Talk:Brideshead Revisited

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Contents

[edit] Catholic Themes

I added a section on the Catholic themes of the novel. The previous version of the page was a bit unbalanced. The main theme seems to be Catholicism, yet the page only had 2 sentences to about this. On the other hand, it had 900 words under Gay Themes, which is a minor theme of the book. I got the content from this audio of a Catholic TV network: http://www.ewtn.com/vondemand/audio/seriessearchprog.asp?seriesID=6602&T1= --Nino Gonzales 09:48, 10 September 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Literary Analysis

The most important section I think is missing: a discussion of Brideshead Revisited as a novel. I think this should be the longest section (it's supposed to be a literary masterpiece). Maybe followed by one or two sentences on the Catholic angle and a line or two on the gay controversy. --Nino Gonzales 08:38, 16 September 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Rewrote the Gay Section

I rewrote the gay section. Here are some data that I deleted. They sound interesting but don’t seem to be pertinent to the article. Many of them seem to try to explain the general view of homosexuality at the time of the writing of the novel. I think these details make the article unbalanced. The relationship between Charles and Sebastian is after all a minor theme. (But even with these deletions, it is still one of the longest sections of the article). Maybe these would be useful for an article on how homosexuality was viewed in the early 20th century in England.

  • Waugh's own brother Alec Waugh had caused considerable controversy by writing of homosexual conduct between English public school boys in in his autobiographical work The Loom of Youth
  • some later editions of the book (written between 1940 and 1943) published postwar excise passages making mention of eugenics or degeneracy as taboo in the wake of Hitler's Final Solution.
  • Lord Marchmain's character was based upon the Earl Beauchamp, who was outed as a homosexual to George VI by his cousin, the Duke of Westminster.
  • One theory that seems to find some degree of concurrence is that Sebastian is driven to drink at least in part by uncertainty regarding his sexuality and possibly (though this view is far less widely-agreed) out of despair at Charles' increasing attachment to his family, which indeed he specifically foreshadows early in the book.

I retained most of the original data. However, all of them do not have sources. To whoever wrote them: it would be great if you could cite your sources :) --Nino Gonzales 08:29, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

I really think the fact that "Lord Marchmain's character was based upon the Earl Beauchamp, & was outed as a homosexual to George VI by his cousin, the Duke of Westminster" should have stayed, and information on the novel being mentioned in cartoons and situation comedies on American television should go. Like Lord Marchmain, Earl Beauchamp (Who was the man about whom the King, horrified, said ("I thought men like that shot themselves) went into exile on the Continent. After Beauchamp's daughter Sibell Rowley died in October 2005, many things previously unsaid were at last uttered: this was the family that inspired Brideshead Revisited; the 3rd daugther was an alcoholic; the younger Dorothy had an unfortunate late marriage to Robert Heber "Mad Boy" Percy, former boyfriend of Lord Berners. The daughters were aware of their father's nocturnal prowlings, and would warn their boyfriends to lock their bedroom doors. Problems became more serious, involving incidents with footmen; the campaign mounted by the Duke of Westminster drove Beauchamp into exile.(Though it is not clear the Duke ever made his wife, the Earls sister, understand the actual problem: "Bendor says that Beauchamp is a bugler" [sic] , she once said.) - Nunh-huh 06:04, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

-- The gay section still is longer than any other. Sebastian's character is absent for much of the book, after all, noone has really written about Julia, Rex or Lord Brideshead yet.

-- What on earth is the problem with you people? It was a romantic friendship between men (rather intensely romantic, but still). It's very simple. It doesn't have any connection with sexual behaviour between men. —Ashley Y 10:36, August 13, 2005 (UTC)

-- Have just reduced the length of this section, which was rather poorly composed, without effecting the content. Agree with above that this is better contextualised in terms of early 20th Century British attitudes towards homosexuality, rather hope someone will do this. If not, I'll give it a go. VenusianCat 21:14, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

  • The passage "Others draw an alternative conclusion from the line "our naughtiness was high on the list of grave sins", although the "naughtiness" in question could refer to the boys' gluttony, not to mention the sloth and greed that characterize their carefree days, rather than homosexual acts per se." reminds me of a sentence in Agatha Christie's "Wittnes for the prosecution".

