The lineage of Crime and Punishment (Prestupleniye i nakazaniye)

27 works across 27 centuries, back to Iliad and Genesis.

1866

Crime and Punishment (Prestupleniye i nakazaniye)

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Russian Golden Age. Russia. written in Russian.

Dostoevsky's novel follows Rodion Raskolnikov, a destitute former student in St. Petersburg who murders an old pawnbroker to test his theory that extraordinary men may transgress moral law, and then suffers guilt, pursuit by the investigator Porfiry, and a slow turn toward redemption through Sonya Marmeladova. It joins a French-derived crime-and-ideas plot to Russian Orthodox themes of suffering and resurrection.
Where it came from
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1864

Notes from Underground (Zapiski iz podpolya)

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Russian Golden Age. Russia. written in Russian.

The monologue of a spiteful, hyperconscious retired clerk who attacks rational egoism and recounts his humiliations.

What it handed down

To Crime and Punishment (Prestupleniye i nakazaniye) (1866)

Thematic kinship, well documented.

Written two years earlier, Notes from Underground created the isolated, hyperconscious Petersburg rebel who argues against rational egoism. Raskolnikov inherits that voice and its oscillation between pride and self-abasement, now tested in action rather than talk.
Where it came from
- What Is to Be Done? (Chto delat'?), Nikolai Chernyshevsky 1863 follow this thread
- Confessions (Les Confessions), Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1782 (written 1765–70) follow this thread
- The Overcoat (Shinel'), Nikolai Gogol 1842 follow this thread
- The Robbers (Die Räuber), Friedrich Schiller 1781 follow this thread
Find “Notes from Underground (Zapiski iz podpolya)” on Amazon
1863

What Is to Be Done? (Chto delat'?)

Nikolai Chernyshevsky

Russian Golden Age. Russia. written in Russian.

A utopian novel written in prison, featuring 'new people' guided by rational egoism and a dream of a crystal palace society.

What it handed down

To Notes from Underground (Zapiski iz podpolya) (1864)

Direct source, well documented.

The Underground Man's attack on the crystal palace and on the claim that people always act in their rational self-interest is aimed at Chernyshevsky's novel, published the year before. Vera Pavlovna's dream of a glass-and-iron utopia is the specific target of the parody.
Where it came from
- Jacques, George Sand 1834 follow this thread
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1862

Les Misérables

Victor Hugo

Second Empire (written in exile). France / Guernsey. written in French.

The convict Jean Valjean is redeemed by a bishop's mercy and pursued for decades by the policeman Javert.

What it handed down

To Crime and Punishment (Prestupleniye i nakazaniye) (1866)

Thematic kinship, probable.

Dostoevsky read Hugo's novel on its appearance in 1862 and esteemed it highly. Its story of a criminal redeemed through suffering and mercy, pursued by a tireless policeman, offers a template for Raskolnikov's arc and his duel with Porfiry.
Where it came from
- The Mysteries of Paris (Les Mystères de Paris), Eugène Sue 1842–43 follow this thread
- The Last Day of a Condemned Man (Le Dernier Jour d'un condamné), Victor Hugo 1829 follow this thread
Find “Les Misérables” on Amazon
1842–43

The Mysteries of Paris (Les Mystères de Paris)

Eugène Sue

July Monarchy. France. written in French.

A sprawling newspaper serial of the Parisian underworld, with reformed criminals and a prince who rescues the poor.

What it handed down

To Les Misérables (1862)

Thematic kinship, probable.

Sue's serial made the Parisian underworld and the reformable convict a mass-market subject. Hugo began drafting the book, then called Les Misères, in 1845 in the wake of Sue's success, and treats the same ground of slums, thieves' slang, and redemption.

Where it came from

The line stops here: minor branch; Sue's roots in serial journalism and the Gothic are not followed.

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1842

The Overcoat (Shinel')

Nikolai Gogol

Russian Golden Age. Russia. written in Russian.

A meek Petersburg copying clerk saves for a new overcoat, is robbed of it, and dies after being humiliated by a 'Person of Consequence'.

What it handed down

To Notes from Underground (Zapiski iz podpolya) (1864)

Thematic kinship, probable.

Gogol's humiliated Petersburg clerk is the ancestor of the Underground Man, who is also a minor official obsessed with rank and slights. The Underground Man's months of plotting to bump into an officer on Nevsky Prospect, even buying a new collar for it, rework Gogol's comedy of clothes and status.

Where it came from

The line stops here: gogol worked from an office anecdote and hagiographic naming; minor branch.

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1835

Père Goriot (Le Père Goriot)

Honoré de Balzac

July Monarchy. France. written in French.

