Questions tagged [inspiration]
Questions about the inspiration behind a work of literature, or an object or concept in a work: what it was based on, or where the idea came from.
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What are the acknowledged literary influences on "Star Wars"?
It's well known that Lucas had a ton of cultural influences on "Star Wars" - mostly cinematic (Kurosawa, etc..) but also literary (at the very least, Campbell).
There are many sources that ...
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Inspiration behind Harlan Page Hasley’s depiction of old sleuth with superhuman strength
What inspired the author to portray a dime novel detective old sleuth as someone who possessed superhuman strength?
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History of Nick carter’s villain Dr Quartz’s creation
What inspired the creation of Nick Carter's villain Dr. Quartz? He is described to be an evil vivisectionist so smart that he is versed in every branch of science and usually enjoys cutting women’s ...
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Was the island in Shakespeare's play "The Tempest" inspired by any real islands?
In Shakespeare's play The Tempest, characters sailing from Tunis to Naples are shipwrecked on an island. Sycorax had been banished there from "Argier", which is an old name for Algiers.
Did ...
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What inspired the dime novel detective Nick Carter?
What inspired the creation of the dime novel detective Nick Carter who was created by John R. Coryell and Ormond G. Smith?
Kevin yoka
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Origin of the inspiration behind the titular character in The Bat, a play by Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood
What was the inspiration for The Bat, the titular character from Mary Roberts Rinehart's play (later adapted into a movie)? The character originally appeared in the play which was adapted from the ...
Kevin yoka
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Does "Landor's Cottage" have a real-life match?
I'm currently doing some research on E. A. Poe's Landor's Cottage (1849).
This short story—really a description by an unnamed narrator of an ideal(ized) locale—is "a pendant to 'The Domain of ...
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Inspiration behind Jack Vance's fantasy names?
One of my favourite parts of Jack Vance's Lyonesse series, which I first read many years ago, is the way the names seem perfectly chosen to reflect the nature of what they're naming. How could ...
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What inspired the Vermicious Knids?
The Vermicious Knids are a type of dangerous alien creature in the works of Roald Dahl. They appear as primary antagonists in Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator and get passing mentions in other ...
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Inspiration for Warren Worthington in the "X-Men"?
When Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created the X-Men, what was the inspiration and concept behind the superhero character Warren Worthington III? Why did they choose the idea of him being a wealthy ...
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Origin of the war-cry "Eulalia" in Brian Jacques's Redwall series?
In Brian Jacques's Redwall series, "Eulalia" is the traditional war cry of the badgers and hares of Salamandastron. It's also the title of one of the books in the series, but it's used ...
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What is the provenance of Story 6 in Day 2 of the Decameron, set against a backdrop of 13th-century Sicily?
Day 2, Story 6 of the Decameron is set against a political backdrop of 13th-century Sicily: it begins with the defeat of King Manfred at Benevento by the new king Charles, and the main characters are ...
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What are the elements from Chinese philosophy that can be found in Shota Rustaveli's poetry?
The German Wikipedia article about Shota Rustaveli, author of the Georgian medieval epic poem The Knight in the Panther's Skin claims,
Seine Dichtung spiegelt chinesische, persische und griechische ...
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Were Amado's Captains of the Sands based on reality?
Jorge Amado's novel Captains of the Sands concerns children living in the streets of Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, and forming gangs that engaged in petty crime. From the opening of the book:
“Captains of ...
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Source of Milton's idea that God tilted the Earth's axis after the fall of man
Could someone please help me identify the source of the following passage in Book X of Paradise Lost:
Some say, he bid his angels turn askance
The poles of Earth twice ten degrees or more
From the ...
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What is Paul's character based on in "Code Name Verity"?
One of the major supporting characters in Code Name Verity is Paul, leader of the Damask resistance circuit. A superb organizer, he takes pride in how he'd never lost anyone in his circuit (before ...
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What is the connection between the Bleak House in Broadstairs and the one in Dickens's novel?
Dickens's novel Bleak House shares its name with an actual house in the English seaside town of Broadstairs. Dickens actually stayed in that house for a while, and wrote David Copperfield there, but ...
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On what sources did Camões base his Os Lusíadas?
