Talk:The Author's Farce/GA1

GA Review

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Starting Review. Jezhotwells (talk) 21:27, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

The subheadings below relate to the Good Article criteria at WP:Reviewing_good_articles#How_to_review_an_article and I shall place comments as I proceed. Jezhotwells (talk) 21:34, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Writing style

I think the prose could be much improved. There are many clumsy turns of phrase and several grammatical errors, e.g. In the lede

The play, Fielding's first major success, was a response to Drury Lane and their previous rejection of his works.

could perhaps be improved -- The play was Fielding's first success and was written as a response to the rejection by Drury Lane of previous works. also in the lede,

This play is seen as the play that established Fielding as a reputed playwright at London.

perhaps -- The Author's Farce is seen as the work that established Fielding as reputation as a London playwright.

I could cite many more examples from throughout the article. You could quote sentences or phrases from your sources. But remember to cite them. Jezhotwells (talk) 22:07, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I think Noir is covering some of the grammar stuff. I rewrote part of the lead. I'm sure all of the sources used are cited and all quotations labeled. Ottava Rima (talk) 00:43, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

I see that the lede has been re-worked satisfactorily, but the rest of the article does need looking at. Too many repetitions of words and turns of phrase. I re-worked the Themes section to show what can be done, feel free to revert, but it will still need re-writing. An example from the Source section:

This is not to say that other Scriblerus works influenced Fielding; instead, there are many influences from other Scriblerus works and their style of humour as a whole.

The above sentence is meaningless and contradictory.

Consider this passage from the Background section:

The Author's Farce and the Pleasures of the Town first opened on 30 March 1730 at the Little Theatre, Haymarket and ran for 41 nights. The play was composed sometime during 1729 in response to Drury Lane rejecting Fielding's earlier plays. It was advertised as being rehearsed in the 18 March 1730 Daily Post and in the 21 March 1730 Weekly Medley and Literary Journal. The Daily Post ran advertisements for its opening within their 23 and 26 March publications. They noted that the play would contain a puppet show and advertised in a way that expected that the play would have a large demand by mentioning restricted seating and higher ticket prices. The play first opened on Easter Monday. There were 8 more performances during the three weeks following Easter. On 6 April 1730, it ran with The Cheats of Scapin. It was partnered again but as the companion piece to Hurlothrumbo and in a shortened form, just the last act.[1]

The bit about Easter Monday could be combined with the intial cite of the opening date as 30 March. The 3rd, 4th and 5th sentences all use the word advertise or derivatives. Consider combining.

Oh, and I changed the phrase Royal Theatre to Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. It should be consistent throughout (and wikilinked on first occurence in the lede) as should be the spelling. I noticed a mixture of English and American. I think English would be best throughout as this is an English subject.

The article is nearly there. Just go through, line by line to clarify, remove redundant repetitions, etc. Good luck, I will pop back later in the week to check it out. Jezhotwells (talk) 16:08, 22 March 2009 (UTC) I am happy thathe above points have been addressed. Jezhotwells (talk) 01:17, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

 Done Jezhotwells (talk) 01:17, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Factual accuracy

As far as I can tell all the sources cited support the statements. But in the References section please put the ISBN of the books where possible, also web links where the sources are on-line as several are. Jezhotwells (talk) 22:10, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Done now - all ISBN or OCLC identifiers are up. Ottava Rima (talk)

 Done Jezhotwells (talk) 16:12, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Also please directly cite the production dates where mention, e.g. the premiere. I know that they are in your sources. Jezhotwells (talk) 22:14, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Already in there and was there from the beginning - "The Author's Farce and the Pleasures of the Town first opened on 30 March 1730 at the Little Theatre, Haymarket and ran for 41 nights.". All of the dates, when available, were already present. Ottava Rima (talk) 00:23, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

What I meant is that you need to place an inline citation to the reliable source for the date. Jezhotwells (talk) 02:17, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

They are already there according to FA standard. See here. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:37, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Ah, right. I and other readers might have assumed that that citation merely refered to the final sentence of the paragraph. Jezhotwells (talk) 02:43, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

I know. I had a problem with it before that I felt certain details could be left out. However, people over at FAC kept condensing the refs. Its a strange dispute. Noir wants this to go up for FAC eventually so I aimed for that in the referencing. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:55, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

 Done Jezhotwells (talk) 16:13, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Broad coverage

The article is broad in its coverage, but I felt that there could have been mention of later productions such as those which I found cited in The Cambridge Companion to Henry Fielding, pp 26-27. Were there any 20th century productions? Jezhotwells (talk) 22:13, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I own the CC to Fielding and not once is there mention of any "later productions". The pages are mostly a discussion of Tom Thumb. The only time The Author's Farce comes up is "Tom Thumb does for high literature what The Author's Farce does for low", "denounced by one of Fielding's targets in The Author's Farce", and "In a distinction made by the philistine bookweight in The Author's Farce". I looked through the rest of the article and Keymer doesn't mention any dates beyond what was contained within Fielding's lifetime, so I am unsure where you are getting your information from. The only dates the play was run is mentioned as with the final dates of the revised piece. Ottava Rima (talk) 00:32, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

My apologies, I misread the passage at the bottom of pages 26 / top of 27, which does refer to Tom Thumb. Jezhotwells (talk) 02:24, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

I feel you could introduce the Scriblerus Secundus alias used by Fielding, with a cited explanation. Jezhotwells (talk) 22:28, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you are looking for. The alias's influence on the themes is discussed in the theme section for two paragraphs. Ottava Rima (talk) 00:32, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Indeed yes, I thought that it might have been better in the Background section. Jezhotwells (talk) 02:24, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Its a split for me, really. If it moves up, it would leave the themes section empty and would remove that he is working his humor within a greater continuity. There is little information on why Fielding chose the Scriblerians as a model (besides thematic uses) so it would make it hard to really fit into the background section. There is also a note on it in "Source". However, there is little knowledge of when Fielding read any of the works (they are drawn from references within the text and not through biographical detail) so it would be hard to find this info needed to piece it into Background. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:42, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough, it was just a thought. Jezhotwells (talk) 02:44, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

You weren't alone there. :) It was a struggle trying to think of how to fit it in. The "Source" section was the happy medium that I came up with during discussion. By the way - Talk:Henry Fielding's early plays contains the central ground for this project. Noir reworked the lead some (and I reworked it again). Ottava Rima (talk) 02:57, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

 Done Jezhotwells (talk) 16:15, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

NPOV

I am happy that the article adheres to a NPOV. Jezhotwells (talk) 22:15, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

 Done Jezhotwells (talk) 16:15, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Stability

The article appears stable. I note that there has been no discussion on the talk page. Jezhotwells (talk) 22:24, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

 Done Jezhotwells (talk) 16:16, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Compliance with image use policy

The one image used is from Wiki Commons with a public domain licence so that should be OK. Is it a scanned image? Jezhotwells (talk) 22:27, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

 Done Jezhotwells (talk) 16:16, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Summary

This has all the makings of a good article. The writing style and grammar do need to be addressed. I will put the nomination on hold whilst you deal with these issues. Jezhotwells (talk) 22:30, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

These points have now been satisfactorily addressed. Jezhotwells (talk) 01:19, 28 March 2009 (UTC)