Japan^ Contributions to Gulliver S Travels
Japan^ Contributions to Gulliver s Travels Maurice J o h n s o n , Muneharu K it a g a k i, Philip W il l ia m s Perhaps the ultimate proof of recognition of an earnest project in scholarship is a request for reprinting of an article within a year of its publication. After more than a dozen years of collaboration of an American scholar, Dr. Williams, and a Japanese scholar, Prof. Kitagaki, under the advice and guidance of a senior Swift scholar, Prof. Johnson, such has been the reception of Gulliver s Travels and Japan: A New Reading广 No. 4 in the Moonlight Series (published January 1977 by Amherst House, Doshisha University, Kyoto, illustrations, xii, 50 pp.). As stated in the Foreword, the Moonlight Series *'tries, among other things, to throw light on areas of study which might otherwise remain eclipsed, and to bring together compatible pieces which might otherwise never be found together—and so lost in the process. Especially ap propriate are cross-cultural problems which have been approached previously from only one side. Thus the exploration of Japanese prototypes in Swift’s Travels seems a particularly apt suoject... a distillation of research and interpretation by three craftsmen. .. result ing in a vigorous collaboration/7 With this excerpt (most documenta tion omitted), “Amherst House and her Moonlight Series are happy to be able to contribute towards breaking new paths in old fields.” Otis Cary, Editor, Moonlight Series, (The original monograph may be obtained from Amherst House, Doshisha — i — University, Kyoto 602, Japan, for ¥ 5 0 0 plus Y 140 m ailing cost, or S 3 00- mail three one-dollar bills.) Over 250 years ago, in words that seem more suitable for our cybernetic age, Jonathan Swift introduced the world to a prototype computer in the middle of Part III of Gulliver s Travels.
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