@Bookworm Bacon metaphors in the HNQ

I have a question that I wonder where to ask. It's about two stories that share an element, and I want to know if the writers independently invented it, which seems quite possible, or the later one was inspired by the earlier one. I have a question like that on Sci Fi at scifi.stackexchange.com/q/242351/4918 , as well as an answer at scifi.stackexchange.com/q/242351/4918 .

I wonder if it makes sense to ask such a question on Literature. I see at least one: literature.stackexchange.com/q/3360/139 .

Here's another example from Lit literature.stackexchange.com/q/26096/139

@b_jonas It's a literary question, so it would be on topic here. Note that there are more possibilities than independent invention and one writer being influenced by the other—perhaps both writers were influenced by a common source, or perhaps the element in question is common enough that it's impossible to establish a specific line of influence.

See for example this question comparing Great Expectations and Kipps—the tropes it asks about (orphan protagonists experiencing hardship and then good fortune bestowed by a previously unknown relative) are ancient (consider Ion or the Aethopica) and so more specific resemblances would be needed to establish a line of influence.

@GarethRees Right, I forgot about literature.stackexchange.com/q/2224/139

@Tsundoku Just one of several e-book disadvantages: they are inconvenient or impossible to lend, require a battery-powered device, don't have stable page numbers for citations, hard to read in bright sunlight, .... But these have to be balanced against the advantages: cheaper to acquire, easier to store and transport, full-text searchable, copy-pastable, ....

They're not impossible to solve, though. The page number thing is a standardization problem, the sunlight thing a hardware problem and the lending issue a software problem. The battery issue is indeed the curse of the digital future, though.

But unfortunately, as almost aniything in this future, practically they are basically tied to silicon valley behemoth companies, which is the core problem.

@Bookworm It didn’t belong on the question, but the textual history of Francis Bacon’s The Advancement of Learning is quite a tangle!

There is a 1605 English version, Of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning, Divine and Humane in two books, and a 1623 Latin version, De dignitate et augmentis scientiarum, in nine books, the first of which is a translation of the 1605 book I, and the other eight are expanded from the 1605 book II.

There are two translations of the Latin back into English, by Gilbert Wats (1640) and Peter Shaw (1733).

Joseph Devey, who edited an 1853 edition based on Shaw, says that there was a third translation by Eustace Cary, but I have not been able to locate that one. James Lucey calls it a “ghost book” (Notes and Queries, Feb 1972, p. 85).

@b_jonas I think that would be on-topic at either SFF or Lit (assuming you're asking about two written works of speculative fiction). The advantage of SFF is that people there might be more familiar with tropes that are specific to sci-fi or fantasy; the advantage of Lit is that people here know more about literary history generally, and might be able to trace your common story element back through non-speculative-fiction works without the on-topicness arguments that could arise at SFF.

@Randal'Thor that makes sense, thank you