Talk:Restoration literature

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Featured article star Restoration literature is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do.
Main Page trophy This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on January 18, 2007.
Peer review This Langlit article has been selected for Version 0.5 and subsequent release versions of Wikipedia. It has been rated FA-Class on the assessment scale (comments).


Reader notes and caveats:

  1. Please note that this article is part of an ambitious project related to English literature. That article contains brief summaries of each of the classic literary periods, a structure mirrored in most university classrooms and older encyclopedia, and this project is attempting to have a full length article on each "period" of English literature. This article is the first to be completed, but Augustan literature is underway all but finished now.
  2. Also, please note that the article is an overview of two generations of literature and seeks to include all of the figures who affected the development of literature during this period. Some of the figures have left very few traces behind, and yet we know that they affected the other authors. Therefore, there are going to be redlinked names at this time. This cannot be helped by the present authors. If no one has yet had much to say about the career of Elkannah Settle, that does not change the fact that his plays goaded Dryden to make more lavish productions or that Alexander Pope would see him as the perfect example of a subordinated and tamed poet in The Dunciad in 1727. As a fact or event, Elkannah Settle is fully explained here. As a person, he is not. It would be intellectually dishonest to not refer to him because there is no Wikipedia article on him, and it would be useless for those with only knowledge of his effects on Restoration literature to write a biographical article composed only of that. Geogre 16:28, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Explanation of the rollback

I would like to explain why I thought it worth leaving the year links in. First, I understand why some think they're low yield. I think they can be very low yield, too, but there are several reasons why I think they should stay, here:

  1. As an overview article, this article is supposed to spot trends and sketch movements. Therefore, all links to more precise information are additive. In the case of an article that is bounded by a year or two, linking dates is probably of zero yield. On the other hand, any article that attempts to talk about time in a big chunk should profit from links to years.
  2. Although folks have been extremely slow to do it, the year links are supposed to give people overviews of everything that happened in that year. Some years have more information, some less. However, the Restoration and Augustan years are fair. I would like for readers to be able to spot a coincidence I didn't discuss by surveying a year and come back to fix this article, if needed. E.g. if I am linking to 1749, and I'm talking about a play, I hope that a reader might notice Pamela being published in the same year. It might mean something. Thus, we should hope for more information and not determine in advance that there is no use in the link.
  3. It's practice. Unfortunately, it's how things are done in other articles, and so we kind of need to follow through and not try to rewrite custom now.

I know that a "rollback" is brusque, so I apologize for that, but I wanted to explain why I put the links back in. Geogre 21:34, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Lead picture

Bishonen has solved the problem very well. The current lead painting is exactly what we need. There aren't any awed courtiers or scrofula patients being cured by his touch, but that's sure a regal Charles II up there now. Thanks ever and again, Bishonen. Geogre 00:24, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Center?

"...homogeneous styles of literature that center on..."

Why does an article about English restoration literature not use the British spelling of centre? 210.237.151.1 00:18, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Presumably it was written by a North American. Feel free to change it, the only rule on this is that spelling conventions should be consistent across an article. Vranak
Indeed. It's very hard to be consistent across an article, if one goes away from one's own learning. I can spell "British," if I choose, but I'm sure I'd slip up and forget that British linguists proposed every one of Noah Webster's orthographical reforms...until he made them... and then decided that they were all vulgar. I suggest that the same would be true of a person who is accustomed to British spellings and wanted to change things. It's best to realize that we can all read each others' spellings and go about our business. Geogre 21:18, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A literature that can see

There are two sentences in the introduction that begin, "It saw...". Surely we can find a better idiom than this pretentious rubbish? It is fine in articles that do not have "compelling prose", for we expect much less, but in a featured article it is dreadful. Rintrah 04:39, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Your input is appreciated. The rheotrical device is known as parallelism. Still, I'm sorry you couldn't perceive it, but your horror is not very moving. Geogre 21:16, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
I am well aware of parellelism, but not aware of the value of "It saw". I should expect its ugliness would make writers forgo its usage. Rintrah 04:47, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
The thing was large. It was so large that this. It was so large that this. I.e. you can be upset at the personification of "saw," if you want, but to call it "pretentious rubbish" and then expect a polite answer beggars imagination. The structure is rhetorically sound, and the article is on Restoration literature. However, I shouldn't let that stop you from complaining, if that's what gives you joy. Geogre 21:48, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] No numbered citations!!!

An FA and a main page article and not following numbered citations conventions!?! How come? Shushruth \talk page \ contribs 07:34, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

My thoughts also. Just when you think you have Wikipedia figured out, everything you know gets turned 180. Quadzilla99 08:13, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
Incredible!!!!! 203.101.61.10 11:11, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

As long as a work is referenced, I don't think it matters whether it sports inline citations or not; here we have a list of references and indications at various points within the text of the sources of information. The article aims well; lets not be too sullen about it.

