Talk:The Parson's Tale

Sententious

A sermon is a talk on a religious or moral subject given by a member of the clergy as part of a religious service; a long and tedious talk, especially one telling somebody how or how not to behave. In his prologue he says that he wants to tell a story of “virtuous sentence”. When he says sentence he means sententious. Sententious means tending to use, or full of, maxims and aphorism; inclined to moralizes more than is merited or appreciated; expressing much in few words. Sententious has the connotation of being pompous which is how he acts. That is why he tells a sermon. He wants to moralize people and since he is pompous, he talks in a rather haughty tone. uyuigjjh ijskfjkfngiqrhey heyhehy —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.183.148.220 (talk) 17:01, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

'Sententious' only became depreciatory later. At the time of this writing 'sentence' meant meaning or wisdom. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.101.42.203 (talk) 20:07, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Pre-GAN notes

Nice work! Some notes that I imagine would come out in a GA review:

• Might be worth a Background section to give context on concepts from The Canterbury Tales that would not be apparent to a reader navigating to this singular "tale", i.e., what is the work's structure, what is noteworthy about its context within the larger work; what is a host, pilgrim, parson, Harry Bailly, etc.
• The lede should reflect what is sourced within the article, so the background info in the lede can fit into that Background section; i.e., source it there because it's (a) introduced in the lede, not reflecting the article, and (b) without a source
• I don't know the precedence for other articles, but I would recommend translating quotes like "Thou sholdest knytte up wel a greet mateere" similar to how we translate technical language for a general audience
• If the seven sins make up most of the text, should they be summarized here?
• Traditionally the summary/description/contents would be separate from the analysis (of when this type of treatise was popular, character of the parson, Interpretation, etc.) and/or its development (how Chaucer might have come to write it)
• The quotes in the Interpretation can likely be further paraphrased
• The See also links would likely be more useful if annotated
• No love for short footnotes {{sfn}}?

czar 16:28, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

• Hm, good point. That's totally absent from all of the individual Tale articles at present, so I didn't think to add it in, but now that you mention it, it's obviously missing. I'll add something to the "Framing narrative" section.
• I wrote the lead as a summary of the article, so if there's something that looks unsourced, that's a clarity problem, not a sourcing problem - can you point out which bit you mean?
• Hm. I was quite sure I did do this. Hopefully this doesn't mean I accidentally deleted a paragraph somewhere. On it.
• Boy oh boy did I struggle over this bit - and so does everyone else. The truth is that this is really, truly, quite exhaustively boring to anyone who isn't a fifteenth-century English penitent or someone studying fifteenth-century English penitents, so everyone just names the topic, then the scholarly articles tend to jump immediately into the messy details, and the encyclopedic sources spend more time talking about the historiography, what Chaucer's aims might have been, etc. I tried summarizing it in a bit more depth and found that I was basically just describing what the seven sins are, which, well, I can solve that one with a wikilink. If you can articulate some kind of question you had about the seven sins, that might help me come up with something.
• They're all together here mostly as a result of the above.
• I'm too fond of Donaldson's comment to paraphrase it, but I'll see about the rest.
• Good idea.
• I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I think this format is easier on readers - much more convenient as a reader to be able to see the full citation immediately. As an editor, I much prefer the tidy bibliography you get this way too. I apologize for my poor taste.

...are you sure you don't want to just go ahead and review it? -- asilvering (talk) 03:18, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

Ah, someone beat me to it. Funny that it has a reputation for being boring but I pulled up a metric fuckton of academic papers about it (haven't had time to write out the citations). I don't think we need a blow-by-blow of the plot but I would be surprised if no source went into even cursory overview of the main points. (How did Cooper handle it?) The part that I'm left wondering about is "the analysis of its nature", which would seem to extend beyond a simple definition. By the way, if you want stultifying, check out The Structure of Literature...

