Literary notes about Bulbous (AI summary)
The word "bulbous" has been employed in literature to evoke a sense of heaviness and roundedness, imbuing both animate and inanimate subjects with a distinct visual character. In Arthur Conan Doyle’s work, a "bulbous-headed" piece of wood is rendered both tangible and idiosyncratic [1]. Similarly, Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses the term to create grotesque, almost derisory imagery with "bulbous eyes" and head-like patterns that unsettle the reader [2, 3]. In contrast, William H. Ukers adopts the word in a more descriptive, almost architectural sense, providing detailed imagery of copper kettles and serving pots with "bulbous bodies" that highlight a distinctive design evolution [4, 5, 6]. James Joyce, meanwhile, brings a slightly different texture by associating the term with the physicality of human interaction, as in the depiction of "bulbous fists" [7]. Even in J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, the adjective is used to denote subtle anatomical detail, demonstrating the term’s versatile application in literature [8].
- It was a fine, thick piece of wood, bulbous-headed, of the sort which is known as a “Penang lawyer.”
— from The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle - All those strangled heads and bulbous eyes and waddling fungus growths just shriek with derision!
— from The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman - There is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside-down.
— from The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman - This was a copper-plated kettle patterned after the oriental ewer with a broad base, bulbous body, and narrow neck.
— from All About Coffee by William H. Ukers - By 1750, the straight-line serving pot in England had begun to yield to the reactionary movement in art favoring bulbous bodies and serpentine spouts.
— from All About Coffee by William H. Ukers - A later improvement was of the ewer design, with bulbous body, collar top, and cover.
— from All About Coffee by William H. Ukers - The heavyweights in tight loincloths proposed gently each to other his bulbous fists.
— from Ulysses by James Joyce - However, the fore end is a little rounder, and contains a small, almost imperceptible bulbous swelling of the canal.
— from Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie