The lineage of The Sun Also Rises

1926

The Sun Also Rises

Ernest Hemingway

Lost Generation. Paris / United States. written in English.

Hemingway's first novel (1926) follows Jake Barnes, an American journalist left impotent by a war wound, and the expatriates around Lady Brett Ashley from the cafes of Paris to the fishing streams of Burguete and the bullfights at Pamplona. Its title and epigraph come from Ecclesiastes, and its spare, repetitive prose draws on Gertrude Stein.

Where it came from

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1925

The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Jazz Age. United States / France. written in English.

Nick Carraway narrates the rise and fall of Jay Gatsby, a bootlegger who throws lavish parties on Long Island to win back Daisy Buchanan.

What it handed down

To The Sun Also Rises (1926)

Structural model, probable.

Hemingway met Fitzgerald in May 1925 and read Gatsby that summer, just as he began drafting his novel. Both books use a first-person narrator who is a participant and onlooker at a doomed romantic obsession among the rich and idle. Fitzgerald later read the typescript and his letter persuaded Hemingway to cut the opening pages.

Where it came from

Satyricon, Petronius c. 60 CE follow this thread
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad 1899
The Waste Land, T. S. Eliot 1922 follow this thread

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1899

Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad

Late Victorian. England. written in English.

Marlow tells fellow sailors on the Thames of his journey up the Congo River to find the ivory agent Kurtz.

What it handed down

To The Great Gatsby (1925)

Structural model, well documented.

Fitzgerald said he learned his method from Conrad. Nick Carraway, like Marlow, tells the story of a magnetic, obsessive man he only partly understands and reaches his own judgment as he narrates.

Where it came from

Inferno, Dante Alighieri c. 1314 follow this thread
The Aeneid, Virgil 19 BCE

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19 BCE

The Aeneid

Virgil

Augustan. Augustan Rome. written in Latin.

Virgil's epic of the Trojan Aeneas's flight from burning Troy, his love affair with Dido, his descent to the underworld and his war in Italy.

What it handed down

To Heart of Darkness (1899)

Disputed link, conjectural.

Some critics have read Marlow's journey upriver as a descent to the underworld on the model of Aeneas's in Aeneid Book 6, with the knitting women at the Company office as guardians of the threshold. Conrad left no statement confirming the parallel.

To Inferno

Direct source, well documented.

Dante makes Virgil his guide through Hell and calls him his master and author. Charon, the river crossings and the geography of the dead come from Aeneas's descent in Aeneid Book 6.

To Historia Brittonum

Thematic kinship, probable.

The Historia Brittonum makes Brutus a descendant of Aeneas and links British origins to the Trojan diaspora that Virgil's epic made famous. The Trojan genealogy borrows its authority from the Aeneid's story of Rome's founding.

To Satyricon

Direct source, well documented.

The poet Eumolpus recites the 'Troiae Halosis', a verse account of the fall of Troy that reworks Aeneid Book 2. Petronius uses Virgil's epic material for comic and critical effect in a low setting.

To Metamorphoses

Direct source, well documented.

Books 13 and 14 of the Metamorphoses retell Aeneas's voyage from Troy to Italy, a compressed 'little Aeneid' in which Ovid passes quickly over Virgil's set pieces. Ovid's epic is written in deliberate competition with Virgil's.

Where it came from

Argonautica, Apollonius of Rhodes c. 250 BCE
The Odyssey, Homer c. 725 BCE
The Iliad, Homer c. 750 BCE

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c. 250 BCE

Argonautica

Apollonius of Rhodes

Hellenistic. Alexandria. written in Ancient Greek.

A Hellenistic epic of Jason's voyage for the Golden Fleece and Medea's love for him.

What it handed down

To The Aeneid (19 BCE)

Direct source, well documented.

Dido's love for Aeneas in Book 4 is modeled on Medea's love for Jason in Argonautica Book 3, as the ancient commentator Servius observed. Virgil took from Apollonius the close psychological portrait of a woman consumed by passion.

Where it came from

The Odyssey, Homer c. 725 BCE

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c. 725 BCE

The Odyssey

Homer

Archaic Greece. Ionia. written in Ancient Greek.

The epic of Odysseus's ten-year voyage home from Troy, pursued by the anger of Poseidon, including his descent to the dead.

What it handed down

To Satyricon

Structural model, probable.

Encolpius is hounded by the wrath of Priapus as Odysseus is hounded by Poseidon, and the novel names a seductress Circe and has its hero call himself Polyaenus, a Homeric epithet of Odysseus. Many scholars read the whole work as a low parody of the Odyssey.

To The Aeneid (19 BCE)

Structural model, well documented.

The first six books of the Aeneid follow the Odyssey's pattern of sea wanderings, a hero's tale told at a foreign court and a visit to the dead. Virgil also borrows specific episodes such as the Cyclops and the passage past Scylla and Charybdis.

To Argonautica (c. 250 BCE)

Stylistic influence, well documented.

Apollonius wrote in Homeric hexameters and diction, and his sea voyage past monsters and enchantresses reworks Odyssean episodes. He often varies or comments on rare Homeric words.

Where it came from

The Iliad, Homer c. 750 BCE

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c. 750 BCE

The Iliad

Homer

Archaic Greece. Ionia. written in Ancient Greek.

The epic of the wrath of Achilles during the tenth year of the Trojan War.

What it handed down

To The Aeneid (19 BCE)

Structural model, well documented.

The last six books of the Aeneid are Virgil's Iliad, a war in Italy with funeral games, a slain young comrade and a final duel. Aeneas's killing of Turnus answers Achilles's killing of Hector.

To The Odyssey (c. 725 BCE)

Thematic kinship, probable.

The Odyssey presupposes the Trojan War of the Iliad: the bard Demodocus sings of Troy, and Odysseus meets the shades of Achilles and Agamemnon. Its audience is assumed to know the earlier epic's heroes.

Where it came from

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

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The Sun Also Rises

Where it came from

The Great Gatsby

What it handed down

To The Sun Also Rises (1926)

Where it came from

Heart of Darkness

What it handed down

To The Great Gatsby (1925)

Where it came from

The Aeneid

What it handed down

To Heart of Darkness (1899)

To Inferno

To Historia Brittonum

To Satyricon

To Metamorphoses

Where it came from

Argonautica

What it handed down

To The Aeneid (19 BCE)

Where it came from

The Odyssey

What it handed down

To Satyricon

To The Aeneid (19 BCE)

To Argonautica (c. 250 BCE)

Where it came from

The Iliad

What it handed down

To The Aeneid (19 BCE)

To The Odyssey (c. 725 BCE)

Where it came from

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