Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Emily Dickinson

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 00:05, 22 February 2008.

[edit] Emily Dickinson

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Co-nominating with Roger Davies. This article has come a long way since November when I began working on it for the Core Contest. A delisted GA when I got my hands on it, it was re-listed on December 25 and reviewed by Awadewit, after which it received an early copy-edit and critique from Scartol (comments form both in talk page archive). Next it went through two separate peer reviews (archived here and here). Roger joined in during the Peer Review and together we polished it up to the state it is now. So, really, a lot of people helped me get to this point and I'm truly thankful. (I promised I wouldn't cry... < / Oscar speech >) Ahem, this is an article about a truly important figure; Dickinson is often heralded as one of the most important American poets. I believe it's comprehensive and well written, but perhaps I'm biased. :) All comments and suggestions are welcome, of course, and since there's two of us available on this FAC, all concerns should be addressed quickly. Thanks! María (habla conmigo) 17:15, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Support as co-nom, obviously. María (habla conmigo) 02:39, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Support as co-nominator --ROGER DAVIES talk 17:18, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Support Sumoeagle179 (talk) 22:14, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Support. Rock on, Maria and Roger. --Moni3 (talk) 23:49, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Support as someone who did some work on this once but is impressed with all the intense labor that has been devoted to it by other people since then. – Scartol • Tok 01:28, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Support. I was about two thirds through the biography when I realised I'd become so absorbed that my nitpick glasses had fallen off. That says a lot to me about how well written the article is. Congratulations to the editors.

