# Titles From Literature **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 18, 2005, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-from-literature/331655 "2005-11-18T16:04:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-from-literature/331655/1 "2005-11-18T16:04:56Z")
This morning in the shower, I was struck by how many authors have used phrases from other works as the titles of theirs. Screenwriters do the same. In fact, it was Jerome Bixby’s _Star Trek:TOS_ episode “By Any Other Name” that started my idle brain a-thinking. I remembered that Babylon 5 used “The Paragon of Animals” (from Hamlet) as the title of a Season 5 episode, and there some other in the Star Trek Universe from Shakespeare as well. What others are out there? Who is the most-quoted author? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-from-literature/331655/2 "2005-11-18T16:19:17Z")
National Lampoon did a parody of this sort of thing, taking a speech from Shakespeare and dissecting it into three- or four-word titles that they then placed next to each other in a parody of the New York Times Book Review, with a brief description of each book. There are simply too many of these to list. I’ll bet Shakespeare gets top billing (“The Sound and the Fury”, “All Our Yesterdays”, etc.) , maybe followed by the Bible. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-from-literature/331655/3 "2005-11-18T16:29:28Z")
Most quoted author is definitely Shakespeare. Star Trek alone used “The Conscience of the King” and “The Undiscovered Country” and probably one or two more. “Brave New World” was also from Shakespeare. It helps that his work is in public domain. 🙂 In fiction, Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress,” had inspired titles like “World Enough and Time,” “Vaster than Empires and More Slow,” “A Fine and Private Place” ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-from-literature/331655/4 "2005-11-18T16:35:57Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Most quoted author is definitely Shakespeare. Star Trek alone used “The Conscience of the King” and “The Undiscovered Country” and probably one or two more. “Brave New World” was also from Shakespeare. It helps that his work is in public domain. 🙂 > > In fiction, Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress,” had inspired titles like “World Enough and Time,” “Vaster than Empires and More Slow,” “A Fine and Private Place” Philip Roth’s short story “The Conversion of the Jews” also comes from the same Marvell poem, and the Robin Williams’ movie “What Dreams May Come” also derives its title from HAMLET. Probably you can wring a few more titles out of those two works alone. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-from-literature/331655/5 "2005-11-18T17:50:41Z")
Ray Bradbury’s _Something Wicked This Way Comes_ is from _MacBeth_. ---
**Author:** ![Ghanima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Ghanima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ghanima)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-from-literature/331655/6 "2005-11-18T18:12:27Z")
I agree Shakespeare is most-quoted. When I first saw Hamlet, I was amazed by how many phrases used regularly today came from that play alone. Dickens might be a good runner-up. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-from-literature/331655/7 "2005-11-18T18:19:07Z")
In many cases I learned the title of the book long before I read the poem that inspired the title. A few other instances that haven’t been mentioned yet: Philip Jose Farmer’s _To Your Scattered Bodies Go_ comes from a sonnet by John Donne, Phil Pullman’s _His Dark Materials_ is from Milton’s _Paradise Lost_, and half the books by John Steinbeck take their titles from classical poetry: _Of Mice and Men_, _The Grapes of Wrath_, _The Winter of our Discontent_, and so forth. ---
**Author:** ![Lissla\_Lissar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lissla\_Lissar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissla_Lissar)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-from-literature/331655/8 "2005-11-18T20:28:43Z")
Ruth Reichl’s _Garlic and Sapphires_ and Rohinton Mistry’s _Such a Long Journey_ both come from T. S. Eliot poems, _Burnt Norton_ and _The Journey of the Magi_ respectively. I’m sure there’s lots of other Eliot titles around. ---
**Author:** ![Eleanor\_of\_Aquitaine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a88e4f/32.png) [@Eleanor\_of\_Aquitaine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleanor_of_Aquitaine)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-from-literature/331655/9 "2005-11-18T21:07:45Z")
James Herriot’s book titles come from the hymn: All Things Bright And Beautiful All Creatures Great and Small All Things Wise and Wonderful The Lord God Made Them All ---
**Author:** ![Ghanima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Ghanima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ghanima)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2005, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-from-literature/331655/10 "2005-11-19T00:22:37Z")
> [@Lissla Lissar](#): > > Ruth Reichl’s _Garlic and Sapphires_ and Rohinton Mistry’s _Such a Long Journey_ both come from T. S. Eliot poems, _Burnt Norton_ and _The Journey of the Magi_ respectively. I’m sure there’s lots of other Eliot titles around. Iain M. Banks has used at least two phrases from Elliot’s “The Waste Land” as titles for his books. Consider Phlebas, and Look to Windward are two examples. Not sure if there are any more. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2005, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-from-literature/331655/11 "2005-11-19T01:15:43Z")
