Country of the Houyhnhnms

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The Country of the Houyhnhnms is a fictional land in Jonathan Swift’s "Gulliver’s Travels" inhabited by rational, intelligent horses who embody cold reason and contrast sharply with the brutish human-like Yahoos.

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Statements (44)

Predicate Object
instanceOf fictional country
fictional location
literary setting
alsoInhabitedBy Yahoos
appearsInChapterRange Part IV, chapters 1–12 of Gulliver's Travels
appearsInPart Part IV of Gulliver's Travels NERFINISHED
appearsInWork Gulliver's Travels NERFINISHED
associatedWithTheme human depravity
limits of rationality
reason versus passion
contrastedWith European society of Swift's time
lands of the Yahoos
countryInFictionalUniverse world of Gulliver's Travels
countryOfOriginOfWork Kingdom of Great Britain NERFINISHED
createdBy Jonathan Swift NERFINISHED
departureCauseOfVisitor banishment of Gulliver
dominantSpecies Houyhnhnms NERFINISHED
ethicalPrinciple governance by reason rather than passion
firstPublicationYear 1726
genre satire
travel narrative
utopian and dystopian fiction
governedBy Houyhnhnm assemblies NERFINISHED
Houyhnhnm reason
hasFormOfGovernment rational oligarchy of Houyhnhnms
hasPopulationType brutish human-like creatures
rational horses
influenced later depictions of rational non-human societies in literature
inhabitedBy Houyhnhnms NERFINISHED
languageUsedByInhabitants Houyhnhnm language NERFINISHED
literaryFunction critique of Enlightenment rationality
satire of human nature
locatedInFictionalWorldRegion remote unknown oceanic region
medium prose fiction
nameLanguageOrigin invented language by Jonathan Swift
narratedByCharacter Lemuel Gulliver NERFINISHED
notableInhabitantClass Houyhnhnm masters
Yahoo servants
socialOrganization communal and orderly society
subordinateSpecies Yahoos
symbolizes cold reason
rationalism
visitedBy Lemuel Gulliver NERFINISHED
workLanguage English

Referenced by (1)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

Gulliver's Travels setting Country of the Houyhnhnms