"Evidence of influences" published to the Web

Hello Toole enthusiasts and scholars,

Evidence of influences on John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces, including Geoffrey Chaucer has now been published to the Web.

Though I have not published the study in a peer-review journal, I am inviting Toole Scholars to review it. In that sense, it is reviewed by peers. Currently, it is endorsed by

Here is the abstract:
This study uses the evidence held in John Kennedy Toole’s papers located at Tulane University to investigate many literary works and authors who may have been possible influences on his novel A Confederacy of Dunces (Confederacy). Authors and characters discussed here include Boethius, Chaucer, John Lyly, Shakespeare’s Falstaff, Cervantes, Jonathan Swift, the Romantic Poets, Mark Twain, Joseph Conrad, Walker Percy, J. D. Salinger, and Flannery O’Connor. The study then analyzes themes common to both Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and Toole’s Confederacy, such as the use of the grotesque, the dynamics within intimate relationships, and the parody of romance. In Confederacy, Ignatius Reilly is an agent of Fortuna and fulfills a role occupied by the planetary god Saturn in Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale. Some critics have called Toole’s outlook deterministic, while others have suggested that his attitude toward free will was influenced directly by Boethius. This study argues that he was not a determinist, and that his Boethian position on free will was derived indirectly through Chaucer.