Os Lusíadas is one of the most important works of Portuguese literature, written by Luís de Camões in the 16th century and describing imaginatively the Portuguese voyages of discovery, mostly the ...
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Were all the Redwall songs created by Brian Jacques, or based on some real songs?
Brian Jacques's Redwall stories contain a huge number of songs: marching songs, drinking songs, campfire songs, feast songs, all of them different and none repeated from one book to another (as far as ...
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Was Austen Heller's name inspired by Henry W. Austin?
It's no secret that Howard Roark was loosely inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright.
Interestingly enough, on a recent tour of Frank Lloyd Wright houses in Oak Park, IL, I encountered a park named after Henry ...
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In what way was Joseph Conrad influenced by Antoni Malczewski?
Antoni Malczewski was a Polish romantic poet, known for his only work, “a narrative poem of dire pessimism, Maria (1825). Wikipedia writes
Maria was also influential on later Polish poets, especially ...
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Why did Fontane choose to write "The Tragedy of Afghanistan"?
Theodor Fontane, a German poet, wrote "Das Trauerspiel von Afghanistan" (translated here as "The Tragedy of Afghanistan") in 1847. It's about the aftermath of a massacre suffered ...
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In A Whiter Shade of Pale, is the miller's tale a reference to the Miller's tale in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales?
Chaucer's "The Miller's Tale" in The Canterbury Tales is a weird story about an older Miller, his young, beautiful wife who sleeps with a young Oxford student, and an admiring young ...
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Is Ant-Man a Myrmidon?
The Myrmidons, the soldiers from Achilles's homeland of Thessaly who are under his command in the Iliad, get their name from myrmex or ants. Achilles himself is the arch-Myrmidon. In Shakespeare's ...
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Was Shaw's "Arms and the Man" inspired by Shakespeare?
In Act III of the play Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw, Sergius says to Louka,
If these hands ever touch you again, they shall touch my affianced bride.
Those words reminded me of ...
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What inspired the "fakir in a box" in Elizabeth Browning's "Aurora Leigh"?
In book V of Aurora Leigh (1856) by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the narrator makes an elaborate simile between the condition of the Earth in the interval between the Fall and the Incarnation, and a ...
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What inspired the “lava-lymph” in Elizabeth Browning’s “Aurora Leigh”?
In book V of Aurora Leigh (1856) by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the narrator asks herself what she expects to achieve in her poetry:
Shall I hope
To speak my ...
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Do the Bible and the Epic of Gilgamesh really contain the same rare proverb about the strength of a triple-stranded rope?
According to the Wikipedia article The Epic of Gilgamesh,
Several scholars suggest direct borrowing of Siduri's advice by the author of Ecclesiastes.[41]
A rare proverb about the strength of a triple-...
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Did Camus have a known source of inspiration for Meursault's behaviour during and after his mother's funeral?
Camus's novel The Stranger begins with the news of the death and the funeral of Meursault's mother. Meursault smokes cigarettes during the wake, doesn't weep before, during or after the funeral, and ...
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Is there any deep connection between Hyperion (the sci-fi novel) and Hyperion (the poem)? [duplicate]
Hyperion is a sci-fi classic by Dan Simmons which takes its name from the poem by John Keats of the same name. The novel makes multiple references to the poem by Keats and actually Keats is even a ...
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Did Lois Lowry name the protagonist of the Giver from the biblical prophet?
Did Lois Lowry name Jonas, the protagonist of the Giver, after the biblical prophet Jonah? Both of them are at one point reluctant to follow their calling that they didn't choose, so there is some ...
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Did Anthony Trollope's Barsetshire inspire the Archers' Borsetshire?
Barsetshire is a fictional county of England, created by Anthony Trollope for his Chronicles of Barsetshire series published in the mid-19th century. The county town is the equally fictional ...
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Who was the first scholar who claimed that the Ur-Hamlet was influenced by the German play Der bestrafte Brudermord?
Thomas Kyd (1558—1594) is best known as the author of The Spanish Tragedy, a play that shares several similarities with Shakespeare's Hamlet. These similarities include a ghost demanding vengeance, a ...
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Was the main character in Gigi based on a real-life person?
