Talk:The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late/GA2

GA Reassessment

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Sorry, don't mean to be a party pooper, but I feel there may still be some work here to meet WP:GACR. I gave this article a look over a couple days ago because I was considering reviewing it for the July GA drive, so I had a few critiques already in the back of my mind. Since they weren't brought up in the GA above, I thought I would float them here. But as usual, feel free to push back if you disagree with me on the substance of any of these comments, or if you think they're outside the scope of the GACR. (Some of these are just intended as friendly optional suggestions - I can try to identify those more clearly if it would help.)

Well, the article is robustly cited to multiple sources, clearly written, and certainly covers "the main points" as required at GA. I think most of the objections are very minor; I agree with you that more context was needed, and I've added contextual information in several places, with links and citations, so I hope it now flows better and is more approachable generally. I've responded to all the points raised promptly and I'm sure we can sort them out to our mutual satisfaction. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:35, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

My primary concern is with the "broad coverage" criterion. I think there is a some basic context that this still needs to provide for the benefit of readers not familiar with this subject, especially with regard to the publication history of the work:

• It was first published in Yorkshire Poetry in 1923. What is Yorkshire Poetry? A magazine? A book?

• Magazine.

• Was it always part of the LotR mythos, or did Tolkien appropriate it for that purpose later? (As will probably become apparent in this review, I have only a very superficial knowledge of Tolkien and his work - though I think this article should still be accessible to readers like me! So, for example, I have no idea whether Tolkien had started working on the Middle Earth mythos by 1923 or if he had published anything related to it.)

• No, Tolkien started on the mythos as early as 1914, and appropriated materials of many kinds for LoTR much later.

• In The Prancing Pony Inn at Bree, Frodo Baggins jumps on a table and recites "a ridiculous song" supposedly invented by his cousin Bilbo. This section jumps straight into an in-universe description of some events in Middle earth. But what book or story is this from? Following the footnote, it seems like we're talking about the Fellowship of the Ring. But this just makes me more confused, because the introduction draws no connections between this song and the LotR trilogy. This definitely needs more context.

• I've added a paragraph about Tolkien, his career, and his writings, and led more gently into the description.

• Thanks, this helps clarify, but I still have some confusion about this. I gather the "Here it is in full" quote is from Fellowship. So did the song appear in full in that book? The introduction suggests only that it appeared in Yorkshire Poetry and then The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. Colin M (talk) 18:50, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

• Good. Yes, as the Context section says, "Here it is in full"; it's in the cited chapter of LOTR. By introduction you mean the lead? Sure, added a mention there too.

• The "Reception" section has multiple references to the manuscript "Harley 2253", including a statement in wikivoice that the poem is based on said manuscript. It seems like it would be important to give the reader some context on this manuscript then, and how Tolkien's song relates to it (ideally as part of the "Context" section?).

• The article already links it to Harley Lyrics, and glosses this with a quotation saying it's a medieval English lyric; there isn't much more to say really on that, except that Tolkien was an expert medievalist; I've added that in the Context section.

Some other misc comments

• The link to Back-formation in the intro is not really germane, since that article is specifically about a process of word formation.

• Removed.

• The subject is described in the intro as a "ditty", which is sort of an ambiguous term (Wiktionary glosses it as "A short verse or tune."). Perhaps you could clarify whether Tolkien wrote a melody to go with it, or if it's just a piece of verse that's intended to be sung, but with no particular associated melody?

• Tolkien didn't write melodies, but he intended this piece of verse to be understood as a song. The Tolkien Ensemble have set it to music. I've set it to "song".

• I imagine a wikilink would be helpful when referring to the "Man in the Moon" tradition.

• Done.

• from myths such as of Phaethon perhaps "that of Phaethon" would read more smoothly?

• Done.

• Scholars have noted that the light-hearted poem fits into a reworking by Tolkien of the "Man in the Moon" tradition, from myths such as of Phaethon who drove the Sun too close to the Earth, down through the medieval story of the unlucky man who was banished to the Moon, and ultimately to a short nursery rhyme. I'm having a bit of a hard time parsing the meaning of this sentence. Let me try to paraphrase my best guess. Is this saying Tolkien put his own spin on the "Man in the Moon" tradition, and he did so by drawing on the influences of Phaethon, the medieval story, and the nursery rhyme? Or is it saying that the imagined "back formation" in which Tolkien situates this song involves a descent that starts with Phaethon, proceeds through the medieval story, and ends with the nursery rhyme we know today? Or something else?

