Talk:Sonnet 102/GA1

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: Xover (talk · contribs) 17:46, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Overall status

Good Article review progress box

Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

Individual sonnets are difficult to write good encyclopaedic articles about, but this article has succeeded admirably. It covers most of the important points, and for the most part does not get bogged down in needless detail. The sourcing good, with only one exception; and for the most part it follows the relevant parts of the manual of style. There are some rather long and run-on sentences here and there, but overall the quality of the prose is good.

Overall there is some work still left to be done to bring the article up to GA standard.

I'm placing the review on hold for now to give the nominator a chance to address these issues. Please feel free to ping me if you have any questions. --Xover (talk) 17:49, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

@Xover: I've removed the bad source, cleaned up the prose errors and elaborated on several points. I've also cleaned up the Philomela segment to maintain focus on the sonnet. How does it look now? ASupposedlyGoodArticle (talk) 04:30, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

@ASupposedlyGoodArticle: I've looked over your changes and have struck out the points below that have been addressed. There are still some remaining, and you've also introduced a few new ones, but overall there are just final touches remaining. Note that points listed below that are not explicitly tagged as referring to one of the GA criteria (e.g. (1a)) are general suggestions for improvement and not required to be addressed in order to pass. --Xover (talk) 07:58, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

@Xover: Hopefully I've fixed the citation issues now. I've clarified the point on Petrarchan Structure. I've wikilinked to sonnets 100 and 103, but I'm wondering if there's a way to wikilink the sequence that would be more appropriate? I've requested the Oxford Sonnet's collection from my library and should have your suggested addition added on Monday. Thank you so much for all of your help, this has been a very enlightening experience on the wikipedia process. --ASupposedlyGoodArticle (talk) 21:12, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

@ASupposedlyGoodArticle: Great work. I've gone through and struck out all the remaining issues, minus the Burrow bit.

There's no way to link sequences of sonnet articles; they are each just individual articles like any other, and the software has no real concept of their relationship. However, since we're only talking about three articles I've simply listed, and linked, them all.

Regarding Burrow, the relevant bit is brief, so I'll just quote it here and save you a trip to the library:

7–8 Philomel … his pipe Philomela, sister-in-law of Tereus, who raped her and cut out her tongue, is female both when in human form and when she turns into a nightingale. Nightingales sing in summer's front, that is at the start of the summer. It is probably the mention of a pipe which makes Shakespeare change her sex: for a moment Philomel becomes a character from a pastoral, where pipers are invariably male, and often are allegorical projections of their poets. The nightingale's metamorphosis back into her in l. 10 occurs when the context of pious nocturnal unhappiness jogs Shakespeare into remembering her mythological past. Nocturnal hymn-singing tends to be a feminine activity in Shakespearian drama. Many editors emend his to her; a few brave souls suggest that Shakespeare may have been enough of an ornithologist to have known that only cock nightingales sing (and in Petrarch Rime Sparse 311, as well as in Barnabe Barnes's Parthenophil and Parthenophe 57.12–14, it is a male nightingale which laments). The inconsistency illustrates Shakespeare's instinctive association of certain locales with particular genders.

— Burrow, Colin, ed. (2008). The Complete Sonnets and Poems. The Oxford Shakespeare. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 584–5. ISBN 9780199535798.

In any case, this issue is not directly relevant to the GA criteria (criteria 3 is broad coverage not comprehensive), and all the other issues have been addressed, so I'll be passing this article shortly. Congratulations!

If you would like to keep working on this article—and Wikipedia is always in need of more active editors, few parts of it more so than the Shakespeare WikiProject!—you may consider expanding it to better contextualise the sonnet as the editors working on Sonnet 101 have done. There are of course also 153 (less a few) other sonnet articles that for the most part could do with a bit of TLC, and only two of the articles on Shakespeare's plays have reached featured status, which, frankly, is a bit embarrassing. If you would like to stick around after your assignment is done, there is plenty to do and you'd be most welcome. Please feel free to get in touch with me on my talk page (though note that I may not always be able to respond swiftly) with any questions or concerns. --Xover (talk) 06:12, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

Detailed points

Lede

• (6) The article lacks illustrations. Could perhaps a cropped scan of this sonnet from the 1609 quarto be added?

