# Book Titles that reference other Literature **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 17, 2007, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336 "2007-03-17T14:23:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/41 "2007-03-17T21:43:18Z")
_ **That Hideous Strength** _ by C.S. Lewis is taken from Scottish poet Davis Lyndsay’s _Dialog_: _The shadow of **that hyddeous strength** sax myle and more it is of length_ (In the poem, “that hyddeous strength” describes the Tower of Babel.) And **One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest** is from Mother Goose: _Vintery, mintery, cutery, corn, Apple seed and apple thorn; Wire, briar, limber lock, Three geese in a flock. One flew east, And one flew west, And **one flew over the cuckoo’s nest**._ ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/42 "2007-03-17T21:47:50Z")
Heinlein also has **I Will Fear No Evil** and **The Number of the Beast** , both biblical. ---
**Author:** ![panamajack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/47e85d/32.png) [@panamajack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panamajack)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/43 "2007-03-17T21:52:44Z")
Forgot to mention - I don’t think “All Quiet on the Western Front” is a quote from anything. The original (German) title is _Im Westen nichts neues_ (lit. “nothing new in the West”) which probably was an actual report used at one time or another, though the double meaning is definitely intentional. A literal translation might have implied another meaning for ‘West’, but German doesn’t generally use the terms ‘East’ and ‘West’ to indicate regions of the world. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/44 "2007-03-17T21:52:55Z")
Catcher in the Rye is a reference to [Comin’ Thro the Rye](http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/675.html) by Robert Burns. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/45 "2007-03-17T21:56:27Z")
[QUOTE=panamajack] Forgot to mention - I don’t think “All Quiet on the Western Front” is a quote from anything. The original (German) title is _Im Westen nichts neues_ (lit. “nothing new in the West”) which probably was an actual report used at one time or another, though the double meaning is definitely intentional. A literal translation might have implied another meaning for ‘West’, but German doesn’t generally use the terms ‘East’ and ‘West’ to indicate regions of the world. [/QUOTE] Thanks for this. After the post where I mentioned that it sounded like it ought to refer to something, I checked Wikipedia to see essentially what you’ve posted. Oh, well… ---
**Author:** ![pinkfreud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pinkfreud/32/17603_2.png) [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/46 "2007-03-17T22:00:57Z")
[QUOTE=jayjay] Heinlein also has **I Will Fear No Evil** and **The Number of the Beast** , both biblical. [/QUOTE] And the title of Heinlein’s first novel, _For Us, the Living_, comes from the Gettysburg Address. ---
**Author:** ![Julius\_Henry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8797f3/32.png) [@Julius\_Henry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Julius_Henry)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2007, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/47 "2007-03-18T04:31:03Z")
[QUOTE=panamajack] Forgot to mention - I don’t think “All Quiet on the Western Front” is a quote from anything. The original (German) title is _Im Westen nichts neues_ (lit. “nothing new in the West”) which probably was an actual report used at one time or another, though the double meaning is definitely intentional. A literal translation might have implied another meaning for ‘West’, but German doesn’t generally use the terms ‘East’ and ‘West’ to indicate regions of the world. [/QUOTE] It’s taken from the phrase “All Quiet Along the Potomac,” a Civil War poem, with that phrase adapted from General McClellan’s frequent reports. Here is the obligatory [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Quiet_Along_the_Potomac_Tonight) link. ---
**Author:** ![NonOnto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ec9cab/32.png) [@NonOnto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NonOnto)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2007, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/48 "2007-03-18T04:41:41Z")
Nabokov’s **Pale Fire** gets its title from Shakespeare’s _Timon of Athens_, “The moon’s an arrant thief, And her **pale fire** she snatches from the sun” Wittgenstein’s _Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus_ alludes to Spinoza’s _Tractatus Theologico-Politicus_. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Rieux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2007, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/49 "2007-03-18T07:00:32Z")
Richard Matheson’s \*\*What Dreams May Come \*\* and Joe Haldeman’s All \*\*My Sins Remembered \*\* both take their titles from _Hamlet_’s “to be, or not to be…” soliloquy. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2007, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/50 "2007-03-18T09:53:46Z")
Iain M. Banks has a few titles that do this: _Consider Phlebas_ & _Look To Windward_ reference Eliot’s _The Waste Land_: > [@](#): > > …you who turn the wheel and look to windward, > Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you. _Against a Dark Background_ may contain a nod to Le Guin’s essay, _Science Fiction and Mrs. Brown_ I’ve always felt that both _Feersum Endjinn_ and _Use of Weapons_ sound like literary references, but never heard any speculation as to what. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2007, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/51 "2007-03-18T11:50:43Z")
[QUOTE=spoke-] Christy Brown’s autobiography [My Left Foot](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Left_Foot_%28book%29) (later a Daniel Day Lewis film) references a line from Shakespeare, if I am not mistaken. (_Romeo and Juliet_, maybe?) Faulkner’s **The Sound and the Fury** references Shakespeare’s _Macbeth_: _Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, **full of sound and fury** , Signifying nothing._ [/QUOTE] Not having read Faulkner, I cannot verify this, but it’s my understanding that the viewpoint character of _The Sound and the Fury_ suffers from mental deficiencies, making it truly “…a tale told by an idiot…” ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2007, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/52 "2007-03-18T12:14:33Z")
