INITIATORY JOURNEY AND UTOPIA WITH SWIFT AND VOLTAIRE
INITIATORY JOURNEY AND UTOPIA WITH SWIFT AND VOLTAIRE

Summary/Abstract: Starting from Michel Butor’s assertion that travelling and writing are two complementary activities—in the sense that the experience of travelling fuels up the imagination, which in turn is artistically captured by means of writing—the present study explores the literary theme of “journey” in two fundamental works of the Enlightenment: Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift and Candide, or Optimism by Voltaire. Both works create utopian worlds through which the authors satirically address the society, politics, and mindset of the age. At the same time, the study demonstrates that the two books can be structurally classified as belonging to the category of “initiatory journey”, although the protagonists do not ultimately reach a higher level of spirituality, but rather undergo a process of disillusionment.

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