An old man ruins himself for his ungrateful daughters while the young provincial Rastignac learns the rules of Parisian ambition, tempted by the convict Vautrin.

What it handed down

To Crime and Punishment (Prestupleniye i nakazaniye) (1866)

Direct source, probable.

Rastignac asks Bianchon whether he would kill an unknown mandarin in China by an act of will if it made him rich, a question about killing one person for one's own advancement. Raskolnikov overhears a student and officer in a tavern argue that killing the useless old pawnbroker would benefit hundreds, a scene scholars regularly trace to Balzac, whom Dostoevsky had translated and admired since the 1840s.
Where it came from
- The Genius of Christianity (Génie du christianisme), François-René de Chateaubriand 1802 follow this thread
- King Lear, William Shakespeare c. 1606 follow this thread
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1834

Jacques

George Sand

July Monarchy. France. written in French.

An epistolary novel in which a husband, seeing his wife love another man, arranges his own death to free her.

What it handed down

To What Is to Be Done? (Chto delat'?) (1863)

Thematic kinship, probable.

Sand's hero arranges his own apparent suicide so his wife can be free to love another man. Chernyshevsky's Lopukhov fakes his suicide for the same reason, a borrowing contemporaries recognized, and the novel shares Sand's idea of marriage freed from possession.

Where it came from

The line stops here: minor branch.

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1834

The Queen of Spades (Pikovaya dama)

Alexander Pushkin

Russian Golden Age. Russia. written in Russian.

A calculating engineer of Napoleonic profile frightens an old countess to death to extract her secret of three winning cards, and goes mad.

What it handed down

To Crime and Punishment (Prestupleniye i nakazaniye) (1866)

Direct source, probable.

Pushkin's Hermann is a poor, ambitious young man with 'the profile of Napoleon' who causes the death of an old woman to get her secret. Raskolnikov repeats the pattern: Napoleonic self-image, an old woman as the obstacle, and a breakdown after the deed. Dostoevsky later called The Queen of Spades the height of fantastic art.
Where it came from
- Gambler's Luck (Spielerglück), E. T. A. Hoffmann 1820 follow this thread
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1829

The Last Day of a Condemned Man (Le Dernier Jour d'un condamné)

Victor Hugo

Bourbon Restoration. France. written in French.

The first-person journal of a prisoner awaiting the guillotine, written as an argument against capital punishment.

What it handed down

To Les Misérables (1862)

Thematic kinship, probable.

Hugo's short book of 1829 attacked the death penalty through a prisoner's own voice. Les Misérables extends that argument against a penal system that makes criminals, now across a whole life rather than a single day.

Where it came from

The line stops here: hugo's impetus was witnessing public executions and the abolition debate rather than a literary model.

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1820

Gambler's Luck (Spielerglück)

E. T. A. Hoffmann

German Romanticism. Prussia. written in German.

A tale from The Serapion Brethren about a man ruined by faro and a fatal stake.

What it handed down

To The Queen of Spades (Pikovaya dama) (1834)

Disputed link, conjectural.

Pushkin read Hoffmann, and scholars have proposed Spielerglück, with its fatal faro game and a card that seems to turn against the player, as a source for Hermann's ruin. The parallel is in motif rather than plot detail.

Where it came from

The line stops here: minor branch; the line of German gambling tales is not followed further.

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1802

The Genius of Christianity (Génie du christianisme)

François-René de Chateaubriand

Napoleonic Consulate. France. written in French.

An apologia for Christianity on aesthetic and moral grounds, with chapters on conscience, Christian poetry, and Milton.

What it handed down

To Père Goriot (Le Père Goriot) (1835)

Direct source, probable.

Chateaubriand's chapter on conscience poses the case of a man who could kill a distant Chinese mandarin by mere wish and inherit his wealth. Balzac lifted this thought experiment for Rastignac and Bianchon, though he attributed it to Rousseau.
Where it came from
- Paradise Lost, John Milton 1667 follow this thread
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1782 (written 1765–70)

Confessions (Les Confessions)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Enlightenment. France / Switzerland. written in French.

Rousseau's autobiography, which claims to show a man entirely as he is, faults included.

What it handed down

To Notes from Underground (Zapiski iz podpolya) (1864)

Direct source, well documented.

The Underground Man frames his notes against Rousseau, citing Heine's claim that Rousseau lied about himself in his Confessions out of vanity. He sets out to do what Rousseau claimed to do, tell the whole truth about himself, and shows how hard that is.
Where it came from
- Essays (Essais), Michel de Montaigne 1580 follow this thread
- Confessions (Confessiones), Augustine of Hippo c. 397 follow this thread
Find “Confessions (Les Confessions)” on Amazon
1781

The Robbers (Die Räuber)

Friedrich Schiller

Sturm und Drang. Württemberg. written in German.

