Experiment in Richard Brautigan's Fiction
| Thesis title in Czech: | Experiment v díle Richarda Brautigana |
|---|---|
| Thesis title in English: | Experiment in Richard Brautigan's Fiction |
| Key words: | Richard Brautigan|experimentální literatura|postmodernismus|Americká literatura |
| English key words: | Richard Brautigan|experimental literature|postmodernism|American Literature |
| Academic year of topic announcement: | 2015/2016 |
| Thesis type: | Bachelor's thesis |
| Thesis language: | angličtina |
| Department: | Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures (21-UALK) |
| Supervisor: | Mgr. David Vichnar, Ph.D. |
| Author: | hidden - assigned and confirmed by the Study Dept. |
| Date of registration: | 23.06.2016 |
| Date of assignment: | 23.06.2016 |
| Administrator's approval: | not processed yet |
| Confirmed by Study dept. on: | 09.01.2019 |
| Date and time of defence: | 17.06.2019 09:00 |
| Date of electronic submission: | 24.05.2019 |
| Date of proceeded defence: | 17.06.2019 |
| Submitted/finalized: | committed by student and finalized |
| Opponents: | doc. Erik Sherman Roraback, D.Phil. |
| Guidelines |
| ExperimentinRichard Brautigan's Fiction
As a writer constantly doubting the potency of his own writing, Richard Brautigan is surprisingly close to his readers in the ways his books are composed and told. There is deep compassion toward and precise observation of the real-life characters dealt with in his stories. At times this connection arises from his self-reflexivity and metatextual passages, and sometimes it stems from his refusal to conform to the rules of common sense, logic and laws. This denial opens up the problematic topics of the existence of people as solitary beings as well as parts of a society; of validity of such ways to explore the world as art and literature; of shifting the views of what is commonly seen as beautiful and true, and of inconsistency, insufficiency and failure of language as a medium to record one’s experience. Looking for answers on questions both metaphysical and mundane, Brautigan explores life in an unconventional way – through rejection of the familiar expectations about the formation of books, personalities and ideas. Due to this approach he allows the unusual arrangement of ideas and scenes to emerge. The abandonment of many traditional views in combination with the insistence on the experiment as a natural means of perception allows Brautigan to shed light on the topics that are usually left unsaid. The proposed thesis will approach such works of Brautigan as In Watermelon Sugar, The Pill over the Springhill Mine Disaster, Revenge of the Lawn, The Tokyo-Montana Express and others in order to show the ways experimentation is used and the importance and the effect that it creates. |
| References |
| Critical & Primary Bibliography
Brautigan, Richard. In Watermelon Sugar. Vintage: 2002. Brautigan, Richard. Revenge of the Lawn. Touchstone: 1971. Brautigan, Richard. The Abortion: An Historical Romance 1966. Simon and Schuster: 1971. Brautigan, Richard. The Pill Versus The Springhill Mine Disaster. A Delta Book: 1968. Brautigan, Richard. The Tokyo-Montana Express. Delacorte Press: 1980. Tanner, John. Landscapes of Language: the Achievement and Context of Richard Brautigan's Fiction. Humanities-Ebooks, 2013. Malley, Terence. Richard Brautigan (Writers for the 70s). Warner Books: 1972. Chénetier, Marc. Richard Brautigan (Contemporary writers). Methuen Publishing: 1983. Hjortsberg, William. Jubilee Hitchhiker: The Life and Times of Richard Brautigan. Counterpoint: 2012. |