A comparison of a section of a description of a place in both Samuel Pepys's diaries and Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels will illustrate differences and likenesses between the two authors' styles.
A section of Pepys's diary, from September 7, 1665, recounting his visit to Swakeley's estate is as follows:
A very pleasant place, bought by him of Sir James Harrington’s lady. He took us up and down with great respect, and showed us all his house and grounds; and it is a place not very moderne in the garden nor house, but the most uniforme in all that ever I saw; and some things to excess. Pretty to see over the screene of the hall (put up by Sir J. Harrington, a Long Parliamentman) the King’s head, and my Lord of Essex on one side, and Fairfax on the other; and upon the other side of the screene, the parson of the parish, and the lord of the manor and his sisters. The window-cases, door-cases, and chimnys of all the house are marble.
A section from Gulliver's account of his time in Lilliput, published in 1726 is below:
At the place where the carriage stopped there stood an ancient temple, esteemed to be the largest in the whole kingdom; which, having been polluted some years before by an unnatural murder, was, according to the zeal of those people, looked upon as profane, and therefore had been applied to common use, and all the ornaments and furniture carried away. In this edifice it was determined I should lodge. The great gate fronting to the north was about four feet high, and almost two feet wide, through which I could easily creep. On each side of the gate was a small window, not above six inches from the ground: into that on the left side, the king’s smith conveyed fourscore and eleven chains, like those that hang to a lady’s watch in Europe, and almost as large, which were locked to my left leg with six-and-thirty padlocks. Over against this temple, on the other side of the great highway, at twenty feet distance, there was a turret at least five feet high.
Although written more than half a century apart, both writers use a similar style, straightforward, simple, and fully in modern English. Both passages should be comprehensible to a twenty-first–century audience in terms of both vocabulary and grammar. Both writers connect clauses through the use of the conjunction "and," and both use semicolons, a form of punctuation not as common in modern times. Pepys, however, uses shorter sentences than Swift and sometimes employs sentence fragments, as one would expect to occur in a private journal. Swift also provides a bit more explanatory background material to orient the reader, fitting the information into clauses within long sentences.
Mostly, however, the styles are similar, as they are secular and straightforward. They are both a precursor to today's journalistic style, attempting to lay out the facts in a clear, objective manner.
Both Samuel Pepys and Jonathan Swift wrote with little embellishment, Pepys from a literal vantage point and Swift from a figurative one. In both Pepys's diary and Swift's Gulliver's Travels, there is little in terms of self-reflection or introspection. Pepys's diary entries are factual and unadorned by comments of a personal nature.
Consider Pepys's diary entry for September 2nd, 1666: this is the account of how the Great Fire of London began and of the damage it inflicted on the city. Pepys wrote that he was alerted to the fire by Jane, one of his maids. The rest of the diary entry for that day consists of a dispassionate account of events as they unfolded. Accordingly, little could be done to save the houses and buildings in the fire's path. Like many Londoners, Pepys took pains to secure important documents and belongings after it became apparent that the fire could not be suppressed.
Upon Pepys's suggestion, the king gave the command to pull down the houses in the fire's path. Sadly, all such efforts to thwart the fire's advance proved futile. Pepys's rapport with King Charles II is contrasted with Swift's uncomfortable detente with the fictional Emperor of Lilliput in the first part of Gulliver's Travels. While the monarch of Pepys's account is largely accommodating and responsive, the monarch of Swift's account must be mollified into action. It is only after Gulliver's compassionate treatment of the six soldiers (who tried to execute him) that the king relaxes his wary stance toward his giant prisoner. He orders Gulliver to be supplied with "a proportionate quantity of bread and wine" and "other victuals" for his sustenance. The emperor also has his tailors design suitable clothing for Gulliver and commissions his "greatest scholars" to teach Gulliver the Lilliputian language.
In Pepys's world, the king is an informed and sympathetic public figure, but in Gulliver's fictional world, a monarch is often arbitrary and impossibly difficult to please. Unlike Pepys, Swift definitely provides a more nuanced view of the English monarch.
It is true that Pepys's world is literal and the events he relates are historical, while Swift's world is fictional. Both Pepys and Swift even utilize linear narratives and largely dispassionate tones in their respective stories. However, there is one important difference: where Pepys's account of life is candid and unadorned with analytical insight, Swift's account of an Englishman's fictional life is satirical in nature.
Swift uses Gulliver's varied experiences to criticize the British government, colonialism, science, and human nature. Read Perceptions of Satire in Gulliver's Travels in order to help you understand what Swift is satirizing in his story. As with Pepys, Swift chooses not to include a running commentary of his personal musings. He merely relates what Gulliver sees and experiences during his travels, leaving us readers to deduce for ourselves the significance of Gulliver's exploits.
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