Wikipedia:Peer review/Prise d'Orange/archive1

Prise d'Orange

I've listed this article for peer review because I'm hoping to take it to FAC and I think it is close to satisfying the criteria. This will be my first FA nomination in a very long time, so I would appreciate all the feedback I can get before taking the plunge. I would be particularly interested in feedback on the Textual history and Interpretation sections, as the former is dry and the latter was difficult to write. Thanks, AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 03:34, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Comments from DanCherek

Nice work! I'm taking a look at this, can't do it in one sitting so I will leave comments here as I go along so that I don't forget them. DanCherek (talk) 15:57, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

• Is there a contradiction between "composed in Old French in the 12th and 13th centuries" and "in the main era, c. 950–c. 1150, of this genre's oral popularity and performance", which indicates that some were composed as early as the 10th century?
  • Huh, I hadn't thought of that. Maybe Newth's emphasis on oral performance (implicitly contrasted with composition in writing) is the answer? I might just remove the quote entirely; I added it because I thought it was cool, but on a reread I don't think it's that important. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 23:10, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
    • I removed it; see discussion below re references to Newth. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 02:02, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
• Not sure how you prefer to handle duplicate links between the lead and the body, but if links like "Old French" and "decasyllable" are duplicated, than "Saracen" should be too ("dominated by his campaigns against Saracens").
  • True, will do. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 23:10, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
• The article states that William of Gellone died in 812 (referencing Corbellari), but Ferrante (who is cited in the same sentence) says he died in 813, and our own article on him lists either 812 or 814. Hmm... would it help to change it to "died circa 812" or something?
  • This might do the trick. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 03:20, 10 April 2022 (UTC)
• I think it would be helpful to briefly discuss why Gautier, Jeanroy, and Weeks find Prise to be unrealistic.
  • Added this to clarify. Gautier's critique is more impressionistic so I gave Jeanroy and Weeks more airtime since they make it clearer why they're dissatisfied with this maligned tale. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 16:44, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
• "under the pretence of having news of King Arragon from Africa" – Fox p. 89 says that they pretend to have news of Arragon's father, not Arragon.
  • Whoops, fixed. Since Tibaut is King Arragon's father, I just used that instead. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 01:58, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
• Something that might be brought up at FAC is a recommendation to use the |upright= parameter for images rather than a fixed pixel size (MOS:IMGSIZE).
  • Done. I also tried in vain to find some illustration of Prise in particular; some manuscript versions are illuminated but the images I saw online were poor enough that they wouldn't provide much value to readers. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 05:29, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
• The alt text could be improved a bit. If it really is redundant to the caption, it can just be "refer to caption", but at least for the painting of William, it could be something like "Painting of a man in armor clutching his chest while looking at XYZ".
  • Done, hadn't given this much thought evidently. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 05:29, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
• Have you considered adding the article to the "Chansons de geste" section of {{Matter of France}} and adding that navbox to the article?
  • I hadn't considered it because I didn't know that existed. I don't want to add the navbox because I think it's close to failing WP:INDISCRIMINATE—the matter of France alone would likely be a legit navbox per WP:NAV/by analogy to WP:LISTN but I don't see how all the Charlemagne stuff fits in. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 02:08, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
    • Makes sense. DanCherek (talk) 02:30, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
• Have you considered adding a link to the source text (on Wikisource or elsewhere) to an External Links section?
  • The best approach might be to do a Further reading section with Internet Archive links to books like this one where a manuscript reconstruction with modern orthography is provided. The alternative would be linking to manuscripts on Gallica which I guess would be ok but would be helpful to a very narrow range of specialists. Thoughts? AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 02:08, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
    • Sure, I think any kind of link to the full text—including that Archive.org one—would be good. Whenever I read an article like this one, I always want to take a look at the text to get a sense of the structure, etc., so having a link would be helpful for me and hopefully other readers. DanCherek (talk) 02:30, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
      • On the other hand, the MOS generally recommends against duplicating links that are already cited in the references in the Further reading or External links sections, so maybe it's fine as is. DanCherek (talk) 02:33, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
• "a romance written by monks at Gellone" – from just reading the article it's not immediately clear what "Gellone" is (other than part of William of Gellone's title); the abbey is only referred to as "Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert Abbey" in the background section. Might be worth making it more apparent that it is also called Gellone Abbey
  • Rephrased and tweaked. On looking back at the sources I wasn't how I arrived at the formulation that was there before. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 04:12, 11 April 2022 (UTC)
• "in the Bodleian Library" – maybe change this to ""in the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford" for people who have never heard of it... unless that would make the sentence too wordy?
  • How's Special:Diff/1074213452? AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 02:12, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
    • I like that. DanCherek (talk) 02:30, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
• "The older, lost Prise describes" → "The older, lost Prise also describes": maybe this seems like a minor change but I was confused for a bit about whether the lost Prise included both Guillaume's conquest of Orange and Tibaut's attack, or just Tibaut's attack. I think adding "also" or a similar word will make it clearer that it's the former.
  • Done—I agree that this helps clarify which is in the version we have and which is not. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 15:34, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
• Why are some Internet Archive pages directly linked (like ref 43, Baldick 2008, p. 150 and ref 66, Amer 1999, p. 286) while others are not (like Ferrante)?
  • No principled explanation - I just didn't realize you could do that until I'd added lots of references. I added the rest just now. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 02:40, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
• is now considered "definitive" – does this need attribution (WP:WORDS#Unsupported attributions)? Are the quotation marks needed?
  • Removed "definitive", kind of weaselly anyway. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 02:02, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
• "by Claude Lachet and Jean-Pierre" I think you are missing his last name, Tusseau.
  • I was indeed, good catch. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 02:15, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
• "itself published in at least four editions" If this is referring to Rédactions, I think this would fit better in the preceding paragraph where Rédactions is discussed.
  • Good point, reworked. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 14:31, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
• Moniage Guillame I – interlanguage link to Moniage Guillaume?
• Siège de Barbastre – interlanguage ilnk to Siège de Barbastre?
  • Both done. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 14:13, 8 April 2022 (UTC)
• You refer to Newth as "Michael A. Newth" in Background and as "Michael A. H. Newth" in Textual history – just pointing it out, not sure if you want to do anything about that
  • Standardized to "A. H." as slightly more reviews use that form, removed the quote above as I hadn't seen that tidbit repeated elsewhere. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 02:02, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
• under the tutelage of the intrepid Count Guillaume". – should the period come before the quotation mark as it seems like a complete sentence?
  • Fixed. It's part of a complete sentence and the part quoted is the ending clause of that sentence, so yes I think MOS:LQ says the period should be inside. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 14:54, 12 April 2022 (UTC)
• "she, not Guillaume, initiates her conversion to Christianity" – wait, the previous section says "Prise casts Orable's baptism, for instance, as Guillaume's choice"
  • Hm, this is odd. Possibly the two critics simply disagree; possibly the interpretation depends on whether you are focusing narrowly on her baptism as opposed to her conversion generally. I just got rid of the problematic assertion. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 02:10, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
• trope should be wikilinked in "Saracen princess, a trope in medieval literature" rather than "use of tropes of the epic genre"
  • Done. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 01:58, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
• Does it make sense to describe Tibaut as "Orable's erstwhile husband" when it sounds like they are married for almost all of Prise?
  • Hmm, I see the point but the lede also says that Guillaume marries her so to my mind it would also be confusing to describe him as simply her husband. Maybe some alternative phrasing would work better but I can't think of it atm. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 00:13, 13 April 2022 (UTC)
• Maybe wikilink "a larger cycle about Guillaume" to La Geste de Garin de Monglane?
  • Reworked, also linking "cycle" to List of literary cycles—not a perfect target but since "cycle" is used in a rather technical sense I thought it made sense. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 00:13, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

