The Sexual Politics of Microscopy in Brobdingnag

Abstract

This article builds on Marjorie Nicolson's well-known argument about Lemuel Gulliver as microscopic specimen in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. It contends that Swift inflects Gulliver in Brobdingnag more specifically as a pocket-sized instrument in the hands of enormous female consumers, not unlike the fashionable "pocket-microscopes" of his day. "The Sexual Politics of Microscopy in Brobdingnag" shows that Swift's portrayal of an English adventurer turned objectified "little man" underscores the emasculating effects of the commodification and perceived feminization of Enlightenment science in the new bourgeois culture.

Literature and Science in Enlightenment Britain: New Directions

“…Of course, it was not always easy to reconcile the metaphysical implications of Newtonian physico‐theology with traditional Christian doctrine. James Force has argued that Alexander Pope's deployment of the Newtonian argument from design in his Essay on Man (1733–34) complicates Lovejoy's well‐known reading of the poem as one of a number of early 18th‐century attempts to update the ancient idea of the “Great Chain of Being.” Rather than the necessary consequence of God's intellectual conception of the universe, Pope's Newtonian voluntarism represents the system of hierarchical gradations that structure the undetermined product of God's transcendent will. Karina Williamson also sees signs of strain in the efforts made by Augustan poets to adjust the old poetic image of the music of the spheres to the new cosmology, whereas Anne Janowitz has argued that confident assertions about the coherence of the universe in rapturous early 18th‐century descriptions of the night sky give way to more secular and psychological representations that reflect new anxieties about the mind's alienation from the cosmic order.…”

Micromégas: Altered Body–Environment Scaling in Literary Fiction

“…Disgust is a recurrent feeling for Gulliver during his 2 years stay in Brobdingnag, especially in relation to the magnified skins, smells, faces, and breasts of the country’s females, as well as the huge amounts of food they ingurgitate in his presence ( Monk, 1955 ). Issues of status and power often interact with questions of masculinity, sexuality, and gender differences in the Gulliver theme ( Monk, 1955 ; Armintor, 2007 ; Rabb, 2013 ), foremost for Gulliver himself, who alternates between play-doll and sex-toy among the feminine hands that own him: “[The] most uneasiness among these maids of honor (…) was to see them use me without any matter of ceremony, like a creature who had no sort of consequence.”…”

“…The Gulliver theme has been addressed by literary, philosophical, and cultural studies ( Schuhl, 1952 ; Bachelard, 1957 ; Stewart, 1993 ), physics and biology ( Haldane, 1926 ; Messac, 1936 ; Moog, 1948 ), aesthetics ( Jessup, 1950 ), history of science ( Nicolson, 1935 ), cinema and science-fiction studies ( Tsutsui, 2007 ; Spiegel, 2008 ), architecture ( Emmons, 2005 ), political theory and urbanism ( Rey, 2014 ) and feminism ( Berton, 2006 ; Armintor, 2007 ; Cunnally, 2013 ). While all these approaches have provided worthwhile, if rather scattered and partial contributions to the Gulliver theme, what has been missing, to the best of my knowledge, is a cognitive approach to the topic.…”