  • Just one point: there were certain places where I felt the article overdid it. I thought there was too much on her family history: I was itching to cut to her. Three large, separate sections on "publication history", "posthumous publication" and "reception" seemed to me overkill. I also thought the "posies and poesie" section was not really about the poetry at all but was a displaced biographical strand, one that could perhaps be cut down to a couple of sentences. On the other hand, I would have preferred a little more on her style and themes, with the occasional specific short quotation to contextualise the analysis. qp10qp (talk) 02:43, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Hi, qp10qp, thanks for the kind words. :) This has definitely been a labor of love. In reply to your spot-on suggestions (the "Poetry" section was always the weakest point, I thought):
  • There's been a lot of flab cut out of the family history already, but every time something is removed, it looks better and better. Is there anything in particular that you feel is unnecessary? Please feel free to make a few snips yourself since you're doing a fine job of copy-editing already!
  • The "Posies and poesie" section can be trimmed, I agree. Roger and I have toyed with putting it in both the Biography and Poetry sections, but it looks out of place everywhere, it would seem. This is a question I'm throwing out to everyone, but if it was cut down to a couple of sentences like you suggest, which would be something we haven't tried yet, where would it go? Perhaps after mentioning her enjoyment of Botany in school?
  • And finally, I can play around with cutting down both the "Pub. his." and "Post. pub." sections; I guess it's just a matter of finding out what is important and what is expendable. The Blackmur quote can go, I think, because it really doesn't say anything new, and the same goes for some of the extra detail about the different collections published. There's just so much to say about ED, I want this article to be twice as long as it is!  :( María (habla conmigo) 03:12, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
  • I've renamed Publication history > Contemporary publication; and moved Posthumous publication to follow it directly. Both have been pruned. The Blackmur quote has been cut to within an inch of its life and now leaves a distinct impression rather than a blur. I cannot do much better on the major themes, I'm afraid. It's a very big subject and requires considerable explanation. Farr's round up of Dickinson themes, for example, identifies about twenty. A fuller discussion of major themes will take up a huge amount of space and requires considerably more scholarship than I can bring to it. We may have to wait until someone writes a Themes in the poems of Emily Dickinson article. --ROGER DAVIES talk 12:11, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
The changes are very helpfu;. The article is excellent, so I won't push the point about themes and style too much, but this seems to me the soft spot in so many Wikipedia literature articles. To explain what I'm getting at: at the end of this article, one hasn't really found out what was special about her poetry, why she is one of America's greatest poets. One has read a great deal of commentary about secondary aspects of her work—publication history, critical history, legacy—but about her work itself we have been told little beyond its eccentricities of layout, the fact that some was sentimental and conventional, some was mock-valentine, most was about flowers, and her main theme was life and death. At the end of the article, one of course wants to go and read some poems, which I did: unfortunately, I did not have any guidance about what her most significant poems were, so I had to go lucky dip at Wikisource. None of the poems I read were anything special—perhaps they were just jottings (there is no critical matter there)—nor were any of them about life and death, flowers, or valentines. It would be the same delving randomly into, say, Blake. I appreciate that addressing themes and style is daunting; but there are some short cuts. For example, one can look at the introductions to collections of her work, where the editors would be obliged to sum up her significance concisely. qp10qp (talk) 17:03, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm very glad you think the article is excellent. :) It's worrying to think that Dickinson's place in American poetry isn't explicitly stated; what I think makes it difficult, in least when trying to find the middle ground between explaining it fully, going overboard, or being too vague, is that Dickinson's legacy lies in her oddness. Not only her personal eccentricities, but the eccentricities of her poetry. With other authors it may be possible to explain how influential they ultimately became, but in the case of Dickinson, this isn't exactly the case; she didn't start a fad or influence a new kind of poetry. The collections and volumes I have read greatly explain this factor, and I've tried to touch on it -- any suggestions would be much appreciated to drive this point home. As for her significant poems, it's difficult to mention a handful of them when there is nearly 1800, but the article does name a few of the most popular: "Because I could not stop for Death", "I heard a fly buzz when I died", and "Success is counted sweetest" are a few I know it mentions off the top of my head. Are you suggesting that there be a list or something similar? María (habla conmigo) 19:52, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
No. I'm suggesting some evidence for style and themes based on the text of specific poems. This is difficult, I know, but I believe it is do-able, and useful. But, no matter. qp10qp (talk) 01:15, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Query, why are websources formatted in a way that doesn't list publishers? Please include publishers on sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:41, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Revisit WP:PUNC ? Austin wrote in his diary for the day: "The day was awful. She ceased to breathe that terrible breathing just before the [afternoon] whistle sounded for six".[100] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:58, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Reformatted cites to include unambiguous refs to publishers. Revisited that awful day to fix punctuation. --ROGER DAVIES talk 07:21, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Support A few issues:
  • I think the dates in the first image caption are off by one year: Amherst says Dec 1846-Mar 1847 [1].
  • "Until, in 1855, she visited her father in Washington during his tenure as Representative from the Tenth Congressional District of Massachusetts, Emily had not strayed far from Amherst." - It's really hard to get through the lengthy opening phrase to the meat of the sentence.
  • "illnesses that effectively kept her bedridden until her death" - I think 'effectively bedridden' would be better than 'effectively kept her' as the latter is open to misinterpretation.
  • "her "coffin [was] not driven but carried through fields of buttercups" for burial in the family plot at West Cemetery on Triangle Street, where it still lies." - This almost reads as though she wasn't buried! Perhaps drop 'where it still lies'?
I fixed just a few minor punctuation/grammar issues. Very well done! Maralia (talk) 05:04, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
I've recast the "Washington" paragraph and the "bedridden" sentence for flow, and lopped "where it still lies". And fixed the caption dates. Thanks for the CE and kind words. --ROGER DAVIES talk 06:44, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Support

Is there an article as Fine as yours?
That uses the Word — Antimacassars?