• Perhaps mainly the latter, but the two things aren't really separable: to achieve the back formation, Tolkien drew on what materials he could find. This lead paragraph summarizes a large part of the article, so there's plenty of clarification below in the article body. I've reworked it, splitting the long sentence, and adding (from the existing account in the article body) that Tolkien was both imitating a medieval work and creating a multi-layered effect with multiple myths and stories. I hope that's easier to parse now.

• and a story of an Elf who hid on the Ship of the Moon Is "Ship of the Moon" a named entity? I'm wondering why it's capitalized. Also is the relevance of this to the article subject just that it's another Tolkien story that involves the moon? Is that a bit of a stretch? Or are there RS that draw this connection?

• Lower case then. The story of Earendil is Tolkien's own; it too inevitably has a medieval manuscript origin. But that is far from the story here. Again, this is a summary of more material below; the mention of the elf who hid is cited to Honegger (secondary) as well as Tolkien (primary).

• In The Prancing Pony Inn... "inn" should be lowercase, unless it's part of the full name, in which case it should also be italicized.

• Could be either. Lower case it is.

• nursery rhyme is wikilinked three times - can probably cut at least one of those

• Once in the lead, once in a caption, and once in the article body is canonical.

• MOS:REPEATLINK says Generally, a link should appear only once in an article, but if helpful for readers, a link may be repeated in infoboxes, tables, image captions, footnotes, hatnotes, and at the first occurrence after the lead. Do you really think the repeated links in this case are helpful enough to break from the general once-per-article rule? I'm in favour of doing this for relatively obscure topics that are highly salient to the subject at hand, but I don't see it being helpful for such a commonly understood concept as nursery rhyme. (And I would say the same thing for medieval. Also, you have philology linked twice in the body.) Colin M (talk) 18:50, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

• Removed, but remember that many of our readers are not native English and the link may well make all the difference in comprehensibility in their case.

• The song, or tale in the 1962 version, Not clear what's meant by this. In the 1962 publication it's not presented as a song?

• Cut.

• the poem is based on the Harley manuscript poem 2253, quoting Shippey that it is "perhaps the best medieval English lyric surviving, and certainly one of the hardest" to interpret I think there may have been an error here. Harley manuscript 2253 (about which we have an article at Harley Lyrics, which should be linked here) is apparently a large compendium of many pieces of prose and verse. I imagine Deyo is referring to a specific poem within the manuscript. (Also, flow of this sentence feels a bit awkward to me, in that "quoting" seems to have a hard time finding a subject to attach to).

• Linked, and split the sentence.

• This still seems straight-up incorrect. The body refers to "Harley manuscript poem 2253". That's not an actual thing. Colin M (talk) 18:55, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

• Removed pipe, it now just says Harley Lyrics.

• This stands in sharp contrast with Sam Gamgee's recital of "The Stone Troll", at once amusing and "metrically intricate", which the other hobbits make clear is new, and that Sam, despite his basic education, must have created it, Some grammatical awkwardness here towards the end.

• Split long sentence, and edited.

• The "nonsensical nursery rhymes" inspired Tolkien's two poems Not clear which nursery rhymes are being referred to here. Or is it just referring to the whole class of nonsensical nursery rhymes, broadly speaking?

• Specifically those about the Man in the Moon. Glossed.

• I'm guessing the Fastitocalon wikilink should be targeted to Fastitocalon (poem)?

• Dabbed.

• Re the Steve Renard version, I think this needs a reliable secondary source to establish it as noteworthy.

• Cut.

• In the Extended Edition of the film gratuitous caps

• l/c.

