Talk:Restoration literature

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Restoration literature is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. If you can update or improve it, please do.

This article has been selected for Version 0.5 and the next release version of Wikipedia. This Langlit article has been rated FA-Class on the assessment scale.

Reader notes and caveats:

1. Please note that this article is part of an ambitious project related to English literature. That article contains brief summaries of each of the classic literary periods, a structure mirrored in most university classrooms and older encyclopedia, and this project is attempting to have a full length article on each "period" of English literature. This article is the first to be completed, but Augustan literature is underway all but finished now.
2. Also, please note that the article is an overview of two generations of literature and seeks to include all of the figures who affected the development of literature during this period. Some of the figures have left very few traces behind, and yet we know that they affected the other authors. Therefore, there are going to be redlinked names at this time. This cannot be helped by the present authors. If no one has yet had much to say about the career of Elkannah Settle, that does not change the fact that his plays goaded Dryden to make more lavish productions or that Alexander Pope would see him as the perfect example of a subordinated and tamed poet in The Dunciad in 1727. As a fact or event, Elkannah Settle is fully explained here. As a person, he is not. It would be intellectually dishonest to not refer to him because there is no Wikipedia article on him, and it would be useless for those with only knowledge of his effects on Restoration literature to write a biographical article composed only of that. Geogre 16:28, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Explanation of the rollback

I would like to explain why I thought it worth leaving the year links in. First, I understand why some think they're low yield. I think they can be very low yield, too, but there are several reasons why I think they should stay, here:

1. As an overview article, this article is supposed to spot trends and sketch movements. Therefore, all links to more precise information are additive. In the case of an article that is bounded by a year or two, linking dates is probably of zero yield. On the other hand, any article that attempts to talk about time in a big chunk should profit from links to years.
2. Although folks have been extremely slow to do it, the year links are supposed to give people overviews of everything that happened in that year. Some years have more information, some less. However, the Restoration and Augustan years are fair. I would like for readers to be able to spot a coincidence I didn't discuss by surveying a year and come back to fix this article, if needed. E.g. if I am linking to 1749, and I'm talking about a play, I hope that a reader might notice Pamela being published in the same year. It might mean something. Thus, we should hope for more information and not determine in advance that there is no use in the link.
3. It's practice. Unfortunately, it's how things are done in other articles, and so we kind of need to follow through and not try to rewrite custom now.

I know that a "rollback" is brusque, so I apologize for that, but I wanted to explain why I put the links back in. Geogre 21:34, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Lead picture

Bishonen has solved the problem very well. The current lead painting is exactly what we need. There aren't any awed courtiers or scrofula patients being cured by his touch, but that's sure a regal Charles II up there now. Thanks ever and again, Bishonen. Geogre 00:24, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)