If you were unaware he is supposed to be channeling the character of Ahab from Hermann Melville's Moby Dick. Much like Patrick Stewart does in star trek first contact.
You know they are referencing actual literature in these films. like William Shakepeare's plays. Dante's inferno, Paradise lost by milton. hermann melvilles moby dick, a tale of two cities by dickens and so forth.
They wanted to echo the classical world literature of mans past but mostly the western tradition.
Well except for Films V, IV and I those are just stand alones. You could say V references the christian bible but it does so in what would be considered a blasphemous and incorrect fashion.
Star Wars was not trying to be real literature as apposed to it being pulp fiction and make believe fairy tales grafted onto a superficial sci fi setting. Greek myths and so forth being an inspiration, as well as the pulp fiction of doc smith and edgar rice burroughs. And the jevenile comics of Alexander Gillespie Raymond.
See i love pulp fiction and space opera but i don't pretend it is serious science fiction. Trek is science fiction lite but at least it is science fiction, or was until JJ Abrams got a hold of it and made it into TREKWARS.
Funny enough people claimed Meyer was copying star wars with the wrath of khan. One critic even said he expected kirk and khan to get into a lightsaber duel. IS that really when Trek started to become more space opera than science fiction?
Some Trekkies also say that is when Roddenberry Trek was canceled in favor of dumbed down action for the masses. When the motion picture was more in line with cerebral roddenberry trek like the cage pilot.
Isaac Asimov was a consultant on the motion picture and so was nasa. I think they no longer were trying to be science fiction anymore when they did the wrath of khan.