Threads
What descends from what
A story set adrift on a river, a legal formula, an argument answered three centuries later. Each line joins a work to something earlier that it draws on, and is labeled both with the kind of relation and with how certain that relation is. A shared motif is not evidence of copying, and is never drawn as though it were.
227 connections shown, joining 257 works. Click any work to see only what it touches. 388 inherited descent links, recorded without a note of their own, are hidden. 455 of 968 entries have no connection recorded yet.
Reading the lines
- descent
- The later work derives from the earlier one textually.
- citation
- The later work quotes or names the earlier one.
- response
- The later work argues against or answers the earlier one.
- parallel
- The two share a motif, form, or structure. This is not a claim that either copied the other.
- transmission
- The earlier work reaches the later one through translation or an intervening tradition, rather than by direct copying.
- secure
- widely accepted. Contested lines are drawn broken.
- probable
- well supported, not settled. Contested lines are drawn broken.
- contested
- genuinely disputed. Contested lines are drawn broken.