Really brilliantly done. Regarding above I would vote for "Posies and poesie" after "The woman in white". I agree it's a bit awkward anywhere, but it seems a better fit in the biography section to me. The length seems just perfect and the poetry boxes add a delirious whirl of fun to the article. Possibly worth noting outside external links that Wikisource contains her complete works at s:Author:Emily Dickinson? Would hate for someone not to know of this resource. --JayHenry (talk) 06:30, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Thank you. I followed your advice on both of the above. --ROGER DAVIES talk 07:27, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Yay! Great idea, Jay; I much prefer the "Posies" section in the biography. María (habla conmigo) 13:12, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
They are now :) --ROGER DAVIES talk 10:59, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Comments: Overall, nice job, but a few minor points:
  • In "Family and early childhood", I don't really like the quoted description of the house as "forbidding"—to me that's a strange way to describe a building. Are there any other adjectives that the minister used that might be better?
  • From Habegger (p. 129): "...the second-floor rear windows looked down on Amherst's burial ground, described by a local minister as treeless, 'forbidding', and 'repulsive'." I believe I prefer "forbidding" over "repulsive". :) María (habla conmigo) 23:05, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Hmm... I understand what he's trying to say, but I just can't see how a building can be "forbidding". Forbidding me to do what? Foreboding I can see, repulsive I can see... but forbidding? Eh, probably one of those modernist uses of adjectives =). --Spangineerws (háblame) 03:36, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Heh, I think you're right. :) María (habla conmigo) 13:15, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Use the serial comma or don't—I see "taking classes in English and classical literature, Latin, botany, geology, history, 'mental philosophy' and arithmetic" and "tutor, preceptor, or master"
  • I've removed the serial comma you referred to; if there are any others, please feel free to fix. María (habla conmigo) 23:05, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
  • I'd prefer to see the unspaced mdash used throughout for non-poetic separation of clauses, rather than seeing the spaced ndash in some quotations. Not a major issue though.
  • Hmm... really? I don't have my manual handy, but I'm certain Chicago expressly prohibits modifying punctuation in quotations (including dashes) even if the quoted material is a different style than what you're using. Does MLA or (gak) MOS say something different? --JayHenry (talk) 22:33, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
  • I'll check my copy of CMS; you're probably right. I tend to prefer consistency more than most, but like I said, not a big deal (so long as all non-quote dashes are mdashes, which I believe they are) --Spangineerws (háblame) 03:36, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Are you referring to Dickinson's quotes, such as quotations from her letters? I'm afraid preference must be put aside for how Dickinson is commonly cited. All contemporary scholars and major biographers (including my two major sources, Sewall and Habegger) punctuate her letters like her poetry; with en-dashes. María (habla conmigo) 23:05, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Inconsistency—in "Adulthood and seclusion", I read "The first half of the 1860s, after she had largely withdrawn from social life and rarely left the Homestead" but then in "The woman in white" I see that "Dickinson's behavior began to change. She did not leave the Homestead unless it was absolutely necessary". Not much of a change there, right?
  • Rarely leaving and not leaving unless it can be avoided is not the same thing, surely? María (habla conmigo) 23:05, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
  • It sounds quite similar to me; if there is a difference, to me it isn't worth drawing attention to this as a "change" with the phrase "Dickinson's behavior began to change". --Spangineerws (háblame) 03:36, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Fair enough; to make the change in behavior more evident, I removed the first instance of "and rarely left the Homestead" in the "Adulthood" section.
  • The first sentence of "Decline and death" should be modified. "For some reason" is a useless; it gives the reader no additional information. Also, when did she stop editing her poems? Had he done this regularly before? In the second sentence, why did she want her sister to burn her papers?
  • "For some reason" is there because it is not known why she stopped editing her poems, so that answers your first question. It's also not known why she asked Vinnie to burn her papers, but presumably it's because she did not want people reading her personal correspondence after her death -- ah, well. :) María (habla conmigo) 23:05, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
  • If "for some reason" wasn't there, the reader would assume that this is not known or not important. With "for some reason", the author is loudly emphasizing that this is not known (is that necessary?). Not a big deal though. Do we know how extensively she edited her poems before this and when she stopped? This would be interesting information to include. --Spangineerws (háblame) 03:36, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
  • I'll wait for Roger to weigh in on the "for some reason" since he's the one that advocated its use, if you don't mind. In the "Adulthood and seclusion" section, it states that "Emily began in the summer of 1858 what would be her lasting legacy. Reviewing poems she had written previously, she began making clean copies of her work, assembling carefully pieced-together manuscript books.[53] The forty fascicles she created from 1858 through 1865 eventually held nearly eight hundred poems." That provides an amount completed (eight hundred poems, forty books) and approximately when she slowed down and eventually stopped. María (habla conmigo) 13:15, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Gone. It seemed like a good idea at the time :) --ROGER DAVIES talk 13:39, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
  • "In 1983's first collection of critical essays..." Um, is the year that important? Were multiple collections being published every year by the same publisher? How do you know that there wasn't a largely unknown collection published that year but before that one? Just give the title of the anthology and tell us who said what.
