Talk:W. H. Auden

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Good article W. H. Auden 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.
July 10, 2007 Good article nominee Listed
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[edit] WikiProject Biography Assessment

The article may be improved by following the WikiProject Biography 11 easy steps to producing at least a B article. -- Yamara 11:59, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Certainly thorough enough to warrant GA status. For anything above that, be certain every paragraph has enough unique facts to warrant inline citations, then provide them. The article might well be A-class by Wikiproject Biography standards, even as it stands now. -- Yamara 12:17, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
Let me ask your opinion. There is a note on general sources at the head of each large section; anything that is not specifically annotated may be found in two or more of those sources. I'm not sure that anything is gained by annotating a statement like "Auden was in Brussels in 1938" when that information can be found in all of the sources in the headnote. Do you think it makes sense to clutter every paragraph with sources for facts that are in every printed source? (Later: I've added these references in order to avoid ambiguity about sources; I think this is getting fairly close to an ideal Wikipedia page at this point.)
If, on reconsideration, you decide that the page deserves a hiigher rating, perhaps you might consider changing the one you gave earlier? (That seems to be the general thrust of your comments.) Thanks again for your advice on this. As you can see, a great deal of effort has gone into building and refining this page, but of course there's always room for improvement. Macspaunday 14:54, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
Lately I've been a Biography gnome, finding and rating unrated biographies. I was startled to find Auden without any Biography tag at all! I usually don't rate any biography higher than a B without a review by other editors, though it certainly warrants a GA, at least.
I haven't seen the use you put sectional hatnotes to, in respect to citations, though maybe I've been hanging out at the wrong biographies. It certainly look efficient. If you submit the article for GA review, I'd support it-- though be warned that I may not be at my computer much over the next couple days. -- Yamara 14:15, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Agreed that this article deserves a GA rating. I'd support its submission for GA. --Paul 16:30, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Very grateful for the good words about this. The sectional headnotes are based on some other pages, but I can't remember exactly which one. I'll be travelling for the next few weeks, but will certainly want to submit this later on if no one else does so before then. Thanks again for the encouragement! Macspaunday 16:48, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
No one else seems to have submitted it for GA, so I have done so. --Paul 02:42, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Struga Poetry Evenings

Please excuse my english, but W. H. Auden was one of the first laureates of the internationally acclaimed Struga Poetry Evenings festival which has a tradition of several decades and which hosted several Nobel Prize for Literature winners. I really fail to see why someone has removed the Struga Poetry Evenings template from the bottom of the article. If you need sources for this, they are already listed in the Struga Poetry Evenings article incl. official site of the festival, UNESCO etc. --Dzole (talk) 03:45, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I know it is factually correct, but the template takes up a huge amount of space, compared to information about things that W. H. Auden actually wrote, said, and did. Why not make a Category for Struga Poetry Festival Laureates? That will be less intrusive on web pages, and would be consistent with categories like Pulitzer Prize winners? Or at least change the template so that it shows only one line until someone clicks "show"? That would take up much less space. Thank you. Macspaunday (talk) 13:39, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Published works

Might I suggest that the lengthy "published works" section be moved into a separate article, to be entitled "W. H. Auden's published works" or something to that effect? ---RepublicanJacobiteThe'FortyFive' 15:53, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I've also been mulling over that exact same idea. A list of Auden's works seems essential to the article, but there should probably be a way to move some of the bulk to a separate page. I'll experiment with a few alternatives, and will explore how this sort of thing is done elsewhere on WP. Macspaunday (talk) 17:31, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes, we definitely need to see how this has been handled in other author's articles. But, just as long discographies (as in the case of Bob Dylan) are spun off into separate articles, it seems the same should apply here. A brief listing here of his "most important" work, with a link to a separate article, would, I think, be appropriate. ---RepublicanJacobiteThe'FortyFive' 21:20, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
The Bob Dylan example is excellent. Will get this done in the next couple of days. Thanks for the suggestion, which helps me overcome natural inertia about this one. Macspaunday (talk) 21:28, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
Glad to do it! Let me know if I can be of assistance. ---RepublicanJacobiteThe'FortyFive' 23:17, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