"What hypocrites you Englishmen are..." ;) Robert Prummel 12:11, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

By the way, the horrendous remark "I thought men like that shot themselves" is usually attributed to George V.Wasn't he King in 1931 when Beauchamp was driven into exile?

[edit] Featured article?

This is a pretty good little article. Well balanced, covers everything, not too long nor tooshort. Personally I think BR is rather like a pavlova - pretty and sweet and ultimately not very nutritious - but nevertheless let's recognise the merit of this addition to Wikidom.

[edit] Opening

I added a picture of the dust jacket, and a sentence or two to the opening about what Waugh felt the book was about. Going straight to information about the TV adaptation seems to overlook that it is primarily a novel. thewikiman

[edit] Sequel

I added a short section referencing the (truly terrible) unauthorised 2003 sequel. Do you agree that this is relevant to the article?Brideshead 18:55, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

It seems to be trivia... so I included it in the Trivia section...--Nino Gonzales 02:57, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Snobbery

The section header itself seems to be POV. Could anyone think of a header that captures what seems to be the nostalgia for England's age of nobility? It seems the Marchmain family represents the last of a dying breed.--Nino Gonzales 02:57, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Another instance of snobbery is wanting to suppress any mention of the influence of this on pop culture. Anton Mravcek 21:36, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
It absolutely is. This would be an entirely forgettable piece of British literature if it didn't have any references in American mythology. In fact, if this article went for deletion, I'd vote "Keep" only because of the pop culture references. ShutterBugTrekker 23:15, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
Mm, yes, quite. Cromulent Kwyjibo 23:54, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Separate article for TV programme?

Does anyone agree that Charle's Sturrage's TV adaptation of Brideshead Revisited deserves a seperate article of its own? I know it's widely considered one of the high watermarks of independent British TV and I personally think it would be good to have a more through article on it. I'd create one myself but unfortunately my capabilities on Wikipedia are somewhat limited, but if anyone agrees and could create the article I'd be happy to flesh it out.

[edit] Revised edition

What is the difference between the revised edition and the original? Njál 20:05, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikified the categories

I wikified the categories in the article. As of March 15 2007, they were broken. I'm not sure whether all of these categories should be retained, but I'll leave it to y'all to make a decision on that. Cheers! --82.207.201.138 17:00, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Just for completeness: In my edit, I also removed the following text which stood forlornly at the end of the article (after the links), without any proper purpose, as I feel.

Brideshead Revisited Brideshead Revisited Brideshead Revisited (boek) Gjensyn med Brideshead En förlorad värld

--82.207.201.138 17:22, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Plot summary

Hi:

I've never read the book, it's one of those titles I keep meaning to get around to. So, in a spare moment, I looked it up here and make the following suggestion about the plot summary: Can it please be re-written so that it makes a modicum of sense to someone who hasn't already read the book?

Thanks.

AG —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.157.181.30 (talk) 22:43, 7 April 2007 (UTC).


[edit] Cites, please

The section "Motifs and other points of interest" contains a great many uncited assertions. Without cites, these are merely the opinions of the editor(s), and don't belong in a Wikipedia article. -- 201.37.229.117 (talk) 17:06, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:BRIDESHEAD.jpg

Image:BRIDESHEAD.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot (talk) 04:31, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Use of possessive

Standard English uses one possessive when referring to one common thing shared by two possessors. "Robert and Mary's wedding." "Bill and Brian's friendship." "Joanna and Mary's apartment." It is at least confusing and unnecessary (and possibly incorrect) to say, on the other hand, "Robert's and Mary's wedding." (That is, unless you wanted to say something along the lines of -- "I have seen the throwing of rice at two weddings, Robert's [wedding] and Mary's wedding." That's why I am undoing the addition of an apostrophe in "Charles and Sebastian's relationship." theloavesandthevicious (talk) 23:02, 18 May 2008 (UTC)