Talk:Madeleine L'Engle

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of the following WikiProjects:


"It is sometimes ambiguous whether Meg ... has also acquired her Ph.D."

Odd statement. Are there other times when it's unambiguously stated one way or the other? --wwoods 06:47, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure L'Engle has it each way at least once, and I don't think it was clearly just a case of before she didn't, now she does. But the sentence does look weird, and I'm not averse to removing or replacing it. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 20:12, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Picture

I switched out the picture on this page. The one that was previously here wasn't tagged, and may be deleted. I went and found a publicity picture used on her page at WaterBrook Press. If the first picture doesn't get deleted, it's the better one, and should probably be incorporated into the article. -Tim Rhymeless (Er...let's shimmy) 06:17, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Meaning?

"The questions that she raises engage the thoughtful reader." What exactly does that mean? Oswald Glinkmeyer 00:08, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, whatever it means, it's original research, unless that sentence and the sentence before it are rephrased as "Though her work all addresses issues of faith, critics and reviewers have noted that her work is more about raising questions of belief and faith than about promoting dogma. Citation". I'll delete it, and someone can restore it if they feel like finding a supporting source. Deborah-jl Talk 00:28, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
My initial impression is that the sentence is what used to be called a "throwaway sentence." In this case a sentence that can generally be said about most decent writing. Without making a connection either to some outside source or being better woven into the thread, it doesn't really have much meaning and does not add to the information in the article. Sort of like saying in a Shakespeare entry, "His plays are interesting for those who watch them." That may be true, but what does it add to the article? Not much. Deletion is the best route until it can be re-thought. Oswald Glinkmeyer 02:57, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] biography source

That's some good bio information that's been added. Is there a reference we can cite for it? Deborah-jl Talk 13:17, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

That's in the bibliography and external links. Do you want individual citations? I checked my facts in A Circle of Quiet, Suncatcher, a web page about Wrinkle (last citation in the external links) and First Words (but ended up finding the same facts in A Circle of Quiet). A few of the recent facts (e.g. Bion's death) I checked in my own L'Engle site, but these in turn came from the official site, the 2004 New Yorker article, a few emails from people in contact with L'Engle, and the Bonastra discussion archive. I can probably backtrack these if necessary.

On the Meg's doctorate issue - I've been meaning to look into this, but off the top of my head I think that remark about not bothering with the degree is in The Arm of the Starfish, while the reference to having the PhD is in one of the later Polly O'Keefe books. Meg could well have gone back to school in the interrim. In fact, Meg's midlife crisis was to be the subject of the novel L'Engle was working on in the late 1990s, The Eye Begins to See. I wish she could finish that.

Karen 16:17, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Christian beliefs" reference

I note with some concern a recent edit to the intro, removing a reference to Christian beliefs in L'Engle's work. Is there a good reason not to revert on this? Although L'Engle has disputed the label "Christian writer," it seems disingenuous to ignore this aspect of both her fiction and nonfiction. On the other hand, the fiction isn't all that obvious about this--well, maybe. Has anybody a good argument one way or the other?

Karen 08:57, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Heritage?

Anyone know?

The name L'Engle comes from a maternal great-grandmother, who was born Madeleine Saunders in Charleston, S.C., and spent part of her childhood in Spain while her father was ambassador there. She married "a young army surgeon," William Johnson L'Engle. The surname is French, but ML'E's maternal forbears seem to all be old Southern families. (This is all from her book The Summer of the Great-Grandmother, ISBN 0-06-254506-X.) I don't recall reading anything about the Camp side of the family. Most of L'Engle's work reflects her years in New York, Europe, South Carolina, Connecticut and Florida, and stories of ancestors in those same places. Karen | Talk | contribs 00:15, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I made the French assumption by the last name, though it appears that portion of her ancestry is not very large.

I would assume her French ancestry is Huguenot? There are several Huguenot/Southern characters in her books.

[edit] Spin off article on characters

The long section about her characters is important, but should be its own article. They are distinct from her, and if we are going to go on about them to this degree, they need their own page so as to stop dominating an article that is supposed to be about L'Engle herself.

I'd do it myself if I were sure of the appropriate way to title it. We need to find a parallel case, perhaps discussing it under the rubric of Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels. J. K. Rowling came to mind, and it's true that there is no parallel section on her page discussing all the HP characters ... on the other hand, they all appear in a single book series, which makes for a clear title. The same is true for the case of C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia. Anne McCaffrey is probably the closest case I can think of, and no one has done this yet for her characters, either ... Lawikitejana 06:32, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I think this is probably a good idea. I haven't seen this in authors' pages, but there are certainly parallels for tv series articles. I anticipate that many of these characters will eventually have articles of their own, but not necessarily all of them. Yes, by all means, bring it up in WP Novels and we'lltake it from there. Karen | Talk | contribs 09:24, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Someone started them... ''[[User:Kitia|Kitia]] 01:21, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, so far the four Murry children and Polly O'Keefe are covered - I did much of the work on them. There should be articles about at least four more - Vicky Austin, Canon Tallis, Zachary Gray and Adam Eddington. I think the question, though, is whether the short descriptions of each character currently on this author's article need to be spun off into an overview article called Major Characters in Books by Madeleine L'Engle or somesuch, to shorten the portion of the main article that isn't directly about the author herself. Alternatively, there could be a simple list here, e.g.
...in which the catch-all article would cover one-off and two-book protagonists such as Phillipa Hunter and Katherine Forrester Vigneras.
Or we could just leave it alone, perhaps shortening descriptions of characters who have articles. Karen | Talk | contribs 03:41, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
I'll try to start those articles, once I read the "Austins" and "Polly O'Keefe" books. Anyway, I'd have to read the L'Engle books that I haven't read and re-read the ones I did for me to come up with a complete list. However, judging that you read the books, you and others could be of assistance. ''[[User:Kitia|Kitia]] 23:58, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] References

I'm going to add inline cites now in response to someone's request, but I warn you now that it's going to look ridiculous. Every sentence in the bio sections can be tied to A Circle of Quiet, Suncatcher, various online bios or, in most cases, all of the above. Do I sprinkle little ref numbers at the end of each sentence? Each paragraph? Do I list pages 2, 5, 17-36, 151, 153, 155, 201 and 237 (for example), or just the whole book? The thing is, all this has been mentioned many times in L'Engle's own writing, and in writings about her. I will do my best to make it work, but I welcome others to come along and make it work better. -- Karen | Talk | contribs 08:30, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Madeleine L'Engle.jpg

Image:Madeleine L'Engle.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.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 14:54, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bibliographic Overview

There is an incorrect statement in this section:

often implied and occasionally explicit in L'Engle's works is that the phenomena that people call religion, science and magic are simply different aspects of a single seamless reality; a similar theme may arguably be discerned in the fiction works of C. S. Lewis...

I am certain the C. S. Lewis did not believe this. I don't see how anyone could make this mistake about him! I feel that this should be corrected but I have never edited an article before. This may be the first.