Talk:Eureka: A Prose Poem

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Eureka: A Prose Poem article.
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Good article Eureka: A Prose Poem has been listed as one of the Language and literature good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.
An entry from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on November 18, 2007.

Eureka: A Prose Poem is part of WikiProject Poetry, a WikiProject related to Poetry.
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Contents

[edit] Expanding

I've (clearly) been expanding this article like crazy in the last couple days. If anyone else is watching this article or happens to come across it, there are a couple parts that definitely need expansion if a hand can be lent. First, further information that Eureka has been considered an indication of Poe's declining mental health. Also, more positive reactions (I know there are more out there) to balance out all the negative. If anyone has a scan of an early printing, that would be a great addition too! Other than that, I'm fairly pleased with this article on one of Poe's most important yet obscure works! I may even nominate it for Good Article! --Midnightdreary (talk) 00:57, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rename?

Granted, this work has a bunch of different titles... but the most common one I've seen is "Eureka: A Prose Poem". Should we consider renaming the article to that, rather than the cumbersome "Eureka (Edgar Allan Poe)"? Just a thought. --Midnightdreary 14:39, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA Review

Hi, I'm reviewing this article under the Good Article criteria. I have to read it first so don't expect a written response for one or two days. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 18:43, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, this was easy. This meets Wikipedia:What is a good article?. My only question involves the sentence: "This lecture has alternatively been dated as February 9." Perhaps some text on why the date isn't known exactly and which date is prefered by concensus? The article is sourced. The text reads well. This article follows the conventions of literary analysis far more than so much of what appears on Wikipedia that it is refreshing to see. GA Pass. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 20:04, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the GA pass! It's such an odd piece in the story of Poe's life, it seemed worth the focus (plus it gets vandalized the least of all of Poe's works here on Wikipedia...). I feel good about this one, but I think you're right on the odd date situation. I'll see what more modern research concludes and go with one date (or, if nothing else, just leave it as an ambiguous "February 1848"). --Midnightdreary (talk) 21:35, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Sometimes ambiquity hides a lot of sins :-) Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 21:46, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
I went ahead and removed that alternative date entirely. It certainly confused the issue. Several sources I have give the date that is currently in the article. I attribute the "alternative date" as a fluke or hearsay (that source, Thomas Holley Chivers, was probably writing from memory or recording from anecdotes from others). --Midnightdreary (talk) 01:07, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reverted good faith edits

Sorry to make such a massive revert on, presumably, good faith edits. Here's my reasoning: some of the sourced material was changed, some of the sourced material was removed, no edit summaries justified it. New information was added, possibly from a reputable source, but too many weasel words and original research diluted the quality of this Good Article (i.e. "the work itself clearly shows that Poe was serious" = obviously unencyclopedic and original research). Considering the rampant vandalism that Poe articles receive, I'm cautious about monitoring them... Using edit summaries would have helped! My feeling is that the new source found would be good to further expand the science discussion, but not the literary discussion (as it comes from a science journal, it appears). One source, however, should not overthrow scholarly consensus. I hope I'm explaining my reasoning well and not coming across as overly harsh. --Midnightdreary (talk) 12:13, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I am the author of the good faith edits. Sorry, I fully understand the reasons of your massive revert. Now I have just made a minor correction and added two references (it's my work, but I assure you it is reputable). I will try to expand the scientific part according to the Good Article directives in the next future... let me simply point out that I respect scholarly consensus: for this reason I eliminated the claim that Poe anticipated black holes. My corrections concerning non scientific questions, such as the mental health of Poe, were based, among other sources, on the autoritative biography written by Quinn. I understand the need to find a balance, but not all literary critics must be necessarily given the same weight (for example, the Freudian interpretation of Eureka by Marie Bonaparte -not mentioned in the article- appears to me complete nonsense). Anyway, I invite you to read my paper (you can retrieve the pdf version at the NASA site http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1994QJRAS..35..177C), so you can judge by yourself what I mean and what were my aims. Alcap (talk) 13:29, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
Fair enough. I agree on Bonaparte; I usually ignore her completely (though a quick mention might be necessary?). Daniel Hoffman's book discusses Eureka at length but I find most of what he says useless here. I think the scientific discussion here is weak so we can definitely build on it. The mental health of Poe question could also be discussed further. Thanks for taking a look though, and I hope I didn't put you off from further helping build this article... Eureka is sort of a forgotten work of Poe's but a colleague of mine swears it is the "key" to understand his life and his fiction... Go figure! --Midnightdreary (talk) 13:36, 28 March 2008 (UTC)