[An invention from the Grand Academy of Lagado to revolutionize language] · Centre for Early Modern Visual Culture

Title: [An invention from the Grand Academy of Lagado to revolutionize language]
Subject: Inventions in Literature; Learned Institutions and Societies; Satire; Scientists; Fictional Works; Fictitious Characters; Imaginary Places; Imaginary Creatures
Period: 1800-1850;
Geographic: Balnibarbi; Laputa; England
Description: Here we see an image of a machine created by one of the professors from the Grand Academy on Balnibarbi. This machine had all the words in the language of Balnibarbi in different moods, tenses, and declensions written on blocks. These blocks were held together by wires on a frame, and students of the professor would rotate the handles, forming different arrangements of the words. They would then find sentence fragments and record them in this book. The goal of this experiment was to create a complete body of work that comprised all of the arts and sciences. The same image appears in the 1839 Krabbe edition.
Image Creator: Grandville (Illustrator)
Type: StillImage; Vignettes
Identifier: mta:21699
Language: ger
Source Name: Gulliver's Reisen in unbekannte Länder
Parent Collection: Gulliver's Reisen in unbekannte Länder Vol. II. Vignettes by Grandville (1843); Gulliver's Reisen in unbekannte Länder Vol. II. Vignettes by Grandville (1843)
Image: mta_21699_OBJ.png
Collection: Gulliver's Travels
Subject: Inventions in Literature; Learned Institutions and Societies; Satire; Scientists; Fictional Works; Fictitious Characters; Imaginary Places; Imaginary Creatures

Media: mta_21699_OBJ.png