West Indian tree used in making dye; "going to the Bay of Campechy, to cut Logwood"(IV:1;1) |
| Lorbrulgrud | Brobd.; capital city; "dirt lover" or "London" [Clark]
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| Luggnagg |
Laputa; island kingdom "situated to the North-West" of Balnibarbi "about 29 Degrees North Latitude, and 140 Longitude...South Eastwards of Japan, about an hundred Leagues distant." (III:7;1); Gulliver leaves Balnibarbi for Luggnagg hoping to be able to go from there to Japan (an alliance between Japan and Luggnagg allows regular trade between the countries) and from Japan back to Europe; translates as "England" [Clark] |
| Luhimuh | (Houy); "a Sort of wild Rat" part of the Yahoo diet (IV:8;4) |
| Lumos Kelmin pesso desmar lon Emposo | Lill.; "swear a Peace with him and his Kingdom" (I:2) ; per Clark "Sue more, mister, a peace shall then (or them) long impose" or "so a dismall peace long impose." |
| Lustrog | Lilliputian prophet; "godliest" [Clark]; quoted in the Blundecral ("their Alcoran")
"That all true Believers shall break their Eggs at the convenient End:" (I:4;4) |
| Lyhannh | Houy; type of fowl; "the Swallow. (For so I translate the Word Lyhannh, although it be a much larger Fowl.)" (IV:9;3) |
