IMAGINARNE ZEMLJE I NJIHOVI SOCIOPOLITIČKI PROBLEMI U „GULIVEROVIM PUTOVANJIMA“

This paper, using the example of Jonathan Swift’s most famous novel (Gulliver’s Travels), examines the significance of imaginary spaces in depicting real socio-political conditions. The starting assumption is that each of the toponyms encountered by the main character (Lilliput, Blefuscu, Brobdingnag, Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, Glubbdubdrib, and the land of Houyhnhnms) represents universal social hardships (war, poverty, distrust in reason). The paper also explores how one of the most significant Enlightenment novels is modernized and transcribed into another medium — specifically, the 2010 film adaptation directed by Robert Letterman and the 2022 theater production by the Novi Sad Youth Theater, directed by Kokan Mladenović. In the parallel analysis of the film and theatrical adaptations, particular attention is paid to modifications of space as one of the most important directorial “props” (e.g., the Gulliver’s Travels performance was staged in the streets of Novi Sad). The research aims to highlight the significance and metaphorical potential that space gains when constructing the narrative plot and the psycho-physiological state of the main character (e.g., the enlargement of Gulliver’s loneliness through the expansion of spatial territories in Brobdingnag), with a brief reference to the conclusions Gaston Bachelard makes in his book The Poetics of Space.