Talk:Edward W. Tayler

Poetics

The following contains some description of Tayler's interest in making clear, non-relative assessments of art:

One of Tayler’s most unusual stratagems, which went against the grain of academic practice and struck some of us as outrageous, seems in retrospect to be 
a defiant insistence on making qualitative value judgments. Each week, he required us to bring in a list of the top 10 poems by the poet under study, in 
descending order of greatness. With the confidence of an absolutist in a relativist universe, we were to list not our favorites but the poet’s greatest 
works. We were to state unequivocally which was the best of John Donne’s poems, or George Herbert’s, or Ben Jonson’s or Andrew Marvell’s. “It was a 
different kind of reading for us,” recalls Jonathan Tuck ’69, who took the seminar a year or two before I did. “Our normal expectation had been that the 
question of value had already been answered — or else why were we reading this work rather than another?” But here we were to read Donne’s or Herbert’s 
collected poems, as if it were up to us to affirm or deny their individual greatness, and rank them in order of worth.

https://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/may04/cover.html

He mentions Winters I believe in the above also... more reference to the fact he studied under the former at stamford:

https://english.columbia.edu/announcements/edward-w-tayler-lionel-trilling-professor-emeritus-humanities

Winters' contempt for relativism is well known and might be cited here in In Defense of Reason:

https://archive.org/stream/indefenseofreaso030343mbp/indefenseofreaso030343mbp_djvu.txt

"I am more or less aware of the extent of the catalogue of disagree- ments that might be drawn up in reply to such a statement, but it is far less astounding than, let us say, the unanimity of the best minds on the subject of Homer and Vergil, particularly if we accept the doctrine of relativism with any great seriousness."

I don't know how to get the page number of that from the online citation.

And it is not just a one-off thing. He wrote extensively about it. Including in his poems. For instance the verse of On Teaching the Young here:

The poets only bliss Is in cold certitude-- Laurel, archaic, rude. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47781/on-teaching-the-young — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.127.17.241 (talk • contribs)

The first two aren't really reliable sources, they are basically primary sources. WP:RS has more. I can't find the quote in your third source. In fact, I can't find any reference to Tayler in that source at all. The fourth source is a poem by Yvor Winters, so I have no idea what relevance you'd think that has. It appears to have none with regard to Tayler. It would be inappropriate to use that as a source for Winters, for that matter, that'd be original research. --Yamla (talk) 10:49, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Tayler directly discusses Winters' anti-relativism, and Winters discusses it directly in his poetics and his poetry... that's what that poem is about. If you care to read In Defense of Reason it's like 500 pages on the topic. I'm including that because I made two claims:

1. That Tayler studied under Winters (I believe evidence of that is included in 2 primary sources... in the 2004 CCT magazine article he specifically talks about Winters and Thom Gunn, with whom he studied at Stamford).

2. That Tayler ascribed in part at least to some of Winters' absolutism. This is a novel and unfashionable aesthetic paradigm these days, however it's fascinating in my estimation and meaningful for the generations of students he taught. If you look at the academic awards and honors that were heaped on this person... and the praise heaped by famous novelists (e.g. Denby, Auster, Kusher)... I mean if it's worth while to mention that this person exists, it might be useful to put in a sentence or two about what it was he actually stood for, and believed in. I think that's an essential thing that's missing from this article, and I should like to say something about it--even if we have to do it with weak statements of what "some may have believed he meant..." or whatever. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.127.17.241 (talk) 08:27, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

What I understood was that rule against original research is designed to block controversial or qualitative claims. But it's not supposed to bar us from citing a passage from the Iliad in the article about the Iliad, or making statements about reality. That's not really research so much as it's observation. I mean... it's actually hard to get secondary sources making particularly obvious claims about things, because it's understood... few would ever be tempted to observe something like "Adolph Hitler had a mustache," but you could find a dozen pictures of it almost instantly. Is that original research in the way that Wikipeida means to bar original research? I assumed this was a proscription against doing our own archaeology, or scientific research... but reading a textbook and copying a declarative statement hardly seems like what would be regarded as research. Not the kind of thing where you're asking people to go out on a limb to trust you... or... I just don't know. Like I said, I'd like to add some substance to this article about what it was that Tayler actually believed in. And if I can't do a magazine article and I can't cite his texts that he wrote, or the texts of people who influenced him... what can I include? Legitimate question. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.127.17.241 (talk) 08:50, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

The Rock Star

Tayler was often referred to as a rock star. Some interest developed around his image even in his old age as can be seen here:

Tayler was also an avid motorcyclist and liked his martinis bone dry with a twist.

https://www.college.columbia.edu/cct/issue/summer18/article/memoriam-edward-w-%E2%80%9Cted%E2%80%9D-tayler-beloved-shakespeare-scholar

I shall attempt to actually use these citations after my eye strain improves...

70.127.17.241 (talk) 00:16, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

That quote doesn't appear in the source. The source isn't really suitable for Wikipedia, as it isn't a reliable source; see WP:RS. At a stretch, it can be used to cite that he was an avid motorcyclist, but you certainly can't copy the bit about the martinis (that is, you can't use the quote you give above), because of WP:COPYRIGHT and you most certainly can't use this to cite that he was often referred to as a rock star, because the source, which wouldn't really be suitable anyway, makes no such claim. WP:NOR would apply. --Yamla (talk) 10:53, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

I must have mixed up which article had that. It was the first one that says he studied under Winters (though this one makes reference to that too).

But as regards the citation, perhaps you can clarify for me... because I have read the article, but do not see what would keep Columbia College Today from being regarded as a legitimate source. It's a major publication with a print circulation of 52,000 readers (compare to Chicago Tribune with 232,000) who are highly literate and participatory so far as the correction of errors. David Lehman is a well-regarded editor and with decades of publishing experience, and his texts are used in poetry curricula across the country. Surely we should not rely on AP affiliates the history of academics/culture? What would be a more authoritative source about a Columbia professor than an official publication of Columbia?

(I mean I get that it's not entirely neutral but every publication has a perspective at the end of the day.) 70.127.17.241 (talk) 08:14, 6 September 2019 (UTC)