  • I know that there wasn't a largely unknown collection published before the one cited because in the introduction, which is cited, it says as much. The title of the book is redundant, I feel, but I removed the year because I agree it's not truly necessary. María (habla conmigo) 23:05, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
I hope these comments help. Let me know if I need to clarify anything. --Spangineerws (háblame) 22:04, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments and suggestions! María (habla conmigo) 23:05, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Support Comments This is really a very good article and I'm so glad that Maria and Roger have taken it upon themselves to work so very hard on it. Writing about iconic literary figures is anything but easy. :) However, I agree with Qp that the article lacks a bit in the "Poetry" section and considering that Dickinson is remembered for being a poet, I think we should try and spruce up that section a bit. A slight expansion of the "Style and themes" section and a slight revision of the publication material would easily effect this. The publication material is repeated several times in the article - it only needs to be there once. Making "Publication" its own section with two subsections - "Contemporary" and "Posthumous" - and adding a little introduction to prepare the reader for what is to come would also help readers unfamiliar with the material. Here are some questions to help the expansion and refinement:
  • When "A narrow Fellow in the Grass" was published (as "The Snake") not only without her permission, but with punctuation separating the third and fourth lines, Dickinson complained the meaning of the entire poem had been altered. - How was the meaning changed?
  • A narrow Fellow in the Grass / Occasionally rides - / You may have met Him - did you not / His notice sudden is - You tell me. :) I don't know if it needs more explanation, but the fact that she was upset by the alteration is noteworthy, I thought. María (habla conmigo) 18:20, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
  • I would find some scholars who have explained the differences in meaning and use their explanation. Yes, the alteration is noteworthy, but we should try to explain just how and why it is noteworthy to readers. I don't think this will be difficult - and remember that readers are not always as (ahem) quick as we might want them to be. Awadewit | talk 19:20, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
  • The extensive use of dashes and unconventional capitalization in her manuscripts, and the idiosyncratic vocabulary and imagery, combine to create a unique lyric style. - I think this has to be shown, because after the advent of modernist poetry, what was unconventional then might not appear so unconventional now.
  • Perhaps I could add another poem (blue box style) in this section? Maybe even the often quoted "Because I could not stop for Death", using that as an example? María (habla conmigo) 18:20, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
  • That is an excellent choice for an example, but I don't think it should be in a blue box. I think it should be in the text proper, surrounded by explication. Awadewit | talk 19:20, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Dickinson's poetry also frequently utilizes humor, puns, irony and satire - Again, I think examples of the humor, puns, irony, or satire need to be offered. Perhaps two of the four?
  • Dickinson left no formal statement of her aesthetic intentions, and her work is placed in various genres, including American Puritanism, English Romanticism, and American modernism. - Very large statement - why are her works placed in these movements - these are very different movements!
  • Trust me, I know. The idea is that she doesn't fit into any one category, but she's often stuck into different ones by different people because of one theme or one technique. That's why there's some explanation of common themes and unconventional poetic techniques, to illustrate without listing examples one by one: because a lot of her poetry has to do with religion, she is often thought of as a religious poet; because a lot of her poetry has to do with love, she is often thought of as a Romantic poet... etc. But the main idea is that she isn't any of these. María (habla conmigo) 18:20, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
  • The inability of scholars to agree on a categorization for Dickinson needs to be made clearer. How about laying out some of the arguments in more detail? How about starting out by saying that scholars disagree on where to place her and offer three major arguments (or whatever) and then explain those briefly. Awadewit | talk 19:20, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Critics remark on her nature and philosophy themes, including numerous references to bees and flowers, and sometimes see her as a Transcendentalist. - What does she about nature and philosophy? Those are huge topics. You might also explain transcendentalist if it is really crucial to this article. You don't want readers to have to click on that.
  • On sources - some quick questions on websources:
  • This appears to be a self-published website. Perhaps I'm wrong?
  • You're right; this was linked to me by someone during PR. I'll see if I can find a replacement. María (habla conmigo) 18:20, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
  • This does not actually say that the school was named after the poet Emily Dickinson - does it say that somewhere else on the website?
  • No, I don't think it does; I probably just thought it was obvious. María (habla conmigo) 18:20, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
  • I know it seems obvious, but what if there was someone else named Emily Dickinson? You know that old saying about "assuming". :) Surely there must be another school that actually does list Dickinson as its namesake? Awadewit | talk 19:20, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Gotcha; I've Googled, but I wasn't able to find any other example, so I just removed the NYC school as an example. The remaining school can stand on its own until another presents itself. María (habla conmigo) 13:44, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

This was a very enjoyable article to read and was very well-written. Like others, I found myself drawn into the story of Emily - a testament to the article's brilliant prose and narrative structure. Awadewit | talk 18:03, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

  • Thank you. I've think I've addressed everything. It was much easier to undertake major surgery than to tweak stuff. --ROGER DAVIES talk 14:27, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
  • This is a dramatic improvement! What wonderful work you two do! The only thing I would recommend as an addition would be a "roadmap" or a partitio forecasting the main points of the publication section. Awadewit | talk 15:27, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.