Lingua inglese - Scuola secondaria di secondo gradoThe Augustan AgeAugustan fiction: the rise of the novelJonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift

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Jonathan Swift: life
Complete the sentences with the correct information.

1. Jonathan Swift was born in 1667 in ________, where he received his education.
2. His family returned to ________ in 1688.
3. Swift became secretary to a ________ statesman who urged him to write his first ________ works, which were written in this period.
4. In 1694 Swift returned to ________, where he was ordained as an Anglican priest.
5. He was appointed ________ of St Patrick's Cathedral in 1713.
6. He died in ________.
Completamento aperto
5

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Jonathan Swift: the satiric technique
Complete the sentences with the correct information.

1. One of the main ingredients of satire is ________ or exaggeration.
2. The author invites the reader to see something ________ treated in a ridiculous, disgusting or funny way.
3. In his masterpiece, Swift makes use of the figure of the ________, which the reader knows very well.
4. Satire is created in the way Swift organises the new world by constantly changing the ________ on human conduct.
5. Swift highlights his satiric points in a very humorous way, manipulating Gulliver's ________ to the changing circumstances.
Completamento aperto
5

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Jonathan Swift: works
Match Swift's works with their correct description.

1. A satire about the contending religious parties of the day, the superstition of the Catholics and the fanaticism of the Dissenters: ________.
2. A satire about the merits of ancient and modern literature, in which Swift supported the defence of the classics: ________.
3. A series of pamphlets Swift wrote to attack the government's proposal for a new coinage which would have increased poverty in Ireland: ________.
4. His masterpiece, in which the protagonist goes on four separate voyages which bring new opportunities for satirising England: ________.
5. Swift's ironic and bitter suggestion that the poverty of the Irish people can be relieved by the sale of their children as food for the rich: ________.
Posizionamento
4

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Jonathan Swift: a controversial writer
Read the following sentences and say whether they are true or false.
A: Swift has been defined alternatively as a misanthrope, a monster or a lover of mankind.
B: His works show that he had a conservative attitude towards politics and society.
C: He shared the optimism of his age and the pride in England of his contemporaries.
D: He defined man as a being incapable of reason, which, in his opinion, must be used properly, otherwise it can become a sort of error of judgement.
E: Irony and satire were the means that best suited his temperament and his interests.
Vero o falso
1

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Gulliver's Travels: date and settings
Complete the sentences with the words below.

1. Gulliver's Travels was written before 1725, and was ________ in 1726.
2. The novel has four settings, each linked to a ________.
3. After a shipwreck during his first voyage, Gulliver reaches the land of ________, a fantasy world of very small people, where Gulliver is a very good ________ for people who consider themselves very important.
4. On his second voyage, Gulliver arrives in ________, where a race of giants makes him feel like a Lilliputian.
5. The third voyage takes Gulliver to the island of Laputa and this allows Swift to satirize the ________ community in Britain.
6. The last voyage is to the land of the Houyhnhnms, a country governed by intellectual ________, which gives Swift the opportunity to criticise humanity.
Posizionamento
3

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Gulliver's Travels: plot
Choose the correct alternative to complete the text.

In book 1 Gulliver sails from ________ on 4th May 1699; after six months he is shipwrecked in the ________ Pacific and arrives on the shore of Lilliput, where he falls asleep. The Lilliputians carry his huge body to their ________. Gulliver gradually learns their language, their customs and institutions, and gains the favour of the ________. After several amusing experiences, he manages to return to England. Book 2 begins on 20th June 1702 when Gulliver sails for ________ but finds himself in Brobdingnag, somewhere in Alaska. The natives are ________ people, and Gulliver becomes the king's pet and is carried around in a ________. The king enjoys talking with him about the British and European systems of government. One day a huge ________ lifts Gulliver's cage and drops it in the middle of the ocean. A ship returning to England rescues him.
Completamento chiuso
3

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Gulliver's Travels: plot
Read the text below and find the eight mistakes in it.

In book 3, Gulliver finds himself on the underwater island of Laputa, inhabited by absent-minded astronomers, philosophers and politicians. Gulliver visits their capital, Lagado, and sees the serious experiments carried out in the academy. Gulliver is dropped on Japan and goes back to England.
Book 4 is about Gulliver's last voyage. He goes to an island inhabited by intelligent horses, the Yahoos. They govern a people, the Houyhnhnms, who are similar to human beings: they are stupid and corrupt. Gulliver hates the superiority of the horses, while he is ashamed of the fact that he is similar to the other inhabitants. The horses banish him, so he returns to France, but he can't any longer bear the society in which he lives. Therefore, he decides to live in a zoo, among the animals, which remind him of the noble horses met in his last voyage.
Trova errore
5

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Gulliver's Travels: the hero
Read the following sentences and say whether they are true or false.
A: Gulliver is a typical European: middle-aged, well-educated and sensible, with great powers of observation, who loves his family and his culture.
B: Swift wants to imply that when Gulliver starts being critical about European values, this transformation depends on his character rather than on his voyages.
C: When he returns home after his first voyage, Gulliver quickly goes back to his old European way of life.
D: It becomes more and more difficult for Gulliver to re-adjust to his former life.
E: In the end, Gulliver is forced to compare himself to other men and not to animals.
Vero o falso
1

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Gulliver's Travels: sources
Choose the correct alternatives to complete the sentence.

Swift
A: read the few existing travel books to write his masterpiece.
B: was inspired by English writers, in whose works the traveller usually discovered some happy societies where men lived an uncorrupted life.
C: treated the voyage theme in a different way because the people among whom Gulliver finds himself live in highly organised societies.
D: wanted to speak about the state of corruption in which Europe had fallen by the constant opposition between rationality and animal instincts.
E: alluded to the work of the Royal Society and to people and events in the England of Queen Anne and George I.
Scelta multipla
2

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Gulliver's Travels: levels of interpretation
Read the following sentences and say whether they are true or false.
A: Swift's masterpiece can be read as a tale for children because of Gulliver's amusing and absurd adventures, especially in the first two books.
B: The novel can also be read as an economic allegory of his time or as a parody of travel literature.
C: The novel can be seen as a masterpiece of misanthropy and a reflection on the aberrations of human reason.
D: The most common interpretation of the novel in the 19th century was that Swift wanted to praise the political, social and religious conflicts of the time as well as the problems caused by scientific progress.
E: Following the psychoanalytic interpretation, Swift was mentally unstable, and therefore the reader does not need to take the ending of the book into serious consideration.
Vero o falso
1

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