Gulliver's Travels
by Jonathan Swift
Gulliver's Travels
|
|
Walpole, Robert  |
1676-1745; British politician and prime minister (1715-1717 and 1721-1742) believed to be the model for Flimnap, treasurer of Lilliput; "Each man has his price" is commonly attributed to him; Walpole's greatest claim to fame may be that he not only survived changes in government, scandal, conviction for corruption, expulsion from power, and a stint in the Tower, but actually managed to return to power, with the assistance of the Duchess of Kendal, an incident satirized in Flimnap's fall while rope-dancing (I:3;3);
A Whig, Walpole became prime minister (Lord Treasurer) under King George I, succeeding the Tory government of Oxford and Bolingbroke which Swift had supported. Walpole's subsequent prosecutions of the Tory leadership treason is satirized in Gulliver's impeachment in Lilliput for urinating on the palace (I:5;9). Concerned with destructive policies towards Ireland, Swift once met with Walpole to plead for changes, without satisfaction (see Swift's letter of Apr. 28, 1726 to the Earl of Peterborough); for further information on Walpole see entry at Biography.com)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Wapping  |
East London borough now part of the "Docklands,"
an up-and-coming business district rising from abandoned wharves and docks.
In Swift's time, it was well-known as a lively maritime community. (source:
London Encyclopædia
)
|
| War of .. | see under name; e.g. War of Jenkins's Ear under Jenkins's Ear
|
| Jane Waring | one of the fatherless women in Swift's life; he gave her the pet name "Varina"; Swift met Waring while at Kilroot, his first parish, in Ireland; when Swift had a chance to return to Sir Wm. Temple's service, he proposed to her, offering to remain if she said yes and threatening to never return to Ireland if she refused; Jane refused and Swift left Ireland; ironically, at Temple's death, Swift accepted a position with Lord Berkeley who was going to Ireland as Lord Justice; on his return, Jane wrote Swift about reconsidering marriage and, having apparently changed his mind, Swift responded with a set of stern conditions that effectively rebuffed her.
|
| warrant | written legal authorization to take possession of money, goods or people (i.e. arrest warrant).
|
|
|
| watch | Gulliver's watch, and timepieces in general, figure in the first voyage only. Samuel Johnson, who otherwise gave Swift little credit, "allowed very great merit to the inventory of articles found in the pockets of the Man Mountain, particularly the description of his watch, which it was conjectured was his God, as he consulted it upon all occasions." [Boswell's Life of Johnson, Friday, 24 March 1775].
|
| James Welch | crew member aboard the Adventure who comes to Gulliver's cabin and "said he had Orders from the Captain to set me a-shore." (IV:1;3)
|
| Thomas, Earl of Wharton | 1648-1715; Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; one of those people towards whom Swift developed an intense dislike, exhibited in Short Character of the Earl of
Wharton; may be the model for the character Lalcon
|
| Whigs | originally an English political faction forming around opposition to ascension of James II, they eventually managed to depose him in the Glorious Revolution. Whigs evolved into a political party with a platform supporting the wealthy and commercial interests. They dominated the English politics during the most of the 18th century. Swift began as a Whig but switched allegiance to the Tories, the opposition party. The Whigs are represented by the Slamecksans in Lilliput.
|
| Whiteway, Martha (Mrs) | cousin of Jonathan Swift and guardian during list last years; much of what is recorded of Swift's illness, decline and death comes from her letters in response to the Earl of Orrery's inquiries about Swift's condition; also mother-in-law of Deane Swift. |
| Whnaholm Yahoo | Houy; not defined specificially; provided as an example of Houyhnhnm use of "Yahoo" as a adjective or adverb modifying other words;
... the Houyhnhnms have no Word in their Language to express any thing that is Evil, except what they borrow from the Deformities or ill Qualities of the Yahoos. Thus they denote the Folly of a Servant, an Omission of a Child, a Stone that cut their Feet, a continuance of foul or unseasonable Weather, and the like, by adding to each the Epithet of Yahoo. For Instance, Hhnm Yahoo, Whnaholm Yahoo, Ynlhmndwihlma Yahoo, and an ill-contrived House, Ynholmhnmrohlnw Yahoo. (IV:9;11)
|
| William and Mary | William III and Mary II, king and queen of England, 1689-1702
|
William III |
(1650-1702) King of England 1689-1702 with Mary II (died 1694); also known as William of Orange; a grandson of England's Charles I, William was Stadtholder of the United Netherlands. He married his cousin Mary, daughter of James II, in 1677. The two were invited to depose James by England's Whig leadership and William landed with an army in 1688, forcing James to flee and the couple were crowned in 1689. William's decisive defeat of James and his Catholic supporters at the Battle of the Boyne in Ireland (1690) is still commemorated there and Protestants still call themselves "Orangemen". William was succeeded by Anne, Mary's sister. (see Biography.com); William may be represented in the Travels by Calin Deffar Plune, an earlier emperor of Lilliput.
|
| Williams, Peter | "an old Comrade of mine" [Gulliver's] who was on the merchantman which rescues him after leaving Blefuscu and "who gave me a good Character to the Captain" (I:8;9)
|
| wool | Gulliver says that he hopes his Lilliputian sheep "will prove much to the Advantage of the Woollen Manufacture, by the Fineness of the Fleeces." (I:8;10). This is significant because Swift was an advocate on behalf of Irish woollen manufacturer which was severely oppressed by English laws to prevent competition. This is also a bit of a joke (and I can't believe I'm the first one to point this out) because a Lilliputian sheep would be about the size of a hamster and it would take dozens of them to match the output of a single English sheep.
|