Robert Penn Warren’s _Let Us Now Praise Famous Men_ is taken directly from the Apocrypha, Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 44:1. **Jayjay** has already noted Heinlein’s _I Will Fear No Evil_, but the central “gimmick” of the story is the experience of the person who was the world’s first brain transplant, who encounters the (real or delusional?) survival of the body’s former inhabitant “in there with him.” Hence the peculiar appropriateness of Psalm 23: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.”\* Arthur C. Clarke’s early novel of Diaspar, a city set up to withstand the changes and chances of millions of years of time, takes its title from an A.E. Housman poem: > [@](#): > > Here on the level sand > Between the sea and land, > What shall I build or write > **Against the fall of night**? > Tell me what runes to grave > That hold the bursting wave, > Or bastions to design > For longer date than mine. - Good taste prevents me from commenting on the appropriateness of “Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.” 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2007, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/53 "2007-03-18T13:47:56Z")
Thomas Wolfe’s _ **Look Homeward Angel** _ is taken from John Milton’s [_Lycidas_](http://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/lycidas/text.shtml): \*Look homeward Angel now, and melt with ruth. And, O ye Dolphins, waft the haples youth. \* ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2007, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/54 "2007-03-18T16:20:49Z")
JD Salinger’s “Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenter” comes from the opening line in Sappho’s “The Wedding March.” Several of Joan Didion’s books refer to other famous works, like **A Book of Common Prayer** , _Slouching Towards Bethlehem_ (from Yeats’ “The Second Coming”) and _The White Album_ (which is the popular name of the Beatles’ _The Beatles_). ---
**Author:** ![Mrs.Millamant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@Mrs.Millamant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mrs.Millamant)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2007, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/55 "2007-03-18T16:49:02Z")
Another from _Paradise Lost_ is Philip Pullman’s _His Dark Materials_ trilogy, which takes its title from this bit: But all these in thir pregnant causes mix’t Confus’dly, and which thus must ever fight, Unless th’ Almighty Maker them ordain His dark materials to create more Worlds, _The Golden Compass_ is also from Milton, but a different sort of compass: and in his hand He took the golden Compasses, prepar’d In Gods Eternal store, to circumscribe This Universe, and all created things Simmons’s _Hyperion Cantos_ takes its name from the Keats poem. King’s _Dark Tower_ series references Browning’s “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came,” and the title of the third book just adds an “s” to Eliot’s “The Waste Land.” And of course, _Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead_ takes not only its title, but a good portion of its dialogue, from _Hamlet_. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2007, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/56 "2007-03-18T18:29:06Z")
Faulkner’s [Absalom, Absalom](http://www.gradesaver.com/classicnotes/titles/absalom/) is a quote of [2 Samuel 18:33](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=10&chapter=18&verse=33&version=31&context=verse). Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2007, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/57 "2007-03-19T15:45:04Z")
Joe Haldeman often uses Biblical and Shakespearean quotations in his story titles. _Study War No More_, a collection of SF stories about the end of armed conflict, is from Isaiah 2:3-5. “A Summer’s Lease,” a wonderful short story about a human colony on another world that is slowly losing knowledge of its own past, is from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18. Haldeman also draws on Sonnet 18 in an even more clever and intriguing way in his short story “For White Hill,” found in the collection _A Separate War and Other Stories_, the title of which itself references _A Separate Peace_ by John Knowles. Several _Star Trek_ episode and movie titles refer to Shakespeare, incl. “The Conscience of the King” and _The Undiscovered Country_ (both from _Hamlet_, IIRC). ---
**Author:** ![Labdad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/439d5e/32.png) [@Labdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labdad)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2007, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/58 "2007-03-19T15:53:40Z")
_Devices and Desires_ by P. D. James takes its title from the confession in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer: “We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts.” ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2007, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/59 "2007-03-19T17:07:26Z")
Apparently, this movie coming out soon called **The Last Mimzy** got its title from the story it’s based upon, **Mimsy Were The Borogoves** , which is a line from Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2007, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336/60 "2007-03-19T18:05:57Z")
Two that immediately come to mind are from the same quote of Shakespeare’s “Cry Havoc and let slip the dogs of war,” at the Marc Antony’s speech in **Julius Caesar**. Both, **Cry Havoc** and **The Dogs of War** were popular movies and the latter was a very good book by Frederic Forsythe. Hemingway’s **A Moveable Feast** and **Across the River and into the Trees** were all from other sources. I am sure someone has mentioned it (although I didn’t see it because I probably did a bad job of reading) but **Rosencrantz and Gildensturn are Dead** is one of the most obvious answers to this thread - straight out of that Hamlet guy’s play. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-that-reference-other-literature/396336.md?page=4)