Modern readers and critics, however, have found it pedantic and boring Since this is a sweeping claim, it needs heavier evidence than just Donaldson. I've handled this in the past by stacking references (ideally with quotes) that show multiple critics making this point, if it isn't a summative point made plainly in a secondary source. czar 13:33, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Re: boring, I bet that's said outright in Cooper, so I'll check. As for the papers: oh, don't think for a minute that Chaucerians can't write metric fucktons on boring... a lot of it gets very deeply into the weeds. That's part of why I've ended up citing Cooper so much, since she's summarizing the most top-level relevant bits.

Re "plot", such as it is, the thing about the "cursory overview of the main plot" here is that this basically ends up being an accidental content fork of a hypothetical article "medieval views on sin". (I think Cooper probably just says something like "it's a medieval treatise on penitence", haha. I'll check.) But I'll give fleshing it out another try. Hopefully I don't bore everyone as thoroughly as the Parson himself does. -- asilvering (talk) 19:12, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:The Parson's Tale/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Asilvering (talk · contribs) 01:30, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: BennyOnTheLoose (talk · contribs) 13:57, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.
2. Verifiable with no original research, as shown by a source spot-check:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).
	2c. it contains no original research.
	2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.	Looked over the article history back to September 2020. No evidence of edit warring.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.
	7. Overall assessment.

Happy to discuss, or be challenged on, any of my review comments. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 13:57, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for taking this on! As you can see on the article talk page, I've got some other suggestions already. I've implemented a couple of them so far. -- asilvering (talk) 18:58, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Asilvering I hadn't seen the talk page before taking on the review, so thanks for highlighting it. I agree with the points made. Please could you ping me when those have been addressed? I can't see any major issues, and the sources seem fine, so my review is not going to lead to significant reworking. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 08:47, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

@BennyOnTheLoose I could continue tinkering with it, but I think I've now hit "broad enough for GA". I can't fix the lead issue because I can't spot it. If you think there's anything still missing or anything that needs further detail, please let me know. I know the topic well so it's easy to miss what might not be apparent to someone else. -- asilvering (talk) 18:08, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

• Copyvio check: I reviewed both matches over 2% found using Earwig's Copyvio Detector. No concerns. (Titles, and phrases that are OK per WP:LIMITED)
• Images: Both are PD. Relevant. Captions are fine. (Optionally, you could add the year of the Ellesmere Manuscript into the first caption.)

Framing narrative

• "on the way to Canterbury Cathedral" - maybe describe the journey as a pilgrimage? (Not a blocker to GA status)
• "only 24 full or partial tales survive. It is unclear whether Chaucer intended to write all 120," - do we know (approximately) how many, if any, have been lost?
• "died in c. 1400" consider either using the Template:Circa, or something like "around" instead
• Spot check on "it was intended to be the final tale: the competition's host, Harry Bailly, tells the Parson that he would be an ideal tale-teller to end the contest, and the Parson agrees to "knytte up al this feeste, and make an ende"" - no issues
• Spot check on "Thematically, it is linked to the Manciple's Tale, which directly precedes it in all major manuscripts."- no issues. (Reading the source made me wonder what the manuscripts of no significance are...)
• Spot check on "The Manciple's Tale warns against careless speech" - no issues. I think the use "careless speech", which appears in the source, is accpetable per WP:LIMITED
  • I've addressed the above; let me know if I created any new problems. Regarding the survival of the tales - I was worried it would imply that. I've changed the wording. What do you think of it now? We don't have any clear evidence that any tales have been lost, though in the very early days of Chaucer scholarship there used to be speculation about this. My professional opinion is that it's very unlikely that any completed tales have been lost, and I expect that's the majority opinion these days, especially since we keep nudging the dating for the Hengwrt and Ellesmere manuscripts earlier and earlier. (For this reason, I'll avoid giving a date for Ellesmere in the caption - a can of worms worth opening on the article on that MS but not here, imo.) -- asilvering (talk) 18:00, 5 September 2024 (UTC)
    • OK! BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 19:24, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

The Tale

• Spot check on "Unlike every other tale of Canterbury, the Parson's Tale is not a tale at all, but rather a treatise on penitence and the Seven Deadly Sins" - no issues
• Spot check on "He also incorporated elements from the Summa virtutum de remediis anime, a work on the remedial virtues"
• Spot check on "It is possible that the tale was originally written outside of the context of the Canterbury Tales, and only added to them at a later date."