On the other hand, specific citations would make it easier to assess the article's terms of reference. For example, you wouldn't know from this article that there are two schools of thought on whether George Farquhar counts as a Restoration dramatist or not. In my opinion, having seen Restoration plays from The Man of Mode to The Beaux's Stratagem and The Recruiting Officer, Farquhar represents the apotheosis of the form. I assume that the references used here regard him as a post-Restoration playwright. For me, Restoration drama ends in 1707.

It's a fine article, though, and surely shouldn't be knocked for having its shirt buttons foppishly undone. Quite clearly, the buttons are all there. qp10qp 12:10, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

It was promoted to FA status in June 2005 and it is being displayed now because I suspect it is about to be reviewed. It has no chance of surviving without inline citations.--Grahamec 13:38, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes, well, we'll see about that. It's on the main page because Raul put it there. No one has moved to review it, and, if it is reviewed, I can promise a strong response from several hands. When "near unanimous positive reviews" for Half Life 2 doesn't provoke the FAR fanatics but a heavily referenced work does, I'm not very concerned. Numbered citations are not a requirement for featured articles.
As for Farquhar, I do regard him as a Restoration dramatist, but we were doomed to having gaps no matter what we did. I'm not sure I see him as an apotheosis of the form, though. For me, that's Congreve, who wrote the distilled, perfected, quintessence of the form, but Farquhar's plays are Restoration plays written after the Restoration period, just as Congreve's were. Bishonen, who wrote the drama section, wanted to concentrate narrowly on the Restoration and its immediate stagings. What I see in Congreve and Farquhar is two dramatists who were going to become strong commercial players but who were not part of the courtly response or anti-courtly reaction to Charles. Geogre 21:14, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

WP:REF only demands that articles be referenced and footnotes are not mandatory unless one is quoting a source.--MONGO 22:10, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

  • Precisely, and even then one can use parenthetical reference. It doesn't matter how often people on FAC or FAR are told this, it never makes a dent. Footnotes are not required. Some of us think they are not desirable, either. I far prefer parenthetical reference to footnotes, as I think they disrupt the text and reading experience much less than jumps. Furthermore, this particular article was an omnibus article. Let's take an example of a statement that could have been noted: I say that Richard Blackmore wrote both a Prince Arthur and a King Arthur but that they were soporific works. No footnote. However, there is a link there. If one goes to the article that has been linked, one will see referenced discussion of those works and how they fared with the popular and critical audience. I wrote both. Now, do I have to port every reference from every author I talk about to this article, or can the link be a reference? Basically, I'm saying, "This can be found inside this book." If any reader were actually concerned about poor Blackmore, he or she would presumably look at the article to learn more and there find all the citations needed. Never mind, though. Policy requires no footnotes. I refuse to employ them. The article has not been mentioned on FAR, and it should not be removed. Geogre 02:23, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
    I generally use footnotes, but do so only because many of the articles I edit have facts that change yearly or even more often than that. Consequently, some of the articles I have worked on look more like college term papers than encyclopedia articles, due to all the footnoting. It is refreshing to see an article that is well written and then provides the proper references at the end. Plus, all the embedded citations make it harder for newbies to edit...one reason I also liked the Harvard referencing myself and others used in one article, since it takes up far less space than the regular citation templates when using cite.php.--MONGO 04:35, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
  • My problem with cite.php, other than how arcane it is, is that it's easy to break. I'm not a newbie, but I'm always messed up if I try to do any copyediting/insertion, etc. It's really irritating. This is made worse by the fact that the "preferred" format seems to change every so often, where parentheses are the same yesterday and tomorrow. (One reason that the MLA adopted "Harvard" references is this very issue. MLA members were aggravated with having to learn an ever-so-slightly different form every year.) I would never want to tell anyone else not to use footnotes, and I wish that charity went all the way around, but I personally dislike them. I'm just one guy, though, and don't think I have the right to tell other volunteers what to do. Geogre 11:40, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Main Page vandalism

This article is still badly messed up in both subtle and obvious ways. Someone please check the long-term diffs and do some cleanup; I have to go. Melchoir 20:13, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Another good reason for semi-locking all Main Page articles. Askari Mark (Talk) 20:55, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
Ordinarily it's thought that Main Page vandalism gets reverted quickly, but the fact that this didn't get done for 12 hours, including an 8-hour stretch while it was still live, is shocking. It's the opening paragraph for crying out loud! Clearly we need more eyes looking a little harder. Melchoir 04:49, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Offbreak

Can anyone explain what this is? It's throughout the article, deleting text. --TresRoque 20:52, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

It's simple, childish vandalism. I have just finished removing it. Askari Mark (Talk) 20:54, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Stock market?

