Talk:Poetical Sketches

Edits on June 7

As y'all can see, I've given the article a complete overhaul. I've introduced quotations from the poems themselves, critical opinions, and much more background info on the book. I've also corrected a number of factual errors and I've expanded the bibliography. So I hope people like what I've done. Any feedback, positive or negative, is very much appreciated. Bertaut (talk) 03:03, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Nice work, Cygnis and Bertaut both. The only thing I could think of adding would be a section on the history of it reception. These used to be some of Blake's most anthologized works, while today one seldom sees them in anthologies. I have a Cambridge literary anthology from the 1950s in which the editor praises "To the Muses", along with others from this set, somewhat excessively... Anyway I'll be abroad for the next month or so, so it will be a while before I can contribute anthing. I'm very pleased with it so far, however. Lithoderm 20:38, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback; I wasn't even sure if anyone was watching this page. I agree that a reception section would be useful, but personally, I wouldn't know enough about the reception history to be able to put together a small section. If anyone else wants to contribute however, by all means. Bertaut (talk) 23:52, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

I had a quick look, obviously improvements there. I like the attribution in the text to the critical opinion, I think that bit could be split to a new section and a couple of facts need a citation. Facts, criticism, and notability can get pretty knotty, I'll reread some of sources, check a couple of others, and ponder what else can be done.

I agree some discussion of the historical reception would be good too. BTW: Both the Rossettis reprinted selections, but DGR was the one did the editing for Gilchrist's Life vol 2 (1863). "How sweet I roam'd ..." was praised, and printed again, in vol 1, likewise in Swinburne's essay. This "song" was printed in Malkin, 1806, perhaps an authorised ed., and in the Tatham MS.

I'm a bit concerned about the "number of factual errors" referred to above, combined with a couple changes to the bit of text I introduced. Should I be? I hope that turns out to be an opportunity for more expansion and improvements. cygnis insignis 03:27, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

First of all, let me apologise. Instead of simply saying I fixed some errors, I should have said what they were. My goof. There were three. First, it said that two poems were handwritten on a copy of the book; there were three. Second, it said 1 copy of contained corrections by Blake; 11 contain his corrections. Third, not so much an error, as a false implication; it mentioned the 14 copies known in 1921, but didn't say abnything about the subsequent 8 discovered since then. Thanks for the clear up regarding Rossetti by the way, I'll fix that.Bertaut (talk) 21:20, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Not so much an error, or false implication, I accurately used the sources I happened to have at hand to add a bit and it was phrased appropriately :| The Truth is not the aim here, as I'm sure you appreciate. If a later source contradicts, or mentions things unknown to Sampson, then the stub was able to be expanded. Anyway ...

Which copy contains three handwritten 'additions', the one owned by Pickering? Sampson printed two. I'm sure it was unintentional, but the mentions of Cunningham and Malkin have disappeared. WMR did the Aldine edition, a standard edition for a while, he usually noted DGR's emendations to the text in Gilchrist's Life (mention of that work has also disappeared). cygnis insignis 23:47, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure about Sampson, but I do know that in Erdman only 2 of the poems are printed in the main body of the text and included in the contents and index. Song 1st and Song 3rd. Song 2nd is only found in his textual notes for "Laughing Song", and it's included in neither the contents, the index of titles, nor the index of first lines. I only discovered it by browsing through Ostriker. The copy in which they're written isn't the Pickering one, it's a copy with the inscription "From Mr. Flaxman, May 15, 1784" (although Ostriker says the inscrption is from "From Mrs. Flaxman" - I assumed that to be a typo). According to Erdman, this copy is now in Alexander Turnball Library in New Zealand. As regards the missing material, that certainly wasn't intentional by any means. When I get a chance, I'll go back to the version prior to my edits and copy and paste them back in. Must have deleted them somewhere along the line without realising it. Sorry about that (again!) And thanks for the constructive feedback by the way, very much appreciated. Bertaut (talk) 00:14, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

New edits

Based on some discussions with colleagues and whatnot, I've done a little more work on the article. Apart from quite a few minor changes and the lengthening of a couple of critical quotations, I think the biggest changes involve separating the 'Contents' section into subsections, and including references to Blake's later work. Both changes were suggested to me. I'm not sure how the subsection thing works, but I kinda like it, as just having one long 'Contents' section wasn't the best. As for referring to Blake's later work, a colleague pointed out that apart from the brief mention of Los, Orc, Urizen and Tharmas in the "To Spring", "To Summer" etc section, there was nothing else to connect Poetical Sketches to his later career. So I've added brief, but (I think) reasonably sound references to The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, For Children: The Gates of Paradise, America, Europe, The Song of Los, The Book of Urizen, The Book of Ahania, Vala, Milton and Jerusalem. I've also bolstered out the critical references; I recently purchased copies of Bentley's A Blake Bibliography and The Critical Heritage, Stevenson's Complete Poems and Keynes' Complete Writings, none of which I had when I was working on the article last time. I've also added some info on publication history of the volume as a whole and some of the individual poems, and I've included a small section on "then She Bore pale desire..." and "Woe cried the muse". I think, as a whole, the article is much better for these few edits. I was happy enough with it before, but I'm twice as happy now. As always, I welcome feedback. One question though. At the moment, it's an unassessed article, but I think it's probably up to C-class now (I think, I'm not sure of the criteria). So how does one go about getting it assessed? Bertaut (talk) 21:29, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm just passing by, but I added the relevant wikiproject, and you can usually add your page to the project's assessment page to have it assessed, though I have no idea how active it is. --Muhandes (talk) 21:54, 18 September 2010 (UTC)