Again, sorry to be a spoilsport, but I hope this comes across with the intended spirit of good faith suggestions for improving the article. Colin M (talk) 23:51, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

All done to date. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:30, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

• There are references in the intro and body to "the medieval story of the unlucky man who was banished to the Moon". The way this is used in the text is almost as if the reader is expected to already know what story you're referring to. I think you need to give some context on this. which story? Colin M (talk) 19:00, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Changed "the medieval story" to "a medieval story": its description as "the unlucky man who was banished to the moon" is intended exactly as the context, and that is how Honegger presented it, i.e. there happens to be an odd medieval tale with that subject. There really isn't more context to give, as the whole medieval reference is already just a bit of context. I do hope this helps a little; the reader really isn't expected to know the medieval tale, a piece of background as far as Tolkien's poem is concerned, which is why it's briefly glossed here. But I hope I've made it all a little easier to approach now; if not, do let me know what needs to be tweaked. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:57, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Colin M If there are no more comments then this should be closed, please. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:23, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, I still have some source checking to do, and will have some further comments soon about broad coverage and the organization of the prose. Colin M (talk) 15:25, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

No worries, I'll respond to them promptly when they're ready. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:39, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Second round of comments (7/06)

After doing some review of sources, I have a few major concerns

Failed verifications

I've only reviewed a small subset of citations, but that was still enough to turn up multiple (apparent) failed verifications:

• The rhyming scheme is ABCCB. Not verifiable in cited work (Hyde 1989).

• Reworked the section. I've found a decent source that describes the poetic aspects, but unfortunately it thinks the 5-line rhyming scheme is ABBA ... they must have had some other song on their mind.

• Haha. FWIW, I think something like this is "obvious" enough by direct inspection that I don't think it needs a citation (at least to meet the GA criteria for verifiability, maybe not for FA). My concern was just that we had a citation that didn't actually verify the claim it was attached to. Colin M (talk) 19:05, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

• Steven M. Deyo, in Mythlore, notes that Tolkien introduced the poem by saying that it "must be derived ultimately from Gondor ... based on the traditions of Men" This quote is in reference to "The Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon", not the one that's the subject of the article.

• Relocated.

• At the level of story, the Harley Lyrics tale of an unlucky fellow banished to the moon roughly matches... First off, this is pretty confusing, since so far the article has referenced "a medieval story of the unlucky man who was banished to the Moon" and a poem from the Harley lyrics, but this is the first indication that these are actually the same thing. But is that true? Honegger doesn't mention banishment anywhere in his exegesis of the Harley poem (though it comes up later in reference to a popular superstition, and in the connections with Cain).

• On rereading Honegger, it seems clear that he was referring to old man-in-the-moon tales in general in the quoted passage, p. 57, so I've removed the Harley mention here.

Broad coverage (facts vs. analysis)

The article has a lot of analysis (more on that in next section), but the coverage of basic facts about the poem is quite thin. If it was the case that there just wasn't any more information that was verifiable in RS, then that would be fine, but based on my reading of sources, this does not seem to be the case.

• I think this is answered below.

For starters, a summary of the actual content of the poem would be conventional. All the article says about this is that the song introduces characters from the original nursery rhyme in turn. But Tolkien's song has an actual story to it. We should say what happens.

• Done. This feels more like something one'd write in a book article than in one about a single poem, but why not.

There's surely more that could be said about the poem's publication history and the history of its composition. Starting with the question that I raised at the beginning of whether it was originally composed with Middle Earth in mind, or if it was later appropriated for this use. The article still isn't clear about this, but sources explicitly call it out. e.g. Hyde mentions that it was written "prior to Tolkien's discovery of hobbits and of their literature", and invokes a quote about Tolkien "raiding his own larder".

• Extended, and used the quote, thank you.

• Sorry to nitpick, but Hyde is actually quoting someone else (Shippey) with the phrase "raiding his own larder". If we're to use it, we should attribute it to the ultimate original source. Colin M (talk) 19:37, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

• Indeed, attributed to Shippey directly.

There is also apparently some writing by Christopher Tolkien that talks about how the poem came to be integrated into LotR, and the revisions it went through.

• Mentioned.

There is also more context that could be provided on what The Adventures of Tom Bombadil is and what Tolkien says about the poem in his in-universe introduction to the work.

• We are here wandering very far from the topic of this poem; the article on The Adventures of Tom Bombadil is linked. TAoTB says extremely little on the background of (any of) the poems; if you want it, here it is in full: "No. 6 [The Man In The Moon Came Down Too Soon], though here placed next to Bilbo's Man-in-the-Moon rhyme [The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late], and the last item. No. 16 [The Last Ship], must be derived ultimately from Gondor. They are evidently based on the traditions of Men, living in shorelands and familiar with rivers running into the Sea. No. 6 actually mentions Belfalas (the windy bay of Bel), and the Sea-ward Tower, Tirith Aear, or Dol Amroth."