Gigi, the female protagonist of Colette's novella Gigi (1944), is full of character. Independent and mischievous, and a little tomboyish, she leaves a lasting impression on the reader. I am wondering ...
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How relevant is the Atreides' link to Agamemnon in 'Dune'?
I was surprised to notice, when exploring Wikipedia's Epithets in Homer, that Agamemnon's individual epithet (or at least one of them) was "son of Atreus (Ἀτρείδης Atreídēs: also transliterated ...
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Where did the idea of mono no aware come from?
Piggybacking on this question, I am still curious about the mono no aware (物の哀れ) reading of The Tale of Genji. According to Wikipedia:
Norinaga's most important works include the Kojiki-den (...
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What inspired the title of "Why Didn't They Ask Evans?"?
Why Didn't They Ask Evans? is a novel by Agatha Christie. In the story, a dying man's last words "Why didn't they ask Evans?" inspires an amateur detective investigation, in which ultimately
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Did William Somerset Maugham's uncle treat his nephew in an emotionally cruel way?
William Somerset Maugham's mother died in 1882, when he was only eight years old, and his father died two years later. William was sent to his paternal uncle, Henry MacDonald Maugham, who was a vicar. ...
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Is there any evidence that Shakespeare ever used a Spanish source for any of his works?
Scholarly editions of Shakespeare's works always discuss real or potential sources for the plots and other aspects of a play or poem. Shakespeare invented very few plots and used sources such as ...
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Is there any evidence that William Shakespeare influenced Lope de Vega?
During the Spanish Golden Age of the arts, one of the key figures in Spanish literature was Lope de Vega, a prolific author of plays, poetry, and novels. He was approximately contemporary with William ...
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Is there any evidence that Lope de Vega influenced William Shakespeare?
During the Spanish Golden Age of the arts, one of the key figures in Spanish literature was Lope de Vega, a prolific author of plays, poetry, and novels. He was approximately contemporary with William ...
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Is The Shawshank Redemption based on a Leo Tolstoy story?
This Wikipedia article says that Stephen King’s novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption “has been thought to be loosely based on Leo Tolstoy's 1872 short story "God Sees the Truth, But ...
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Was Rosemary Sutcliff's The High Deeds of Finn MacCool influenced by James Macpherson's Ossian translations?
In 1967, Rosemary Sutcliff published the children's novel The High Deeds of Finn MacCool, which is a retelling of the stories of the Irish hunter-warrior Fionn mac Cumhaill and the Fenian Cycle.
The ...
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Was Maupassant's interest in madness and the supernatural linked to his own mental health?
The French publisher Gallimard has a short biography of Guy de Maupassant on its website. The last lines read,
Vers 1885, Maupassant ressent les premiers symptômes de la maladie nerveuse qui l'...
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Who was Mrs B.Lewis?
Colin Dexter's protagonist was Detective Chief Inspector (Endeavour) Morse, in many novels and the TV series where he was played by John Thaw. Morse was named after the polymath crossword puzzle ...
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Any inspiration for the statue revival scene in Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale"?
Shakespeare's "problem play" The Winter's Tale is largely inspired by Robert Greene's Pandosto written a few decades earlier. One of the major differences between Pandosto and The Winter's Tale is in ...
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Is Marie's comment based on the existence of a two-tier justice system in French Algeria?
In Camus' novel L'étranger / The Stranger, Meursault gets arrested for shooting "an Arab". During his pre-trial detention, his girlfriend Marie pays him a visit in prison and tries to give him some ...
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How might Shakespeare have become familiar with Dante's work?
A recent question on our site asked whether Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing contained a reference to Dante's Divine Comedy. In his answer, Matt Thrower mentions Beatrice, the name of both a ...
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In what ways does The Moviegoer echo Kierkagaardian existentialist principles?
How does the plot of The Moviegoer show the influence of existentialist authors, specifically Kierkegaard, on Percy's writing. I've also noticed some similarities between the "leap of faith" between ...
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Was Frederick Lawley based on a real figure in British India?
The fictional character of Frederick Lawley, a prominent British figure in colonial India, is the main object of R. K. Narayan's "Lawley Road" (a short story first published in 1956 in the eponymous ...
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