Karl Moor, disinherited through the plots of his brother Franz, becomes a robber captain who believes he can right the world's wrongs by crime.

What it handed down

To Notes from Underground (Zapiski iz podpolya) (1864)

Thematic kinship, probable.

The Underground Man repeatedly mocks 'the sublime and the beautiful' and the Russian romantic who dreams Schillerian dreams. Dostoevsky loved Schiller in youth, and Notes turns against that idealism, of which Karl Moor is the emblem.
Where it came from
- Parallel Lives, Plutarch c. 100 follow this thread
- King Lear, William Shakespeare c. 1606 follow this thread
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1667

Paradise Lost

John Milton

Restoration. England. written in English.

Blank-verse epic of Satan's rebellion and the fall of Adam and Eve.

What it handed down

To The Genius of Christianity (Génie du christianisme) (1802)

Direct source, well documented.

Chateaubriand devotes extended discussion to Milton's epic as proof that Christianity produces great poetry, praising the characterization of Satan and of Adam and Eve. He later translated Paradise Lost into French prose (1836).
Where it came from
- Genesis, Anonymous c. 500 BCE (compiled) follow this thread
- Aeneid (Aeneis), Virgil 19 BCE follow this thread
- Iliad, Homer c. 750 BCE follow this thread
Find “Paradise Lost” on Amazon
c. 1606

King Lear

William Shakespeare

Jacobean. England. written in English.

An old king divides his realm between flattering daughters, rejects the honest one, and is destroyed; a parallel plot has Edmund deceive his father Gloucester.

What it handed down

To Père Goriot (Le Père Goriot) (1835)

Thematic kinship, probable.

Goriot, a father who gives everything to two daughters who abandon him and who dies raving for them, is widely read as a bourgeois Lear. Balzac knew Shakespeare in French translation, and the novel reuses the play's pattern of parental love repaid with ingratitude.

To The Robbers (Die Räuber) (1781)

Structural model, well documented.

Franz Moor, the scheming younger son who forges a letter to turn his father against his brother, is modeled on Edmund's deception of Gloucester. Schiller's preface and early reception both tie the play to Shakespeare, whom the Sturm und Drang took as its model.
Where it came from
- The True Chronicle History of King Leir, Anonymous c. 1590 follow this thread
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c. 1590

The True Chronicle History of King Leir

Anonymous

Elizabethan. England. written in English.

An earlier stage version of the Leir story, ending with the king restored.

What it handed down

To King Lear (c. 1606)

Direct source, well documented.

Shakespeare took the main plot of the king, the love test, and the three daughters from this older play, which was printed in 1605. He changed the ending so that Cordelia and Lear die.
Where it came from
- History of the Kings of Britain (Historia Regum Britanniae), Geoffrey of Monmouth c. 1136 follow this thread
Find “The True Chronicle History of King Leir” on Amazon
1580

Essays (Essais)

Michel de Montaigne

French Renaissance. France. written in French.

Exploratory prose pieces in which Montaigne takes himself as his subject.

What it handed down

To Confessions (Les Confessions) (1782 (written 1765–70))

Direct source, well documented.

In his draft preface Rousseau names Montaigne as his predecessor in self-portrayal and faults him for painting himself only in flattering profile. He defines his project as going further than the Essays in candor.
Where it came from
- Parallel Lives, Plutarch c. 100 follow this thread
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c. 1136

History of the Kings of Britain (Historia Regum Britanniae)

Geoffrey of Monmouth

Anglo-Norman. England. written in Latin.

A legendary history of Britain from the Trojan Brutus through Leir and Arthur.

What it handed down

To The True Chronicle History of King Leir (c. 1590)

Direct source, well documented.

Geoffrey's chronicle is the earliest surviving telling of King Leir and his daughters Gonorilla, Regan, and Cordeilla. The story reached the Elizabethan stage through Holinshed and other chroniclers who copied it.
Where it came from
- Aeneid (Aeneis), Virgil 19 BCE follow this thread
Find “History of the Kings of Britain (Historia Regum Britanniae)” on Amazon
c. 397

Confessions (Confessiones)

Augustine of Hippo

Late Antiquity. Roman North Africa. written in Latin.

Augustine's prayer-autobiography of his sins, his search through philosophy, and his conversion in a Milan garden.

What it handed down

To Confessions (Les Confessions) (1782 (written 1765–70))

Structural model, probable.

