The Reception of Jonathan Swift in Europe ed. by Hermann J. Real (review)

46 the yahoos. Some unique connections between fantasy and imperial policy reveal how the Travels helped Grant to convince Parliament to support an aggressive Christianizing of India and release its savages from the clutches of a purported enemy Swift is known to revile : an ignorant, self-serving priesthood , though this time of Brahmins. In ‘‘The Grand Question Debated: Swift on Peace and War,’’ Angus Ross shows how promotion of peace consistently dominates all of Swift’s political writings and marks a rare strain of sincerity in his style. Remaining essays include Mr. Hammond’s cogent claims in ‘‘Swift, Pope and the Efficacy of Satire’’ for Swift’s being unlike Pope as a satirist thoroughly skeptical of the efficacy of his own satiric tools; Mr. Ellis’s accurate clarification in ‘‘How Many Voices Hath A Tale of a Tub?’’ of the number and kind of narrative voices in the 1704 vs. 1710 Tub; Swift’s creation of the character ‘Swift’ as his notable mastery of print culture in Ann Cline Kelly’s ‘‘Swift’s Enigma and the Mythopoetic Process in Print Culture’’; why Swift was suspicious of music, in Arno Löffler ’s ‘‘‘Suit Your Words to Your Musick Well’: Swift and the Poetic Harmonists .’’ In studies on horticulture, print culture, and material culture we see in Joseph McMinn’s ‘‘The Gardener in the Deanery’’ how Swift produced a sincere pastoralism in his gardens; in ‘‘Franz Kottenkamps Gulliver-Übersetzung : eine beachtliche Leistung aus dem frühen 19. Jahrhundert,’’ Edgar Mertner explains how Gulliver was translated for Germans in 1839; and Swift as model for a 1738 royal commemorative medal is discussed by Margaret Weedon, in ‘‘‘I’m Glad the Medals were Forgot’: Some Medals Remembered.’’ Although few of the topics are novel, most of these essays still repay reading for their methodologies, and for expert interpretations of the enigmatic Dean’s vexing Tub. John Morillo North Carolina State University The Reception of Jonathan Swift in Europe , ed. Hermann J. Real. London: Thoemmes Continuum, 2005. Pp. xxxii ⫹ 378. $200. This is the eighth volume to be published in the ‘‘Athlone Critical Tradition Series: The Reception of British Authors in Europe.’’ (The volume on Sterne, published in 2004, was reviewed by Melvyn New in the Scriblerian, 38, 2006.) Difficult to read sustainedly, it is an indispensable reference text not only for reception study, but also for the many insights of European scholars who have discovered unexpected translations of Gulliver’s Travels and who have mined early encyclopedias, correspondences , and journals for commentary on Swift as a man, author, Irish patriot, husband (?), lover. There is also some emotionally personal poetry in which the Swiftian or Gulliverian persona confronts with courage and truth the manacles of Socialist Realism and twentieth -century totalitarianisms. Following a concise overview by Mr. Real and an illuminating Timeline, twelve essays follow: on eighteenthcentury France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway , Sweden), Poland, Russia, Czechoslovakia , Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania. A final chapter reveals the imaginative but zany ways in which the modern advertising industry has consumed Swift, Gulliver, and the Travels in politics, commerce, entertainment, 47 and the media. A splendid Bibliography concludes the volume. Given the catalogues of names, dates, authors, translators , publishing houses, reprints, reissues , adaptations, and unfamiliar host languages in text and footnotes, it is a volume that one goes to with a specific interest—for example, the translations and responses to A Modest Proposal. It was translated into Czech in 1930 by Aloys Skourmal, as if in anticipation of ‘‘the horrors to come.’’ Skourmal continued to write intelligently about Swift into the 1960s. Generally, the chapters are organized under three headings: translation history , criticism, and creative reception. Fifth voyages in many cultures often continue the Travels, sometimes beyond our terrestrial boundaries. Comparative criticisms with classic and contemporary foreign authors of note introduce insights of significance. In Romania, the satiric Swift is ‘‘a Buster Keaton of literature .’’ Swift is seen in another and different light when Herder and Jean Paul respond enthusiastically to this moral and imaginative genius. And, it should be noted, despite the unfavorable misreadings of Swift’s relations with the two women in his life, a noticeable number of the modern translators and...