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More thoughts and suggestions on further revisions

Friends -- let us once again thank MackyBeth for energetic intelligence and faithful work which are a shining example for all to follow. I especially appreciate that proposed changes were announced here on the Talk Page, though perhaps a few days wait is not ample warning for major changes, especially in August, when many of us are hot and sleepy or on vacation. I see several issues for discussion.

Some of these go back to the archived discussions of December 2013, where the WP:NOVSTY guidelines were mentioned. The structure of an article on a novel should generally be:

  • Lead section
  • Plot
  • Characters
  • Major themes
  • Style
  • Background
  • Publication history
  • Reception
  • Adaptations
  • Footnotes and references

Of course, each article has different needs, but it's not up to us to get too far from the pattern.

Thoughts:

  • The length of the article. My basic worry is that at c. 76,000kb the article is getting too long for readers to see clearly. The guideline WP:TOOBIG says articles which are:
> 100 kB Almost certainly should be divided
> 60 kB Probably should be divided (although the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading material)
> 50 kB May need to be divided (likelihood goes up with size)
This suggests that the article already "probably should be divided," though there is certainly wiggle room, but we should discuss before we make major additions.
Taking the top ten novels in the Greatest Books site, this table shows that our Moby Dick article is the longest of the top ten; that the lead is also the longest; and that most of the others do not have quotes from famous authors or critics, though many do (the numbers are rounded):
Rank ARTICLE CLASS LENGTH WORDS IN LEAD
5 Moby Dick B 76,000 361 words (4 quotes) cut to 276, one quote
1 Ulysses (novel) C 50,000 282 (one quote)
2 In Search of Lost Time C 74,000 324 (no quote)
3 Don Quixote B 50,000 229 (one quote)
4 The Great Gatsby GOOD 67,000 321 (no quote, but rank)
6 Lolita C 73,000 225 (no quotes)
7 The Sound and the Fury C 30,000 122 (no quotes)
8 Madame Bovary C 23,000 196(1 quote)
9 One Hundred Years of Solitude B 49,000 123 (no quotes)
10 Anna Karenina C 45,000 175 (4 quotes)
Of course, we can find ten other random or specifically chosen articles showing other features, so let's not get caught up in specific comparisons, only a general idea of parameters in a bunch of representative articles.
This is only to show that the MD article would not be an outlier if we pared it down.
  • The section on characters. It strikes me that this is actually a desirable section. The suggestion at Content removal is that content should not be removed simply to reduce article size, here to make room for a plot summary. Still, of the ten articles in the table only about half have a section on characters, so it's not a big deal. You may be right that the links to the individual articles for each character are enough, but it also may be that the themes of the book could be clarified and enriched by a section on the most important characters. My suggestion is that we consider restoring a short section on Characters. There should be room for it if the Plot Summary is reduced -- dare I say "tried out"?
  • Plot summary: The essay WP:PLOTSUMNOT suggests that the summary "should not cover every scene and every moment of a story" and that "While longer descriptions may appear to provide more data to the reader, a more concise summary may in fact be more informative as it highlights the most important elements." In any case, the plot summary should not get longer.
This guideline also warns
"Do not attempt to recreate the emotional impact of the work through the plot summary. Wikipedia is not a substitute for the original."
"The three basic elements of a story are plot, character and theme. Anything that is not necessary for a reader's understanding of these three elements, or is not widely recognized as an integral or iconic part of the work's notability, should not be included."
Just by eyeballing, I would guess that we could reduce the length by a third to a half and increase the usefulness.
  • The lead. The length has crept up (most additions are fine taken one by one, but they do not all belong in the lead) and the focus gotten fuzzy (the themes would be more effective if organized paragraph by paragraph). I explained my edits one by one in the edit summaries.

The Encyclopedia Britannica article "Moby Dick" is a model of concision.