Manuscript context

• Spot check on "The Parson's Tale is included in most manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales, but owing to its position as the final tale, damage to the manuscripts has often left it incomplete." - no issues.
• This is a short section with short paragraphs, but probably worth retaining as a section in its own right unless there is a logical way to combine it with another section.

Character of the Parson

• Consider adding something along the lines of "A parson is a type of priest who..." to the lead. Feels a bit late in the article to be explaining what a Parson is.
• Spot check on the material cited to Grennan was fine.
• "The Host suggests that the Parson might be a Lollard, a reformist religious movement that is now seen as "proto-Protestant"" - slight rewording would help to make it easier to read that Lollardy rather than the Parson is the movement.
• Optionally, reword "hews to orthodoxy" into more common language. (It's the "hews" that I'm thinking of.)
• "According to the General Prologue, the Parson is the brother of the Plowman, who does not himself have a tale" - suggest rewording, unless the General Prologue does state that the Plowman doesn't have a tale.

Addressed. -- asilvering (talk) 01:34, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

Interpretation

• Optional: "In general, modern readers have struggled with this tale, seeing it as a repudiation of the rest of Chaucer's work" - fair comment, but coudn't this either just be "In general, modern readers have seen the tale as a repudiation of the rest of Chaucer's work"; or expand on any other aspects that modern readers find difficult?
• Consider introducing E. Talbot Donaldson in the text (optional, as readers may not recognise him as a a scholar of medieval English literature, but they would probably think that he's not a random selection)
• I think the view (assuming it is his view; I don't have access to that source) should be attributed in the yext.
• I couln't get hold f the Lawton article. Does that article support the " Other scholars have pointed out that," (i.e. more than one has); and where is the quote "after the sin comes its remedy." from? Feels like it needs an in-text attribution.
• I think the Strohm citation should include p176, which verifies the "rarely agreed on anything". (This phrase is in the source but I don;t think needs to be a quotation itself, per WP:LIMITED.

1. Regarding "struggled", I think this is more accurate than simply stating "seen it as a repudiation". The struggle here is that it looks like a repudiation of the rest of Chaucer's work, so, how then do we read it? Whereas if I change it to "have seen it as", that now appears to mean "have concluded that it is", rather than "saw it this way, and therefore struggled with it".
2. skipped this
3. Which view, can you clarify?
4. "after the sin comes its remedy" is Lawton p 40. Lawton here is one of the scholars, but I've also added a Cooper ref in here, since she lists several of them.
5. Fixed. -- asilvering (talk) 02:14, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Lead

• "The Canterbury Tales." - maybe add a date (or perhaps range) in parentheses after the title?
• "not a narrative at all," - do we need the "at all"? (Not a blocker to GA status)
• " "self-help" manual" - maybe "self-help" manual"? (If changed here, then change in the body as well) (Not a blocker to GA status)
• Would wikilinking "Middle Ages" be an overlink?
• I was wondering whether phrases like "modern" and "more recent scholarship" could be a bit more specific, but looking at the sources that I have, perhaps this wouldn't be easy enough when we're only looking at meeting the GA standards.

Addressed these in some way or another, except the "more recent scholarship" - what I mean there is simply at the sentence level: "more recent than the scholarship that questioned whether Chaucer intended it to be part of the Tales at all". -- asilvering (talk) 01:55, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

General comments

• As I didn't have access to all the sources, I've relied quite heavily on Cooper as my guide when considering whether the article is suitably in depth and broad for a GA. I'm satisfied that it is. *Similarly, I think there is adquate context/framing, without veering too far from the article's subject.
• There are a couple of inconsistencies in whether titles are in title case, but GA status doesn't require that consistency.
• Interesting article, although it didn't make me rush to read the Tale itself!