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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1611

The King James Bible (Authorized Version)

Translation committee under James I

Jacobean. England. written in English.

The English Bible translation authorized for the Church of England, a revision of earlier English Bibles checked against Hebrew and Greek texts.

What it handed down

To The Sun Also Rises (1926)

Direct source, well documented.

The novel takes its title and one of its two epigraphs from Ecclesiastes 1:4-7 in King James wording: 'One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh... The sun also ariseth.' Hemingway set this beside Stein's 'You are all a lost generation' to answer her, and said the abiding earth was the book's hero. The plain, cadenced English of the passage matches the prose of the novel.

Where it came from

Ecclesiastes (Qohelet), Anonymous (attributed to Solomon) c. 3rd century BCE follow this thread
The Coverdale Bible, Myles Coverdale 1535
The New Testament (Tyndale's translation), William Tyndale 1526 follow this thread

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1535

The Coverdale Bible

Myles Coverdale

Reformation. England / Antwerp. written in English.

The first complete printed Bible in English, combining Tyndale's work with Coverdale's translations from Latin and German.

What it handed down

To The King James Bible (Authorized Version) (1611)

Stylistic influence, well documented.

The King James revisers were instructed to follow the Bishops' Bible, which descended through the Great Bible from Coverdale's 1535 translation. Coverdale's Old Testament phrasing, including much of the wisdom books, passed into the Authorized Version through this chain of revisions.

Where it came from

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c. 405

The Vulgate

Jerome

Late Antiquity. Bethlehem and Rome. written in Latin.

Jerome's Latin Bible, translating the Old Testament from Hebrew and revising the Old Latin Gospels; the standard Bible of the Western Church for a thousand years.

What it handed down

To The Coverdale Bible (1535)

Direct source, well documented.

Coverdale did not work from Hebrew; for the books Tyndale had not translated he relied on the Latin Vulgate and later Latin versions, together with Luther's and the Zurich German Bibles. His Ecclesiastes is therefore partly a translation of Jerome's Latin.

To Inferno

Thematic kinship, well documented.

Dante knew scripture in Jerome's Latin, and the moral order of the Commedia rests on it. Biblical figures, the harrowing of Hell and Latin scriptural echoes run through the poem.

To The Golden Legend (Legenda Aurea)

Direct source, probable.

Jacobus built his readings for the feasts of Christ, Mary and the apostles on the Latin text of the Vulgate, quoting it throughout. The scriptural frame of the church year organizes the whole collection.

Where it came from

The Gospel of Mark, Anonymous (attributed to Mark) c. 70 CE
Ecclesiastes (Qohelet), Anonymous (attributed to Solomon) c. 3rd century BCE follow this thread

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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)

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 (c. 405)

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

The King James Bible (Authorized Version)

What it handed down

To The Sun Also Rises (1926)

Where it came from

The Coverdale Bible

What it handed down

To The King James Bible (Authorized Version) (1611)

Where it came from

The Vulgate

What it handed down

To The Coverdale Bible (1535)

To Inferno

To The Golden Legend (Legenda Aurea)

Where it came from

The Gospel of Mark

What it handed down

To Three Tales (Trois Contes)

To The New Testament (Tyndale's translation)

To The Vulgate (c. 405)

Where it came from

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