Rousseau's title invokes the genre Augustine founded, a first-person account of a life's errors including a childhood theft. Rousseau secularizes the form, confessing to the reader rather than to God.
Where it came from
- Gospel of John, Anonymous c. 95 follow this thread
- Letter to the Romans, Paul of Tarsus c. 57 follow this thread
- Aeneid (Aeneis), Virgil 19 BCE follow this thread
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c. 100

Parallel Lives

Plutarch

Roman Empire. Roman Greece. written in Ancient Greek.

Paired biographies of Greek and Roman statesmen and generals, written to examine character.

What it handed down

To The Robbers (Die Räuber) (1781)

Direct source, well documented.

Karl Moor's first speech in Act One, Scene Two, begins with disgust at his 'ink-blotting age' when he reads of great men in his Plutarch. The Lives supply the heroic standard that drives him to crime, the same appeal to greatness that Raskolnikov later makes.

To Essays (Essais) (1580)

Direct source, well documented.

Montaigne read Plutarch in Jacques Amyot's French translation of 1559 and called him his favorite author. The Essays quote and argue with the Lives constantly and borrow Plutarch's habit of judging men by small acts of character.
Where it came from
- Iliad, Homer c. 750 BCE follow this thread
Find “Parallel Lives” on Amazon
c. 95

Gospel of John

Anonymous

Early Christian. Roman Asia Minor. written in Koine Greek.

The fourth canonical gospel, opening with the Logos prologue and including the raising of Lazarus.

What it handed down

To Crime and Punishment (Prestupleniye i nakazaniye) (1866)

Direct source, well documented.

In Part Four, Raskolnikov asks Sonya to read him the raising of Lazarus from John 11, and she reads it aloud from a New Testament that once belonged to the murdered Lizaveta. The resurrection of Lazarus becomes the figure for Raskolnikov's own renewal in the epilogue, where the same book lies under his pillow in Siberia.

To Confessions (Confessiones) (c. 397)

Direct source, well documented.

In Book Seven Augustine says the Platonists' books taught him 'In the beginning was the Word' but not 'the Word was made flesh,' quoting John's prologue to mark where philosophy ends and Christianity begins.
Where it came from
- Genesis, Anonymous c. 500 BCE (compiled) follow this thread
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c. 57

Letter to the Romans

Paul of Tarsus

Early Christian. Corinth, Roman Greece. written in Koine Greek.

Paul's letter on sin, law, grace, and faith, tracing human sin to Adam.

What it handed down

To Confessions (Confessiones) (c. 397)

Direct source, well documented.

In Book Eight, Augustine hears a child's voice say 'take up and read,' opens Paul at Romans 13:13–14, and is converted on the spot. Paul's account of a divided will in Romans 7 also shapes his analysis of his own sin.
Where it came from
- Genesis, Anonymous c. 500 BCE (compiled) follow this thread
Find “Letter to the Romans” on Amazon
19 BCE

Aeneid (Aeneis)

Virgil

Augustan. Augustan Rome. written in Latin.

Epic of the Trojan Aeneas, his love for Dido, his descent to the underworld, and his war to found Rome.

What it handed down

To Paradise Lost (1667)

Structural model, well documented.

Milton takes Virgil's epic machinery: invocation, beginning in the middle, a long retrospective narration, and a closing prophecy of future history. Michael's vision of the future in the last books parallels Anchises showing Aeneas Rome's destiny.

To History of the Kings of Britain (Historia Regum Britanniae) (c. 1136)

Direct source, well documented.

Geoffrey opens with Brutus, great-grandson of Aeneas, who leaves Italy and founds Britain. The book grafts British history onto the end of Virgil's epic, as Rome's founding legend had been grafted onto Troy.

To Confessions (Confessiones) (c. 397)

Direct source, well documented.

Augustine recalls weeping as a schoolboy over Dido's death in Aeneid Book Four while caring nothing for his own soul. Virgil is the literary education he confesses and the model of feeling he rejects.
Where it came from
- Odyssey, Homer c. 725 BCE follow this thread
- Iliad, Homer c. 750 BCE follow this thread
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c. 500 BCE (compiled)

Genesis

Anonymous

Persian-period Judah. Judah / Babylonian exile. written in Hebrew.

The first book of the Hebrew Bible: creation, the fall of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, the flood, and the patriarchs.

What it handed down

To Paradise Lost (1667)

Direct source, well documented.

Milton's subject is the first three chapters of Genesis: creation, Eden, the temptation, and the expulsion. He expands a few verses into twelve books.

To Gospel of John (c. 95)

Direct source, well documented.

