Literary notes about bum (AI summary)
Writers have employed the word “bum” in a remarkably diverse manner across literary genres. In some works, it serves as a playful term referring to the posterior or as an element of humorous or even erotic description, as seen in the witty admiration of a character’s anatomy ([1]) and in vivid, explicit passages that focus on physicality ([2]). In contrast, “bum” also carries connotations of incompetence or vagabondage, characterizing individuals as down-and-out or incapable, a use that surfaces in descriptions of idle detectives or chronic beggars ([3], [4]). Moreover, certain authors delight in the sound and rhythm of “bum,” employing it almost onomatopoetically to enhance the musicality of their language ([5], [6]). Thus, whether invoking physical features, underscoring social status, or adding a playful cadence, “bum” reveals itself as a multifaceted term that enriches literary expression.
- Troth, and your bum is the greatest thing about you; so that, in the beastliest sense, you are Pompey the Great.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare - I helped her final discharge by thrusting two fingers in her bum-hole.
— from The Romance of Lust: A classic Victorian erotic novel by Anonymous - We're here to be captured by cowboys, and bum detectives, and bearded train robbers, and I don't know what form our imprisonment will take next."
— from Boy Scouts on the Great Divide; Or, The Ending of the Trail by Archibald Lee Fletcher - He was beginning to find, in his wretched clothing and meagre state of body, that people took him for a chronic type of bum and beggar.
— from Sister Carrie: A Novel by Theodore Dreiser - Bum—bum—bum, bum, bum they went, and then the shrill squeaking of the fifes could also be heard.
— from Banzai! by Parabellum by Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff - Whenever I see a fellow waiting for a trolley, I always make it a practice to give him a lift—unless, of course, he looks like a bum.”
— from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
