Jonathan swift's Gulliver's Travels is considered by many to be one of the important pieces of literature ever written. During Swift's lifetime, satire was a popular form or writing. It sought highlight absurd practices by taking a practice and the ideas ea ad to it to an extreme degree Satire lies at the heart of Gulliver's Travels. Swift used this from of writing to criticize many of the ideas and practices of eighteenth-century Europe.