John's prologue opens 'In the beginning,' deliberately repeating the first words of Genesis, and recasts creation as the work of the Word. Light and darkness from Genesis 1 become the gospel's governing images.

To Letter to the Romans (c. 57)

Direct source, well documented.

In Romans 5, Paul traces sin and death into the world through Adam's transgression in Genesis 3. He also builds his argument on faith from Abraham's story in Genesis 15.

Where it came from

This is one of the oldest surviving works in its tradition; the line ends here.

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c. 725 BCE

Odyssey

Homer

Archaic Greece. Ionia. written in Ancient Greek.

Epic of Odysseus's ten-year voyage home from Troy.

What it handed down

To Aeneid (Aeneis) (19 BCE)

Structural model, well documented.

The first six books follow the Odyssey's pattern of wandering, a shipwreck, a hero telling his story at a foreign court, and a visit to the dead. Aeneas even passes Polyphemus's island and picks up a sailor Odysseus left behind.

Where it came from

This is one of the oldest surviving works in its tradition; the line ends here.

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c. 750 BCE

Iliad

Homer

Archaic Greece. Ionia. written in Ancient Greek.

Epic of the wrath of Achilles during the Trojan War.

What it handed down

To Paradise Lost (1667)

Structural model, well documented.

The war in Heaven in Book Six is modeled on Homeric battle, with catalogues of fallen angels and single combats. Milton announces in Book Nine that his theme surpasses 'the wrath of stern Achilles.'

To Parallel Lives (c. 100)

Thematic kinship, probable.

Plutarch quotes Homer throughout the Lives and judges his heroes partly by Homeric standards of honor. His Life of Alexander reports that Alexander kept a copy of the Iliad under his pillow.

To Aeneid (Aeneis) (19 BCE)

Structural model, well documented.

The second half of the Aeneid is Virgil's Iliad: a war in Italy with a new Achilles in Turnus, catalogues of warriors, funeral games, and a closing duel. Virgil imitates Homeric similes and battle scenes line by line.

Where it came from

This is one of the oldest surviving works in its tradition; the line ends here.

Find “Iliad” on Amazon

Crime and Punishment (Prestupleniye i nakazaniye)

Where it came from

Notes from Underground (Zapiski iz podpolya)

What it handed down

To Crime and Punishment (Prestupleniye i nakazaniye) (1866)

Where it came from

What Is to Be Done? (Chto delat'?)

What it handed down

To Notes from Underground (Zapiski iz podpolya) (1864)

Where it came from

Les Misérables

What it handed down

To Crime and Punishment (Prestupleniye i nakazaniye) (1866)

Where it came from

The Mysteries of Paris (Les Mystères de Paris)

What it handed down

To Les Misérables (1862)

Where it came from

The Overcoat (Shinel')

What it handed down

To Notes from Underground (Zapiski iz podpolya) (1864)

Where it came from

Père Goriot (Le Père Goriot)

What it handed down

To Crime and Punishment (Prestupleniye i nakazaniye) (1866)

Where it came from

Jacques

What it handed down

To What Is to Be Done? (Chto delat'?) (1863)

Where it came from

The Queen of Spades (Pikovaya dama)

What it handed down

To Crime and Punishment (Prestupleniye i nakazaniye) (1866)

Where it came from

The Last Day of a Condemned Man (Le Dernier Jour d'un condamné)

What it handed down

To Les Misérables (1862)

Where it came from

Gambler's Luck (Spielerglück)

What it handed down

To The Queen of Spades (Pikovaya dama) (1834)

Where it came from

The Genius of Christianity (Génie du christianisme)

What it handed down

To Père Goriot (Le Père Goriot) (1835)

Where it came from

Confessions (Les Confessions)

What it handed down

To Notes from Underground (Zapiski iz podpolya) (1864)

Where it came from

The Robbers (Die Räuber)

What it handed down

To Notes from Underground (Zapiski iz podpolya) (1864)

Where it came from

Paradise Lost

What it handed down

To The Genius of Christianity (Génie du christianisme) (1802)

Where it came from

King Lear

What it handed down

To Père Goriot (Le Père Goriot) (1835)

To The Robbers (Die Räuber) (1781)

Where it came from

The True Chronicle History of King Leir

What it handed down

To King Lear (c. 1606)

Where it came from

Essays (Essais)

What it handed down

To Confessions (Les Confessions) (1782 (written 1765–70))

Where it came from

History of the Kings of Britain (Historia Regum Britanniae)

What it handed down

To The True Chronicle History of King Leir (c. 1590)

Where it came from

Confessions (Confessiones)

What it handed down

To Confessions (Les Confessions) (1782 (written 1765–70))

Where it came from

Parallel Lives