SWIFT AND SARTRE – ON THE SENSE OF THE EXISTENCE
SWIFT AND SARTRE – ON THE SENSE OF THE EXISTENCE

Summary/Abstract: What is the meaning of existence? Philosophers and scientists as well as conscious human beings along centuries have been trying to find a suitable answer to this essential question. In the Enlightenment philosophy,the individual conscience was a synthesis of reason and sensibility while in the 20th century a new philosophical trend called existentialism got closely related to it. Common ideas and interpretations can be discovered in the works of two authors, Jonathan Swift and Jean-Paul Sartre if one takes as a starting point the main characteristics of this last author’s existentialism in order to prove their validity in Jonathan Swift’s thinking. From Swift’s works reference will be made to “Gulliver’s Travels” and “A Tale of a Tub”, while Sartre will be present with the novels “La nausée” and “Les chemins de la liberté”, the plays “Les mouches” and “Le Diable et le Bon Dieu”,with references to the philosophical essay “L’Être et le Néant”.

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