James Tiptree, Jr. used a line from Keats’s “La Belle Dame sans merci” to title “And I Awoke to Find Me Here on the Cold Hill Side.” I read the story before the poem, and when I was reading the poem, I thought “there’s a story in here,” then discovered the line. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2005, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-from-literature/331655/12 "2005-11-19T01:30:59Z")
“Inherit the Wind” is a Biblical title, but I’m having trouble thinking of others. The most recent episode of Veronica Mars was titled after a quote from “Dirty Dancing.” Does that count? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![brownie55](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f14d63/32.png) [@brownie55](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brownie55)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2005, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-from-literature/331655/13 "2005-11-19T01:44:10Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > “Inherit the Wind” is a Biblical title, but I’m having trouble thinking of others. > > The most recent episode of Veronica Mars was titled after a quote from “Dirty Dancing.” Does that count? 😃 “Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner”? ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2005, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-from-literature/331655/14 "2005-11-19T01:52:48Z")
> [@brownie55](#): > > “Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner”? It’s literature, right? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2005, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-from-literature/331655/15 "2005-11-19T02:25:01Z")
Genesis, the _Wind & Wuthering_ album, “Unquiet Slumbers for the Sleepers…” “…In That Quiet Earth.” The phrase, distributed between two segue’d tracks, is taken from the end of _Wuthering Heights_ by Emily Brontë. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2005, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-from-literature/331655/16 "2005-11-19T02:45:05Z")
“Stranger In a Strange Land” is a quote from an ancient Greek verse play - I want to say that it is “Philoctetes”, but can’t definitely. Anyway, the plot of the Hellenistic play revolves around a Greek warrior friend of Odysseus who is inexplicably abandoned on a deserted isle and spends decades alone, until Odysseus recalls he left his fabled bow (which an Oracle states he _must_ reclaim if the Greeks are to win the Trojan war) in Philoctetes’ possession. Thus, Odysseus goes to rescue his old pal. During one choral interlude, Philoctetes is described as a “stranger in a strange land” as he is marooned in a hostile environment, but doesn’t feel as if he has any more allegience to Greece, since he was foresaken by them. (Heinlein’s book is a rather broad adaptation of this plot as well.) ---
**Author:** ![HazelNutCoffee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@HazelNutCoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HazelNutCoffee)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2005, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-from-literature/331655/17 "2005-11-19T04:53:56Z")
I have heard of two books that took their titles from Yeats’s poem “The Second Coming”: _Things Fall Apart_ and _Slouching Towards Bethlehem_. And of course there is _The Road Less Traveled_ by Dr. Scott Peck, taken from Frost’s “The Road Not Taken.” ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2005, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-from-literature/331655/18 "2005-11-19T21:42:56Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > “Inherit the Wind” is a Biblical title, but I’m having trouble thinking of others. _East of Eden_ ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2005, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-from-literature/331655/19 "2005-11-20T01:58:38Z")
> [@HazelNutCoffee](#): > > I have heard of two books that took their titles from Yeats’s poem “The Second Coming”: _Things Fall Apart_ and _Slouching Towards Bethlehem_. Which reminds me that one of Harry Turtledove’s alternate history novels is called _The Center Cannot Hold_. ---
**Author:** ![Malodorous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47774/32.png) [@Malodorous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malodorous)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2005, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-from-literature/331655/20 "2005-11-20T04:35:51Z")
> [@Art Vandelay](#): > > “Stranger In a Strange Land” is a quote from an ancient Greek verse play - I want to say that it is “Philoctetes”, but can’t definitely. Exodus 2:22 (KJV). Spoken by Moses after he’s exiled from Egypt: > [@Charleston Heston](#): > > And she bare him a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have been a **stranger in a strange land**. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-from-literature/331655.md?page=2)