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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1922

The Waste Land

T. S. Eliot

High Modernism. London. written in English.

A five-part poem of fragments and quotations portraying a sterile postwar Europe through the myth of a wounded king and a parched land.

What it handed down

To The Sun Also Rises (1926)

Thematic kinship, probable.

Jake's war wound, which leaves him unable to consummate his love, has been widely read as a version of Eliot's wounded Fisher King presiding over a sterile postwar world. The fishing trip to Burguete and the drinking, aimless society of the novel answer the poem's imagery of drought and spiritual exhaustion. Hemingway disparaged Eliot in print, so the debt is one of shared material rather than avowed discipleship.

To The Great Gatsby

Thematic kinship, well documented.

The 'valley of ashes' between West Egg and New York, watched over by the billboard eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, adapts Eliot's landscape of dust and spiritual emptiness. Fitzgerald admired the poem and sent Eliot a copy of the novel, which Eliot praised in a letter.

Where it came from

Satyricon, Petronius c. 60 CE
Ecclesiastes (Qohelet), Anonymous (attributed to Solomon) c. 3rd century BCE follow this thread
Perceval, the Story of the Grail, Chretien de Troyes c. 1190 follow this thread

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c. 60 CE

Satyricon

Petronius

Neronian Rome. Imperial Rome. written in Latin.

A fragmentary comic novel in prose and verse following the misadventures of Encolpius, including the banquet of the vulgar freedman Trimalchio.

What it handed down

To The Great Gatsby

Direct source, well documented.

Fitzgerald's working titles included 'Trimalchio' and 'Trimalchio in West Egg', and the novel says that when the parties stop, Gatsby's 'career as Trimalchio was over'. Petronius's newly rich host of vulgar banquets is the model for Gatsby's parties.

To The Waste Land (1922)

Direct source, well documented.

The poem's epigraph comes from Trimalchio's banquet in the Satyricon: the Sibyl of Cumae, hanging in a jar, answers boys who ask what she wants, 'I want to die.' Eliot uses this image of withered, endless life to open his poem of a dying civilization.

Where it came from

The Aeneid, Virgil 19 BCE
The Odyssey, Homer c. 725 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

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 (c. 60 CE)

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 (c. 60 CE)

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 Waste Land

What it handed down

To The Sun Also Rises (1926)

To The Great Gatsby

Where it came from

Satyricon

What it handed down

To The Great Gatsby

To The Waste Land (1922)

Where it came from

The Aeneid

What it handed down

To Heart of Darkness

To Inferno

To Historia Brittonum

To Satyricon (c. 60 CE)

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 (c. 60 CE)

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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