OK - have created Bibliography of W. H. Auden. Let's give it a day or two for any tinkering before removing the equivalent material from the main page and creating a link to the new page. Must also add some other categories that have turned up recently (W. H. Auden plays, etc.). Macspaunday (talk) 23:19, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

The Bibliography page seems OK; will try to reduce the main page bibliography to a list of essential works during the next few days. Macspaunday (talk) 16:19, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
The bibliography looks great! Good work, Macspaunday. ---RepublicanJacobiteThe'FortyFive' 17:21, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

New bibliography page now linked, with shorter list of published works. I think it's impossible to reduce the list of books any further - any attempt to remove one or more books would impose a POV; the full list of all the actual books (omitting the various pamphlets) is the only way to be properly encyclopedic, I think. Macspaunday (talk) 20:36, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Featured Article Quality

This article has evolved to a very high quality. I'm guessing it could become a FA with very little work. However, the FA process can be annoying. Is there any interest in submitting Auden for FA status? Perhaps we could first submit it for Peer Review to gauge the opinions of other editors. --Paul (talk) 18:21, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Hello, Paul. Having written or revised at least 90 percent of this page, I'm very grateful for the good words. However, I can see that a few more improvements (especially to the notes and references) that might be worth making, and I wonder if it might be more sensible to put this off for a while - a few tweaks here and there might make a large difference to how annoying the process turns out to be. But I don't have any strong opinion on the question! Macspaunday (talk) 18:41, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Let's wait, then. I'm sure your are right about footnotes. There are sure to be comments about the "blanket references" at the head of each section. --Paul (talk) 19:00, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
I think there have already been questions about those blankets, but it's going to take quite a bit of time to narrow down every few sentences in the text to a specific page number in those books. The sound you hear is a loud sigh... Macspaunday (talk) 19:03, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
I have a number of those references (Auden being a hobby of sorts, though not to the extent it is for you). Perhaps I can help. We will see how my free time works out.--Paul (talk) 19:07, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
No doubt you are already aware of this, but it's very nice, don't you think? The W. H. Auden Society says: A highly accurate, thoroughly revised version of the Wikipedia.org entry on Auden was posted in 2007. This site strongly recommends that online researchers make reference to the archived version of the page, in the link above, rather than to current versions, which may be less accurate or may be subject to vandalism. --Paul (talk) 19:12, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

That is nice - and they even seem to keep the "archived page" more or less up to date. (And any help with references would always be welcome, of course.) Macspaunday (talk) 22:06, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Of course, for all the rest of us know, you may BE the W. H. Auden society, or Edward Mendelson! Anyway, thanks for the great work, here. --Paul (talk) 23:04, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Friendships

I was wondering if he had any friends? I think I read somewhere he was friends with J. R. R. Tolkien and highly valued his poem Sea Bells. Plus, wasn't he part of the famous group The Inklings? I don't see it on the page at all. Some guy —Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.82.80.254 (talk) 03:20, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

He exchanged a few letters with Tolkien late in life, and attended Tolkien's lectures as an undergraduate, but they weren't friends. Auden certainly was not part of the Inklings. The relation with Tolkien wasn't remotely close enough to belong in an article; Auden knew a hundred other famous people on the same or closer terms. Macspaunday (talk) 11:51, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps, anonymous user, you are thinking of C. S. Lewis, and not W. H. Auden? ---RepublicanJacobiteThe'FortyFive' 01:13, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Randall Jarrell

I have made a minor addition under the section on Auden's critical reputation. I thought Randall Jarrell deserved a mention so I changed "some British writers (notably Philip Larkin)" to read "some writers (notably Philip Larkin and Randall Jarrell)." There's a book out now called _Randall Jarrell on W. H. Auden_ which probably should be added as a reference, but I haven't the time right now. Lastwordsmith (talk) 16:34, 29 February 2008 (UTC) 29 Feb. 2008

Very appropriate addition. I've wikified Randall Jarrell's name so it links to the page about him. The book isn't especially good on Auden (even the editors don't claim that it's any good about Auden, but say it's interesting about Jarrell himself) so perhaps the reference to Jarrell's page is sufficient? Macspaunday (talk) 16:48, 29 February 2008 (UTC)