Gulliver’s travels, comparative constitutional law, and law and literature

Gulliver’s Travels, now three hundred years old, remains a masterpiece of satirical fiction. As Gulliver recounts his voyages, he relates how various fantastical people govern themselves and each other, and also their reactions to his tales of England’s constitution and government. In this, Jonathan Swift holds up a mirror to the English constitution, showing satirical refractions of many of its follies in these peoples, and having England’s practices critiqued by outsiders with different views and experiences. Swift prefigured here a core idea of comparative constitutional law: that comparison unsituates us from the assumptions that undergird our legal systems, so that we can see their merits and faults in more starkly. Swift was also an early pioneer of law and literature, showing how fiction gives us imaginative examples which explore parts of our law that real comparison cannot reach, and demonstrating the power of narrative to critique our legal systems.