@AleatoryPonderings: That's all I have! I think the article is in really good shape. DanCherek (talk) 22:48, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

@DanCherek: Thanks much for such a careful and helpful review. Will address these over the next while. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 00:20, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Comments from Tim riley

Not much from me. This article seems in excellent shape. A handful of drafting points:

• The article is evidently in BrE (armour, centred, fervour, humour, metre, pretence) in which case the –ize endings look a bit quaint. True, the Oxford University Press clings to the old form, but I can't think of anyone else who does. The Times and the Cambridge University Press used to, but now use the modern –ise form. I don't at all press the point, particularly if you feel strongly about it.
  • I have used Oxford spelling (which has armour, centred, but also realize, galvanize) as it seemed the best compromise between various Englishes for an article without any obvious MOS:TIES.
• Another BrE point: the construction "The surviving text of Prise was likely based" is not idiomatic British usage. "Probably" rather than "likely" would be usual here.
  • Changed to "probably".
• When you cite an author inline, e.g., "However, Charles A. Knudson notes…", it is helpful to the reader to add, where reasonably practicable, a word or two putting the author into context. Something like "the philologist Joe Soap", "the historian Fred Jones", "Jane Smith in a 2000 paper" or suchlike signals to the reader why the authors are chosen for quotation.
  • I've received this suggestion before but in all honesty I don't really see the point. In an article like this about such a niche subject, everyone quoted should be, and is in this case, a scholar of medieval literature/French literature/poetry/etc. Repeating each time that the person is a medievalist or some such doesn't strike me as helpful to the reader, and in any event would presumably require sources of its own—and unless a person is well known enough to have had secondary sources expressly describe them as having an academic specialty, those aren't likely to be forthcoming.
• The meaning of your word "assonanced" is clear enough, but I just mention that the OED knows not of "assonance" as a verb, and Chambers gives the verb as "assonate".
  • Rephrased that.
• There are a few duplicate links in the main text: Charroi de Nîmes, Christendom, Joan M. Ferrante, Joseph Bédier, Lynette R. Muir. The general rule is only one link to any other Wikipedia article. (I don't say I never disobey that rule on the sly, but there should be good reason for any duplicate link.)
  • Removed the dups (I think).

That's all I can come up with. If you go to FAC please ping me and I'll look in there with pleasure. – Tim riley talk 10:31, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

@Tim riley: Thanks much! I have been off wiki for a bit, due to life commitments and a bout of covid, but am hoping to get to your points (and the remainder of Dan's above) soonish. Appreciate you taking the time. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 14:58, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

I believe I've addressed all the above. Thanks again. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 02:54, 17 April 2022 (UTC)