Gulliver's Travels

Gulliver's Travels, written by Jonathan Swift and Published in 1726, uses sea exploration as a narrative framework that allowed the main character to travel to these fantastical lands. All of his journeys involve him attempting to ravel by sea, but ending up not going as planned, whether that be by a mutiny, a storm, or shipwrecks. Colonial exploration and maritime exploration was rampant at the time, powerful countries  exploring the ocean by sea in order to find new, distant lands. Swift uses sea travel as a satirized version of empires, in order to question their reasons for doing so and their morality. It promises its romanticization of exploring the unknown, yet also uses it as a way to speak to the morals of the European people.