The last item in this series seems jarring to me:

It saw news become a commodity, the essay develop into a periodical art form, the beginnings of textual criticism, and the emergence of the stock market.

I don't wish to dispute the historical, even cultural significance of the founding of the stock market. But whereas news, the essay, and textual criticism are all literary developments, the stock market is considerably less so. I would end the sentence with "and the beginnings of textual criticism." Anyone agree with me? -- Rob C (Alarob) 17:34, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

  • That's fine with me, although it is one of those major tick marks on the list of "historical developments." Believe it or not, it's also a literary event, but it's a bit of a circuitous argument to explain it. The stock market created wealth for traders. The merchant class rose in wealth like never before. More rise occurred in less time than perhaps any time since, and certainly any time before, and this created a massive wave in the class structure of England. When the nobles were no longer the richest men in the nation, and yet when the King was just back and looking lavish and large, the friction between the two sets of voices ("value comes from birth" and "value comes from work") sparked. When one looks at the period as a whole, one sees this friction underneath both the somewhat hysterical assurances of royalism and the somewhat strident voices of Puritanism.
  • This shows up much more clearly in the "Battle of the Ancients and the Moderns" that Swift would re-fight on behalf of his dull witted former patron, William Temple, in 1696-1705, with A Tale of a Tub, but the jarring and arguing was going on in 1666.
  • Still, from a stylistic point of view, I can also agree with you, because the other items are abstractions, while the stock market is a concrete. Geogre 22:15, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Robert Gould paragraph

This graf could benefit from citations, such as the various bits on his biography ("He had no schooling at all and worked as a domestic servant, first as a footman and then, probably, in the pantry."), specific claims ("the poem sold out all editions"), and quotations of his poetry ("His poetry has "virgin" brides who, upon their wedding nights, have "the straight gate so wide/ It's been leapt by all mankind,"...). I'm assuming most of this can be found in Sloane (which I don't have) or primary sources; the Oxford dictionary article only verifies generalities, such as him working as a servant and learning to read/write, but has nothing on what kind of servant he was or whether he learned Latin. Anyone with Sloane willing to add the citations? Gzkn 15:54, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

  • Well, Sloane is the only source in print. Therefore, there ARE references. See the References section? Sloane is all there is. The whole of it is 70 pp long or thereabouts. Page numbers are meaningless in this case. Other material on Gould comes from unpublished dissertations avail. at U. Microfilms. There had better not be a "reference" to the virgin brides, as that comes from the poetry itself, which the author of that section has read, but I shall be glad to offer up a citation so that you can go to the library and double check. Just run down now and find, Poems, Mostly Satyrs, by Robert Gould, 1692, and look for the poem entitled "To A Friend Made Unhappy in Marriage" and then look at "A Satyr to Prevent Wooing." Be sure to get page numbers so that other readers can go check! I'll give you line numbers, too, if you want. That'll be an immense help. Geogre 20:10, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Oh, and Sloane's book is a monograph from U Penn. It's not exactly an easy book to find, either. Still, I hope people do read it, as Gould needs a great deal more credit. Geogre 20:13, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
      • Ah, "Sloane, passim." That should satisfy any serious scholar. -- ALoan (Talk) 23:31, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
    • It should. The other work on Gould is wholly derivative. Felicity Nussbaum has written on him, but it's all from Sloane. Really. She quotes the same quotes from the same poems...only I don't recall her ever citing him for them. Geogre 02:08, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Belts and braces

I removed a footnote to the online Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms for "Hudibrastic verse" as being redundant, since there was already a wikilink to a good article in a well-known online encyclopedia. Indon reverted me with the edit summary "It doesn't harm the article if the attribution is also given here, right?" and hasn't replied to my argument on his talkpage, which went like this (rather persuasive, if I do say so):

Of course it doesn't do any large-scale harm to put both belts and braces on the Hudibrastic verse, as it's either way a very small effect. But on its scale, I think it's harmful rather than positive, yes. It's redundant; redundancy is not good. It needlessly introduces a subscription-only service—always to be avoided, if possible, use only in emergencies. It's mega-possible to avoid it here, as the note seems to me purely decorative. What's the point of it? Er, don't you trust Wikipedia as a reference work? The article Hudibrastic is actually very good. (Geogre wrote it.) And now fully referenced![1] :-P Bishonen | talk 13:36, 27 February 2007 (UTC).

I don't mean to make a big deal out of one footnote, and I'll be happy to leave it there if somebody values it and says why, however briefly. But if nobody does, I think I'll just remove it again. Bishonen | talk 21:38, 28 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Britanica?

You folks must be joking! You would use Britanica to reference our article? This article corrects mistakes that Britanica makes. It is superior to them. Anything for a footnote, though, right? Geogre 22:12, 28 February 2007 (UTC)