Gulliver as a novelistic, quixotic character? A response to Aaron R. Hanlon

Whereas Quixote leaves his home to fulfill a very peculiar, out of the ordinary, lunatic mission (i.e. his "chivalric calling"), there is nothing out of the ordinary in Gulliver's motivations for leaving home (e.g. love of travel, making money). [...]whereas Quixote embarks on his way well-equipped with fantastic scenarios, which will unavoidably be crushed by reality, dissolved into real, mundane places and people,4 Gulliver's travels illustrate just the opposite: an encounter between a relatively ordinary Englishman, equipped with a set of common beliefs and expectations, and strange, fictional, bizarre places and creatures (which are still representative, in a satirical manner, of our world). [...]when Gulliver offers his common (quite superficial) explanations for setting sail again and again we get the impression that Swift is simply looking for an excuse to move Gulliver on to the next adventure so that he (i.e. Swift!) will be able to unfold another fantastic story, describe another bizarre place, and exercise his satirical temper. Even when there is a conspicuous opposition between two generic traditions (e.g. tragedy and comedy), this does not mean that specific authors cannot mix them is certain ways (e.g. tragi-comedy).9 This brief diversion to genre theory is meant to remind us that we should not treat satire and the novel as generic frameworks inherently competing with one another, especially because they are both known for being quite flexible and open literary forms. [...]when Hanlon rightly calls attention to certain novelistic elements in GT, there is no reason to link this argument to an attempt to weaken the text's satirical power or to downplay Swift's politics and topical allusions. According to the OED, "exceptionalism" is a relative newcomer to English, first documented in 1928 as part of an economic and political argument contending that the USA has its own, exceptional economic laws.