• Sure, though we should try to avoid forcing an average reader to follow links to have a basic understanding of the context of the poem (MOS:NOFORCELINK). I think a short description of Adventures would go a long way. Even just the fact that it's a collection of poetry. (Though I think it would be nice to go even a little bit further, e.g. the framing device of it being an English translation of a collection of poems enjoyed by hobbits. This would give a bit of useful in-universe context on the poem.) Colin M (talk) 19:28, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

• Said it's a short collection of Tolkien's verse, supposedly for hobbits. Linked it to my article on his frame stories.

• Colin M - ok, I think we're just about scraping the barrel here for minor details. Be glad if you'd close this as completed now. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:59, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

I think it could also be clearer about the textual connection between the poem and the nursery rhyme - does the nursery rhyme appear in full as part of the poem, or is it interpolated in a more subtle way?

• The 'Story' subsection makes it clear that it's the second; the text is expanded and reworked.

Reception section

In terms of the prose, this suffers from a bit of a WP:QUOTEFARM problem. Structurally, the four sections read like four summaries of four different essays on the subject. Which makes the section longer than it needs to be, since, at a high level, there's a lot of overlap between these analyses. Summarize, paraphrase, condense. And consider a clearer organizational scheme. e.g. an "Influences" section to talk about works which have been regarded as possible influences on the poem, a section on related works by Tolkien (the other MitM poem, the Uole Kuvion story, etc.).

• Thank you. However, the number and length of quotations is certainly not excessive; nor is the length of the Reception unreasonable, as it is on what the scholars say that the article (and its notability) depend. Condensing is dangerous as it introduces the risk of conflation, and worse, original research (imagine "Clearly, scholars A and B can both be read as implying ..."). The expansion of the Context and Song sections has also balanced the article further, matching the Reception for length.

• imagine "Clearly, scholars A and B can both be read as implying ..." But I'm not suggesting you need to do your own interpretation or synthesis of the sources. I'm talking about cases where "scholars A and B both say...". e.g. Shippey and Honegger both say the Harley MitM poem is a likely influence.
• Re quotation density, see MOS:QUOTE: It is generally recommended that content be written in Wikipedia editors' own words. Consider paraphrasing quotations into plain and concise text when appropriate (while being aware that close paraphrasing can still violate copyright). But technically WP:GACR doesn't mandate compliance with this section of the MoS, so I won't belabor the point. Colin M (talk) 20:00, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

• Thanks. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:04, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

• More to the point, the four subsections of Reception are, as their headings indicate, rather distinct; not surprisingly, the scholars involved make different points about the poem, and the aspects of imagined prehistory, performance, multi-layering, and medieval borrowing are all clearly relevant to the article. It's also not the case that there is one subsection per scholar; the imagined prehistory and medieval borrowings subsections each have two scholars.

Also, there are works mentioned in this section which seem, by scholarly consensus, to be relevant to understanding the subject - particularly "The Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon" and the Harley poem. We should give background on these (possibly in an earlier section).

• On the other Man-in-the-Moon poem, you're right, I was avoiding it as off-topic (it's another work), but it is indeed related and I've added something on it now. On the Harley poem, yes, we can say a bit about it without getting too academic: done that. On Kuvion, even Christopher Tolkien hardly says anything, other than that his father had presumably been planning to write a story about him.

It's a lot to bite off, but happy to put this on hold if you'd like to take a stab at it. Colin M (talk) 22:12, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Colin M - No need. I've responded to all the items. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:02, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Final comments

Thanks for the updates. The additions to the "Context" and "Story" sections are great. I think they give the reader a much firmer and more well-rounded understanding of the content of the poem and the context surrounding it - nice work.

We disagree profoundly on the density of quotations and organization of the "Reception" section, but insofar as I believe it impedes comprehension, I don't think it, by itself, goes as far as failing WP:GACR 1a, and MOS:QUOTE is not one of the sections mentioned in 1b.

So passed. Sorry if you feel I put you through the wringer on this, but even if we disagree as to whether it met the GACR at the beginning, I hope you at least agree that the article has emerged looking even better! Colin M (talk) 20:13, 8 July 2021 (UTC)