Paraphrase

• "… though he has stopped writing as much poetry …" That's certainly the most obvious inference, but the sonnet itself doesn't make explicit that the sonnets are the expression of love that is being referred to. It could just as easily be expressions of love in general, or some specific but other expression. What do the sources say about this? Do the preceding sonnets or the sequence suggest a gap in the production of sonnets?
  • (2b) The source you've cited here (Whittemore 2005) is pushing the fringe theory that the Earl of Oxford really wrote all of Shakespeare's canon (i.e. he believes in the Oxfordian theory). Such works are usually not considered reliable sources except in very narrow circumstances, and then usually only for supporting statements regarding the author's views or the book's contents. The book is also published on a commercial (not academic) press; has not been subjected to peer-review; and is not scholarly rigorous.
• "… Muse …" Not usually capitalised in this context.
• (1a) "… explain the his silence …"
• (1a) Even with proper attribution, copying the entire paraphrase is a copyright violation. This will have to be removed and replaced with your own paraphrase.
• (2b) SparkNotes is not a reliable source.

Structure

• Wikipedia's house style specifies double quote marks, not single. See MOS:QUOTEMARKS.
• Why is "English" in scare quotes here?
• Is this style of sonnet known by any other name that might be particularly relevant in this particular article?
• [added after first batch of revisions] (1a) I have no idea what "Shakespeare's strong line breaks between lines 8 and 9 …" (emphasis added) means, even after checking the cited source. Consider what you're trying to communicate here: are you trying to explain the volta in the sonnets in general, or pointing out that sonnet 102 specifically is a good example of Shakespeare's use of Petrarchan form?

Context

• " … Fair Youth Sequence …" "sequence" should not be capitalised here.
• "… sonnets 100-103." The referenced sonnets could beneficially be wikilinked.
• (3a) "… connected with the surrounding sonnets 100-103." How?
• (1a) "The Rival Poet series …" Is it a series or a sequence? Either way the usage should be consistent within the article.
• "… series of Shakespeare's sonnets …" By this point it should have been sufficiently well established that it is Shakespeare's sonnets we're discussing.
• (1a, 2b) "… some scholars argue …" Who? Citation?
• (1a, 2b) "There has also been speculation …" Who? Citation?

Overview

• (1a) "… be and attempt …"

Quatrain 1

• I'm not sure there's much benefit to repeating the relevant lines for each quatrain's section.
• (1a) "… Brent Stirling claims …" Where? In what context?
• (2b) Is this entire section cited to Stirling, or just the sentence explicitly attributed to him? Should the previous sentences have a cite (to Duncan-Jones, perhaps)?
  • This section still has the citation problem: you add a cite at the direct quotation (good), but since there are no previous citations in the paragraph, the one for the quotation looks like it's supporting the whole preceding paragraph. You could alleviate this by adding a cite to the sentence preceding the one with the quotation. These kinds of issues are particular quirks of Wikipedia's citation practices: that tend to be at once very specific and strict in some ways, while being infuriatingly loose and variable in other ways. I've contributed to the project for near ten years and I'm still bedevilled by these issues regularly.
• (2b) The direct quote needs a separate citation.

Quatrain 2

• (1a) "… which we continues to …"
• (3b) There is a bit too much detail on the Philomela legend.
• Titles of works should generally be given in italics and without quote marks (there are some exceptions, typically for shorter works and titles of parts of longer works like chapters of a book).
• (1a) "… actively utilizes the Philomela allusion …" What does it mean to "actively utilise" here?
• There are several instances of single quotes that should be double quotes in this section.
• The Oxford edition (Burrow 2002) also avers that the sex change could be contextually dependent, and either deliberate or a result of Shakespeare's strong associations between gender and situation (night hymns are feminine, for instance).
• [added after first batch of revisions] (2b) There are now a couple of instances of direct quotes that are lacking citations. As a rule of thumb, any time you put something in double quotes you should default to adding a cite for it. The obvious exception here is that when the quote marks signal a use—mention distinction (i.e. the usage for "her", "his", "hir", "its", etc.), a citation is not necessary.

Quatrain 3

• (2b) The direct quotes need separate citation.
• (1a) Some very convoluted and long sentences in this section could with benefit be broken up.

External links

• The OpenSourceShakespeare link is to the overview page for the sonnets. In this article, the link should be to the page for this particular sonnet.
• Each external link could also with benefit have a proper title [http://example.com/ Title] followed by a (very) brief description.