Wikipedia:Peer review/Metamorphoses/archive1

Metamorphoses

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
This vital article is being improved as an entrant in the Core Contest: Wikipedia:The Core Contest/Entries. This peer review is part of the process, which runs from 0.00 hrs UTC 15 April to 0.00 hrs 12 May 2013. All editors are invited to offer suggestions for article improvement.

On behalf of the Core Contest judges, Binksternet (talk) 05:17, 17 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Extending review. Binksternet (talk) 14:24, 8 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Preliminaries

It's late in the game, but MasterOfHisOwnDomain posted a request on my talk page asking that I might take a look at what he's done on this article, so here we go. In the Core Contest entry for this article MOHOD describes his goals for the Metamorphoses as "to create more content and re-work existing content (including providing more sources) with the intention of nominating for GA." Thus I will soon make suggestions below for what I feel is needed before the article should be nominated (or passed) as a Good Article (with a few clues toward FA), but first I'd like to point out exactly what MOHOD has accomplished to date.

This is how MOHOD found the article, and this is its condition as I write.

The article formerly engaged with no prominent (or even significant) Ovidian scholarship. It now includes works which must be read by students of the poem (Galinsky, Otis and Solodow), contributions by important, contemporary Anglophone Latinists (Hardie, Lyne, Harrison), and the intermediate commentary of Anderson, which is middling and has specific flaws, but which is consulted by scholars and is about the level of discourse appropriate for a Wikipedia article.

All of three paragraphs were devoted to the poem before. These have been embellished and restructured with the guidance of solid, recent scholarship. None of the appropriate, but uncited content has been deleted, and where possible MOHOD has cited what was already there. There is now greater coverage of the important topic of Ovid's engagement with Greek "models" and what once was a bulleted list of cultural touchstones has become a bonafide start on the huge topic of the Met.'s reception.

Specific comments and questions

In the lead: "Considered one of the most influential works in Western culture, particularly European ..." While I understand its motivation, the qualification seems a bit off in perspective. The Nachleben of a classical text in the West will have more fat on it in Europe because for the lion's share of the poem's existence that's all there was of "Western culture". davidiad { t } 17:37, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Entirely fair; removed. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 19:38, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In "Source and models". The first three sentences seem to misconstrue Galinsky's scenario. He's setting up a distinction between Hellenistic poets' treatment of myth and the more austere approach found in earlier Greek poetry (his examples being Pindar and Aeschylus). So there's nothing "contrary" about Ovid's relation to Hellenistic poetry. davidiad { t } 17:42, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Found it rather hard to understand Galinsky's meaning. Will re-think how to word that particular point. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 19:38, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Also in "Source and models". "In the case of an oft-used myth such as that of Io in Book I—the subject of literary adaptation as early as the fifth century BC, and as recently as a generation prior—Ovid ..." I'm not sure where that "5th century BC" comes from, but it's incorrect. We know of texts treating the myth from at least the 7th or 6th centuries, and when we start looking back in Greek literature into the archaic period, it gets really murky as to exactly when something became a "literary" subject. Maybe make this two sentences, rephrasing the bit about early treatments and explicitly referencing Calvus, whose article needs some lovin'. On Calvus and Ovid, see Hollis, A. S. (2007), Fragments of Roman Poetry c. 60 BC–AD 20, Oxford, ISBN 9780198146988{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link). I'll mention more opportunities for improving this section later. davidiad { t } 18:02, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The 5th century statement comes from Anderson, I believe. Glad for another source and the pointer on how to better phrase it. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 19:38, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Probably the nearest to a secondary source citation for the early side of the tradition is that book I mentioned a couple days ago: Ziogas, I. (2013), Ovid and Hesiod: The Metamorphosis of the Catalogue of Women, Cambridge, ISBN 9781107007413{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link), on page 69, which discusses Catalogue of Women fr. 124. That poem might be the earliest known treatment of Io and is dated anywhere from mid-seventh to late sixth century. Citations for the varying dates, if needed, can be found in Catalogue of Women#Date, composition and authorship. davidiad { t } 20:23, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In "Manuscript tradition". "... no manuscript survives from this period." I would change "period" to "antiquity", since we wouldn't expect a copy from near to it's publication to have survived. davidiad { t } 19:17, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 19:38, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Also in "Manuscript tradition". "it is only from the eleventh century onwards that manuscripts have been passed down—taken together with those from the twelfth and early thirteenth there are over a dozen texts, of varying value, of the Metamorphoses." This relies on Anderson, who says not "texts" but "witnesses". By this I presume he was was referring to independent manuscript families (that is, groups manuscripts that show affinities pointing to a common hyparchetype), but who knows? I'd just delete the mention of Anderson's "over a dozen" since it is unclear just what he meant, and Anderson, despite his having revised the Teubner, isn't someone we should be looking to too often for the state of the text. What's of value from him in that paragraph is the scarcity of earlier manuscripts and the fact that the 11th through the 13th centuries is the period on which we rely for our text. davidiad { t } 19:17, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Right. His statement seemed to contradict another source about the number of manuscripts running into the hundreds (will find out which source). Without understanding the critical scene—as you obviously do—it was difficult for me to decide between them. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 19:38, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The manuscript tradition is always the most Byzantine, most boring part of these things. davidiad { t } 20:23, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It might also be valuable to readers to incorporate Anderson's opposition between the presence of earlier manuscripts for authors like Vergil and Horace (though his "even Juvenal" is glib and acritical) and the relatively late manuscripts that survive for Ovid. davidiad { t } 00:48, 12 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It might also be good to mention somewhere, I guess in the manuscript section, that the first full printed edition was edited by Franciscus Puteolanus and published in Bologna in 1471. Tarrant's Oxford Classical Texts edition, p. xxxix can be cited for this, or the first volume of Frank Justus MIller's Loeb Classical Library text, p. xv. davidiad { t } 20:40, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Going forward

Although a great start has been made on the way to Good Article status, there are a few gaps in coverage that will need to be addressed first, and these will probably take some time. The circumstances of the poem's composition should be treated, situating it within Ovid's oeuvre, life and the literary–cultural milieu of the later Augustan period. (Cynwolfe would provide better guidance than me, especially on the topic of Augustan literature, but I balk at drafting her into any effort since she's busy with her own things.) The process of situating the Met. within Ovid's body of work will also bring in sources and research that will help address the nature of the poem: just what's unique about its style, tone and approaches to its subject matter, and the like. I have to digest the "Content" and preliminary "Themes" sections a bit more before I can offer any substantial opinions: those would be the hardest parts to write and "finalize". Three fellas should definitely have a voice in the article: Denis Feeney (esp. Gods in Epic, ch. 5 deals specifically with Ovid), Alessandro Barchiesi (redlink!?) and Stephen Hinds (his Allusion and Intertext is an important little read and deals with the Met.'s relation with the Aeneid). Philip Hardie's Ovid's Poetics of Illusion is also often fun. davidiad { t } 21:19, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As I say in the summation on the Core Entries page, the breadth of the topic and the dire state of the article previously means that even with the best of efforts it has been difficult to raise the article in its entirety; the content is inconsistent—several sections require minimal effort and wouldn't look out of place in a GA (e.g. In English translation), but others still substantially more. These suggestions will be something I try to include as I continue with the article; with responses to each as I come to them. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 09:53, 12 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]