Wikipedia:Featured article review/William Butler Yeats/archive1

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

The article was kept 10:49, 17 July 2007.

[edit] William Butler Yeats

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at User talk:Filiocht, Biography, Arts and entertainment, Astrology, Irish literature, Poetry and Ireland. LuciferMorgan 13:14, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

This page is messy, the "Popular References" being a particular eyesore. A random jumble of every Yeats reference under the sun does not make it encyclopedic. --Peripatetic 09:04, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

• The WP:LEAD needs attention, mixed reference styles, I fixed one WP:DASH that I saw (there may be others), and I noticed a minor ce need — Other early collections include Poems (1895)., The Secret Rose (1897) and The Wind Among the Reeds (1899) — indicating perhaps the article hasn't been reviewed or tuned up for a while. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:41, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
• Good photo, but the photographer should be credited if at all possible. (From which book was it swiped?) The rest of the thing on the top right is a joke. The absolute height of presumably unintended humor is: "Occupation: Poet" -- Gee, and till I read that I'd thought he was a fishmonger! Cute little flag for the Netherlands whoops no I read it sideways France, cute little flag for India or South Africa or somewhere: it all helps to make this article appear to have the relationship to a real encyclopedia article that USA Today has to a real newspaper. Luckily the rest of the article seems to be unaffected by this moronic tendency; though yes, all the stuff about pop songs and so forth could easily be cut. -- Hoary 14:06, 21 May 2007 (UTC) [dreadful prose edited 10:00, 22 May 2007 (UTC)]
  • Update: Some kind person (not me) has zapped the silliness and pointless duplication of the "infobox" and removed the section about name-dropping in pop music, etc. Fine. -- Hoary 10:02, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
    • It looks very elegant without the userbox—much the best style, I always think. But in my experience, it will be impossible to keep the userbox from returning: they spring out of the ground like dragons' teeth who feel impelled to act upon finding an article without one of those monstrosities. qp10qp 13:44, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
• Comment: Lots of progress by a number of editors since nom. A lot has been written about Yeats, to put it mildly, and the article is easy to cite; though the text is uneven in places and needs to be expanded. A thorough copy edit is also required. Ceoil 22:03, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

*Just to note, the photograph at the top has incorrect copyright information, claiming it is a pre-1923 picture and then clearly stating it was taken in 1933 at its page. It may well actually be public domain, but not with that tag.--Jackyd101 14:34, 26 May 2007 (UTC) I appear to have misread the copyright tag, sorry.--Jackyd101 16:13, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Status: let's leave this one up here a little while as well. Marskell 08:20, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

• Comments Ceoil asked me to offer some suggestions on how to improve this page. Here they are.

Lead:

• In general, I felt that the lead did not summarize Yeats' life. More specifically on the lead:

• First paragraph of lead should give a better idea of his importance. I am not sure why the genealogy is necessary there.
• The second paragraph of the lead seems too detailed; it also does not provide motivations. I would generalize more here.
• The last sentence of the lead left me hanging.
• Could you name some of his most famous works in the lead?

Small points of clarification:

• In the "Early life" section, it is not clear what family is moving to England - is it the extended family or the Yeats family?
• Even before he began to write poetry, Yeats had come to associate poetry with religious ideas and sentiments. - Do we have any idea why? This statement just begs for an explanation.
• It is based on the lyrics of the Fenian Cycle of Irish mythology and further shows the influence of both Ferguson and the Pre-Raphaelites. - No mention of Ferguson up until this point, so it can't be a "further" influence for him.
• The poem took two years to complete and introduces what was to become one of his most important themes: the appeal of the life of contemplation vs. the appeal of the life of action. - not clear - which one is to be preferred?
• His other early poems are meditations on the themes of love or mystical and esoteric subjects - "mystical and esoteric subjects" such as?

Organization and content:

• In his early work, Yeats's aristocratic pose led to an idealisation of the Irish peasant and a willingness to ignore poverty and suffering. - This sentence begins the "Later life" section, but nowhere is such a topic addressed when discussing his early poems.
• The third and fourth paragraphs of "Later life" need to be reorganized for coherence - a clear topic sentence and a clear through-line to help the reader would be appreciated.
• I think that the "Mysticism" section can easily be broken up and inserted into the biography section - it is broken down by date pretty clearly. Also, there was a moment when the biography said that Yeats knew someone through occult circles - that is unclear unless you know he was part of that subculture.
• The first paragraph of "Modernism" I would also insert into the biography where it belongs date-wise.
• The last paragraph of the "Modernism" section I would ideally put in a section entitled "Poetic style" that discussed his writings, but there is very little information for such a section in the article. You should therefore either create such a section and add a great deal more material or integrate it into the biography. I would place it around the "Nobel" section, perhaps?
• It would seem that a "Legacy" section is missing as is any detailed analysis of his writing based on the work of literary critics. I think that the "Works" section was trying to be a "Literary analysis" section but instead got bogged down in biographical detail. Creating such a section would take a huge amount of work, unless the editors already know something about the subject matter, though, since (as has been pointed out), there is so much written on Yeats.
• Some more quotations from his poetry would probably not be amiss. Awadewit | talk 18:19, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanked Awadewit on her talk; much to work with here. Ceoil 21:29, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Comment. A lot has been done here. Just moving it down because it's been four weeks. Let us know when you're satisfied Ceoil. Marskell 08:31, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

• Comment The "Poetic style" section is riddled with original research and needs proper verification. For example;

1. "Yeats is generally considered to be one of the twentieth century's key English-language poets" - By what literary critics? What have these critics said? Also, what critics have went against this and criticised Yeats' poetic style?
2. "The impact of modernism on Yeats's work can be seen in the increasing abandonment of the more conventionally poetic diction of his early work in favour of the more austere language and more direct approach to his themes that increasingly characterises the poetry and plays of his middle period, comprising the volumes In the Seven Woods, Responsibilities and The Green Helmet." - That's a mouthful to say, so needs cutting into two sentences. The above is all opinion, so needs attribution to whichever critics hold that opinion.
3. "Yet, unlike most modernists who experimented with free verse, Yeats was a master of the traditional verse forms." - An opinion, same as above, which needs attribution to the critics which hold this opinion.

Thanks for your time. LuciferMorgan 01:16, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree Lucifer, this was always going to be the most difficult section; I'm leaving it to last. Ceoil 22:13, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Cool - it's only a minor concern anyway, and I don't intend to register a vote on this specific FAR. LuciferMorgan 08:36, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Update: I'm as far as 1914. It will take another two weeks to finish. Ceoil 16:32, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Update: Bio finished. "Poetic style" to be expanded, and a general copy edit. 1 more week?. Ceoil 21:31, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I had a look to help you with the refs, but found a named ref Foster294 pointing at page 293, so decided not to mess around in there :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:08, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Mmm. Need to do a ref audit before I sign off. Ceoil 21:22, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I have a past filled with unfilled promises to finish by last thursday. While I am happy now with the bio section, the critical analysis and legacy sections are still absent. I've been researching these for a while now, but I'm not finished reading up, and it will be another week befoe I can sign off on a synthesist I am happy with. Ceoil 02:43, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

• This looks like a keep; well done Ceoil, and keep going! Tony 15:40, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

• Looks ok - only thing I would say is to change "Influence on popular culture" into paragraphs instead of the lists currently used. LuciferMorgan 17:09, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

One of the first things I did was spint that out, but it came back today. Its gone again now, and somebody has nom'd it for deletion.[1]. Ceoil 18:13, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.