The Occasional Series of Ideas for Papers on John Kennedy Toole

Introduction to the series

In the three years that I have been pursuing Toole studies, I have been mainly focused on a few large issues. The first is the influence of Chaucer and Robert Lumiansky (Evidence of Influences). The second is the influence of Ficino and Paul Oskar Kristeller (future paper). In the process, I have learned much about other possible influences on Toole. Specifically, I have made a side project of reading all of the books that evidently were in Toole's possession. One of the books was in the Toole Papers, and the others were in a bibliography written by Rhoda Faust that is in the Toole Papers. (See my paper Evidence of Influences for a list of books that Toole possessed that he could have read prior to his initial composition of Confederacy of Dunces.)

Through the process of reading Toole's library, I have discovered yet other connections between Confederacy and other works. I have neither the time nor interest in chasing down every connection and writing them all up as papers, but I would like to share my observations with the wider public. So I have decided to write in this blog an occasional series of possible topics for term papers regarding Confederacy and other literary works. I will give a brief context, and then offer the thesis. Students of Toole are then free to conduct their own investigations and find the connections for themselves.