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Tropic of Cancer Allusions & Cultural References

When authors refer to other great works, people, and events, it’s usually not accidental. Put on your super-sleuth hat and figure out why.

Literary and Philosophical References

  • Leo Tolstoy (1.18)
  • Somerset Maugham (1.20)
  • Oswald Spengler (1.20)
  • Baruch Spinoza (1.34, 9.3)
  • Ivan Turgenev (1.38)
  • Fyodor Dostoevski (1.38, 8.94, 13.12, 13.20)
  • Anatole France (1.49, 11.17)
  • Emile Zola (2.20, 10.20)
  • Honoré de Balzac (2.20)
  • Dante (2.20, 5.18, 10.18, 11.9, 13.22, 14.27)
  • August Strindberg (2.20, 10.15, 10.17, 10.18, 10.21, 13.5)
  • Stéphane Mallarmé (2.25)
  • Victor Hugo (2.25, 11.17)
  • T.S. Eliot (3.5)
  • Homer (5.18)
  • Goethe (5.28, 11.9, 14.33, 15.5-15.9)
  • Aristotle (5.18)
  • Plato (5.18, 9.3)
  • Epictetus (5.18)
  • Rabelais (5.18, 6.21, 10.18, 14.27, 14.33)
  • Miguel de Cervantes (5.18, 13.5)
  • Jonathan Swift (5.18)
  • Walt Whitman (5.18, 5.309, 13.56) (For more on the Miller-Whitman bond, see "In a Nutshell")
  • Edgar Allan Poe (5.18)
  • Charles Baudelaire (5.18, 12.56)
  • François Villon (5.18, 12.56, 14.27, 14.33)
  • Giosuè Alessandro Giuseppe Carducci (5.18)
  • AlessandroFrancesco TommasoManzoni (5.18)
  • Félix Arturo Lope de Vega (5.18)
  • Friedrich Nietzsche (5.18, 9.10, 13.7)
  • Arthur Schopenhauer (5.18)
  • Immanuel Kant (5.18)
  • Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (5.18)
  • Charles Darwin (5.18)
  • Herbert Spencer (5.18)
  • Aldous Huxley (5.18)
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson (Epigraph, 6.1)
  • Werther (6.18)
  • Leda (and the Swan) (6.18, 12.49)
  • Petronuis (6.21)
  • Guy de Maupassant (8.83, 8.88)
  • Knut Hamsun (8.94)
  • Ezra Pound (8.94)
  • Marcel Proust (8.153)
  • Plotinus (11.10)
  • Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann (11.10)
  • Joseph Conrad (11.17)
  • Lord Byron (11.17)
  • Baron de Charlus (Remembrance of Things Past-Proust) (11.35, 11.45
  • Kurtz (Heart of Darkness, Conrad) (11.45)
  • Molly Bloom (Ulysses) (13.11)
  • John Milton (13.24)
  • Shakespeare (13.24, 15.9)
  • Pierre de Ronsard (14.27)
  • Euclid (14.29)
  • Virgil (14.29)
  • Leaves of Grass (Walt Whitman) (14.30)
  • Molière (14.33)
  • Jean Racine (14.33)
  • Pierre Corneille (14.33)
  • Voltaire (14.33)
  • Arthur Rimbaud (14.33)
  • Johann Gottlieb Fichte (14.36)

Art References

  • Paul Gaughin (1.20, 13.5)
  • Vincent Van Gogh (1.38, 10.18)
  • Marie Laurencin (3.5)
  • Raoul Dufy (3.6)
  • Joan Miró (3.6)
  • Auguste Rodin (3.11)
  • "Balzac" of Rodin (6.18)
  • Henri Matisse (8.153-8.158)
  • Leonardo da Vinci (11.9)
  • Rembrandt (11.9, 13.5)
  • Titian (13.5)
  • Picasso (13.11)
  • Albrecht Dürer (14.27)
  • Maurice Utrillo (14.40)

Historical References

  • Sigmund Freud (2.10, 11.10)
  • Wilhelm Stekel (2.10)
  • Napoleon (5.27)
  • Havelock Ellis (8.20)
  • Christopher Columbus (10.19, 13.4)
  • Krishnamurti (11.10)
  • Upanishads (11.10)
  • Sarah Bernhardt (12.23)

Pop Culture References

  • Rudolph Valentino (8.146

Music References

  • Bach (2.7, 2.24
  • Robert Alexander Schumann (2.9
  • Verdi (14.38