i'm writing a paper on bukowski (1 Viewer)

thesloth

Founding member
it has to be a research paper for literary criticism, and i really want to do bukowski, but i am having some trouble coming up with a thesis.

i could do someone easy like poe but i think that if i found a good thesis, then this one would be fun.

suggestions? ideas? i don't know much about bukowski so any background / symbolism / whatever could help.

thanks!
 
welcome to the club. read the other threads I wrote concerning my doctoral dissertation and have a good time!
 
buks
philosophy of life
DONT TRY
would be one way to base a paper
and a good many of his later poems talked about
DONT try
just do it
 
I'll give you a clue: I've read everything written on B (bios, essays, articles, dissertations, doctoral thesis, opinions, reviews, you name it) and nobody, and I mean NOBODY, has ever written a serious paper on how B conveys/handles humour in his work.

that could be a really great paper.
 
Excellent point. I think the humor in Bukowski's work is often overlooked by those who prefer the easy focus on the drinking/bumming/women aspects. Humor runs through a great deal of his work. It's one of the major things that drew me into his world in the first place.
 
Definately, I was so drawn to reading B. and had to ask myself why sometimes...because of the depressing nature of his work...but it was, essentially, the humor that kept me coming back for more, among the drinking/women/bumming aspects that mjp speaks of.
 
I especially like the fact that a great deal of the humour is directed at himself (Chinaski).
 
Yes I agree, I often find myself bursting out loud with laughter at Buk's sense of humor. Most of his stuff has loads of humor to it.
 
okay already
funny funny
what about the living analytical stuff
i met a genius
or frying an egg
checking the mail
talking to the valets
these four walls
or the humour is fine..reading
his poetry
"im still here"
turning his beer upside down
avoiding all that jazz...
 
you could do it on how Buk didn't really fit into the whole 'literary scene' and didn't conform to any of it. he kind of branched off and went his own way and is virtually unknown to todays everyday reader.
I went to my college library for one of the first times the other day looking for Bukowski material and all I found was Pound, Thomas, DH Lawrence, and all the others. Then I stumbled upon one single Bukowski book out of his 40+ publications, You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense. Isn't it kind of ironic how that book was the only single one they had?
I thought so too.
 
it has to be a research paper for literary criticism, and i really want to do bukowski, but i am having some trouble coming up with a thesis.

I always wonder about the readers who are so interested
in Bukowski that they want to do a paper on him... and
yet they can't seem to come up with any idea at all what
to say that might be said. They are looking for
ideas outside themselves, and perhaps this is why some
lack sufficient drive and motivated to claw their way to
the finish line. I believe it's call "wrestling" with an idea
to come up with something internally worth saying, and
this doesn't fit into the digital, instant-answer category.
 
i think a good paper on bukowski would situate him among other authors (misanthropy in celine, hamsun, and bukowski or urban reality in gaddis, bukowski, and celine, for example). I also think there's a paper to be written from a sociological/literary standpoint about bukowski and reader response theory... taken to the extreme in forums like this website. also, how the development of writing technologies throughout the course of bukowski's career affected his writing, and the reception of his writing. you could go to town on the archived nature of his texts (we're getting into pretty abstract critical theory now) as well. i like books like harrison's, but there's really not that much need for people to "explain" bukowski like you get with more cryptic authors like joyce. however, the fact that you don't need to be multilingual and have a ph.d. in classics to understand bukowski doesn't mean there isn't a web of crit theroy vectors criss-crossing his work.
 
'crit theory vectors'??

I just drink beer to get drunk. ;)

I too liked Harrison's book. I don't agree with all his conclusions, but appreciate the serious nature of his enquiry and the effort he put into it.

If I were writing a paper on Bukowski (highly unlikely) it would focus on the links between his writing and Buddhist philosophy. I have found many, many parallels between them. There are many instances where a line by Buk is just a slight variation of a line in contemporary Buddhist literature.
All his poems about being true to one's self and just getting the job done are obvious examples but there are many more.

What the hell, I might start writing it myself.
 
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