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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1909

Three Lives

Gertrude Stein

Early Modernism. Paris. written in English.

Three novellas about working women in a Baltimore-like city, 'The Good Anna', 'Melanctha' and 'The Gentle Lena', written in a repetitive, simplified prose.

What it handed down

To The Sun Also Rises (1926)

Stylistic influence, well documented.

Hemingway studied Stein's prose in Paris from 1922, admired 'Melanctha', and helped publish her work in the transatlantic review. Three Lives showed him how flat repetition, a small vocabulary and rhythmic dialogue could carry feeling beneath the surface. The circling, repeated exchanges between Jake and Brett use this method.

Where it came from

Three Tales (Trois Contes), Gustave Flaubert 1877

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1877

Three Tales (Trois Contes)

Gustave Flaubert

French Realism. France. written in French.

Three stories: 'A Simple Heart', about the servant Felicite; 'The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller'; and 'Herodias', on the death of John the Baptist.

What it handed down

To Three Lives (1909)

Structural model, well documented.

Stein began Three Lives while translating Flaubert's Trois Contes at her brother Leo's suggestion. 'The Good Anna' is modeled on 'A Simple Heart', the life of a devoted servant woman, and the book borrows Flaubert's design of three linked portraits.

Where it came from

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c. 70 CE

The Gospel of Mark

Anonymous (attributed to Mark)

Early Christian. Roman Empire. written in Koine Greek.

The earliest surviving gospel, a terse account of the ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus, including the beheading of John the Baptist.

What it handed down

To Three Tales (Trois Contes) (1877)

Direct source, well documented.

'Herodias' expands the account in Mark 6:14-29 of Herod's feast, Salome's dance and the beheading of John the Baptist. Flaubert supplied historical detail but kept the gospel's sequence of events.

To The New Testament (Tyndale's translation)

Direct source, well documented.

Tyndale translated Mark and the other Gospels from Erasmus's printed Greek text rather than from the Latin. His English Mark keeps the abrupt, paratactic 'and... and' storytelling of the Greek.

To The Vulgate

Direct source, well documented.

At Pope Damasus's request Jerome revised the Old Latin Gospels against Greek manuscripts around 383. His Latin Mark became part of the Vulgate.

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

Three Lives

What it handed down

To The Sun Also Rises (1926)

Where it came from

Three Tales (Trois Contes)

What it handed down

To Three Lives (1909)

Where it came from

The Gospel of Mark

What it handed down

To Three Tales (Trois Contes) (1877)

To The New Testament (Tyndale's translation)

To The Vulgate

Where it came from

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