Certain unique books seem to be without forerunners or successors as far as their authors are concerned. Even though they may profoundly influence the work of other writers, for their creator they're complete, not leading anywhere.
I find as much inspiration from the forerunners of jazz as I do the modern-day innovators of jazz.
Without those forerunners, Jane Austen and the Brontes and George Eliot could no more have written than Shakespeare could have written without Marlowe, or Marlowe without Chaucer, or Chaucer without those forgotten poets who paved the ways and tamed the natural savagery of the tongue. For masterpieces are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common, of thinking by the body of the people, so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice.
Attitudes are the forerunners of conditions.
You need to have extraordinary wisdom to be the forerunner.
Jealousy is the forerunner of love, and often its awakener.
Certain signs are the forerunners of certain events.
Mistrust is the sure forerunner of hatred.
