Steep Ascent | Literary Precedents

Steep Ascent Literary Precedents

Lindbergh's ideology draws on a variety of artistic, literary, and philosophical sources. Her diaries and letters specify the influence of Joseph Albers, D. H. Lawrence, Rilke, and T. S. Eliot. In her review of Antoine de Saint Exupery's Wind, Sand and Stars (1939), Lindbergh takes a quotation from Alfred North Whitehead's Adventure of Ideas (1933). "Adventure," he writes, "is nothing if it is not translated through the mind, through the spirit."

There is no doubt that Lindbergh's theme embodies this concept of adventure. Her choice of metaphor and her literary style also owe much to the work of her contemporary, Saint Exupery.