Consider the Source: 'Gulliver's Travels'

Jack Black’s new Gulliver’s Travels movie seems to confirm that the misconception that Jonathan Swift published nothing more than a classic children's book in 1726. The trailers suggest a special-effects driven comedy along the lines of Night at the Museum, with contemporary renderings of some of Swift's fantastical imagery, such as normal-sized Lemuel Gulliver pinned to the ground by scores of ropes from the tiny Lilliputians.

If Black's film drives young readers to the book, they may be in for a surprise. Swift generally writes in accessible prose that makes him a easy introduction to 18th century literature (except when Gulliver's Travels intentionally parodies the navigational jargon of the travel narratives of the time). Primarily, though, the Anglo-Irish author was the kind of scathingly dark satirist who'd make the "South Park" guys tip their hats.

His most notorious work, a pamphlet titled "A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Poor Children of Ireland From Being a Burden To Their Parents or Country, and for Making them Beneficial to the Public” (best known as "A Modest Proposal"), Swfit suggests alleviating Ireland's population problem by eating their surplus children. His prose maintains an admirably straight face when he delivers lines like, "A young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragoust."