Japan is referred to in ''

Gulliver's Travels ''Gulliver's Travels'', or ''Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships'' is a 1726 prose satire by the Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan ...

'', the 1726 satirical novel by

Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish Satire, satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whig (British political party), Whigs, then for the Tories (British political party), Tories), poe ...

. Part III of the book has the account of

Lemuel Gulliver Lemuel Gulliver () is the fictional protagonist and narrator of ''Gulliver's Travels'', a novel written by Jonathan Swift, first published in 1726. In ''Gulliver's Travels'' According to Swift's novel, Gulliver was born in Nottinghamshire c. ...

's visit to

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, the only real location visited by him. It is used as a venue for Swift's satire on the actions of Dutch traders to that land. His portrayal reflects the state of European understanding of the nation in the 17th and early 18th centuries, as well as the tensions caused by the English-Dutch trade rivalry at the period.

Description

Japan is shown on the map at the beginning of part III, which also shows the island of "

Yesso (also spelled Yezo or Yeso) is the Japanese term historically used to refer to the lands to the north of the Japanese island of Honshu. It included the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, which changed its name from "Ezo" to "Hokkaidō" in 18 ...

" (i.e. Hokkaido), "Stats island" (

Iturup , other_names = russian: Итуру́п; ja, 択捉島 , location = Sea of Okhotsk , coordinates = , archipelago = Kuril Islands , total_islands = , major_islands = , area_km2 = 3139 , length_km = 200 , width_km = 27 , coastline = , highest_moun ...

) and "Companys Land" ( Urup) to the north. The map also marks the Vries Strait and Cape Patience, though this is shown on the northeast coast of Yesso, rather than as part of Sakhalin, which was little-known in Swift’s time. On the island of Japan itself the map shows "Nivato" ( Nagato), Yedo (

Edo Edo ( ja, , , "bay-entrance" or "estuary"), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a ''jōkamachi'' (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the ''de facto'' capital of ...

), "Meaco" ( Kyoto),

Inaba Inaba (written: or ) is a Japanese surname. Notable people with the surname include: *, Japanese shogi player *, Japanese singer *, Japanese baseball player *, Japanese video game producer and designer * Carrie Ann Inaba (born 1968), American da ...

and "Osacca" ( Osaka). The text describes Gulliver's journey from

Luggnagg Luggnagg is an island kingdom, one of the imaginary countries visited by Lemuel Gulliver in the 1726 satirical novel '' Gulliver's Travels'' by Anglo-Irish author Jonathan Swift. Location The location of Luggnagg is illustrated in both the text ...

, which took fifteen days, and his landing at "Xamoschi" (i.e. Shimosa) which lies "on the western part of a narrow strait leading northward into a long arm of the sea, on the northwest part of which Yedo, the metropolis stands". This description matches the geography of Tokyo Bay, except that Shimosa is on the north, rather than the western, shore of the bay.

Satire

Following early contacts with Portuguese and Spanish explorers and missionaries, Christianity became established in Japan in the 16th and 17th centuries. However, it became enmeshed in the civil disorder and wars of the pre-Shogun period and with the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate was proscribed and fiercely repressed. Japan adopted a closed-door policy and European traders were expelled. At this point the custom of ''

e-fumi A was a likeness of Jesus or Mary onto which the religious authorities of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan required suspected Christians (Kirishitan) to step, in order to demonstrate that they were not members of the outlawed religion, otherw ...

'', "trampling on the crucifix", was introduced as a test for Christians, both in the country and for travellers arriving there. Higgins states that ''e-fumi'' "was at the suggestion of Dutch traders who had no scruple about doing so". Swift satirizes the practice of the Dutch by having Gulliver request, with the backing of the king of Luggnagg, that he be excused from this test, despite claiming to be Dutch himself. He reports the Emperor of Japan was “a little surprised at this, as I was the first of my countrymen to make a scruple of the point” and that he "began to doubt that I was a real Hollander but suspected I might be a Christian", a satire on the Dutch trader who claimed he was "not a Christian but a Dutchman". The Emperor also warned that if the secret should be found out by Gulliver’s countrymen, the Dutch, they would assuredly cut his throat in the voyage. On his arrival at "Nangasac" ( Nagasaki), Gulliver was able to find passage on a ship, which Swift names the ''Amboyna'', of Amsterdam, a reference to the place of a notorious massacre by the Dutch of ten English traders in 1623.OWC Notes p340

Notes

References

*Jonathan Swift: ''Gulliver's Travels'' Oxford World Classics (1986, reprint 2008) introduction by Claude Rawson, explanatory notes by Ian Higgins {{DEFAULTSORT:Japan (Gulliver's Travels) Fictional elements introduced in 1726 Gulliver's Travels locations

Japan in non-Japanese culture