Again, much appreciation for considering these thoughts! ch (talk) 04:02, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

    • Thanks ch for your thoughtful comments, and for your tightening of the article. I was starting to feel a bit lonely here. I tightened the lead some more and took out the discussion of Hawthorne's influence, because it suggests a knowledge about the course of composition that we do not have: consensus among 21st-century scholars is difficult to pin down, but the section "composition" has a quotation from the 2007 Longman Edition in which the editors say that nothing is known about this.
  1. I deleted some subheadings for sections that are too small to warrant a heading of their own. The result is that you can see more clearly that the Table of Content is in agreement with Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Novels.
  2. As for the list of characters, I did not remove it to make room for the plot summary, but because the list was excessively long and the major characters have subpages of their own. The subpage List of Moby-Dick characters was created in March, and on 12 August the list of characters as a section on the main page was removed. From that date the page view statistics show an increase in views of the characters subpage. So it may be wise indeed to tighten the character list and then put it back on the main page.
  3. I wrote the Plot summary after having first carefully read the Wikipedia plot summary guidelines you are quoting from, so I am familiar with them. These guidelines state that for long or complex works the plot may be somewhat longer. Moby-Dick is both long and complex, and a special difficulty is that it has no straight "cause-and-effect" plot, which makes it less obvious to see what can be left out. For instance, the meeting with the nine ships: the Pequod does not meet ship number seven because she first met number three: no cause-and-effect here. But these meetings serve to give the book a kind of structure, and therefore I decided to include all nine meetings in the plot summary rather than just three or four by way of example. A plot summary should not just indicate what the book is about, but supply a genuine summary. One other book difficult to summarize according to a conservative interpretation of the guidelines is the Ulysses on the above list. Look how elaborate the description of the chapters in that article is. These two books are exceptional cases, and it is difficult to see how a plot summary within the boundaries of the guidelines can still be adequate. For these difficult works it will be more important to reach consensu through Talk pages rather than appeal to what guidelines say. Let me be clear that I am not against shortening the plot summary per se, but these aspects deserve consideration first.
  4. The length of the article as a whole is a concern indeed, especially since important sections as Style and Themes are hardly developed at all. Sections that I added on Publication and Composition are way too expansive. The section on Reception may be curbed as well. But hey, concise encyclopedic writing is a skill that takes Time, Strength, and Patience (but not Cash) to develop.
  5. As for my typos, I should indeed be more careful. The solution will be for me to shape material in a sandbox and then read it over before I add it to the page.
  6. I have looked at the guidelines for article size, Wikipedia:Article_size#Size_guideline and there they distinguish between the size of readable prose and the wiki markup size. So if the above stated length in bytes count for the markup size and not for just the language on the page, then we may still have some leeway. But even if that is the case, it is reasonable to shorten some sections. I think Publication, Background are candidates. The thing is that the size of a book reasonably only bears on the size of the plot, but there is no reason why other sections should be bigger.MackyBeth (talk) 15:58, 22 August 2014 (UTC)


Hope that I was of help, MackyBeth -- and sorry that the TalkPage was feeling lonely. Here are some thoughts on your comments on my comments:
  • I'm not sure I understand the reason for taking Hawthorne out of the lead. At the very least it's of basic importance that the book is dedicated to him. The section on Composition which you refer to, says that HM's essay on Hawthorne's Mosses is
so deeply related to Melville's imaginative and intellectual world while writing Moby-Dick," Bezanson finds, "as to be everybody's prime piece of contextual reading."
Besides, there are so many letters from HM to NH which profess a debt that I don't think there's any doubt of Hawthorne's influence while he was writing, nor that "over the course of composition, the work became more metaphysical and questioning." What is the "21st century scholarship" that would doubt that it was "probably under the influence of Nathaniel Hawthorne"? I'd be happy to rephrase.
  • Deleting the subheadings was a very good move, one which does indeed make the TOC easier to map to the article's contents.
  • You are right that a plot summary for MD is a unique challenge, and you have set sail in the right direction. But still it's a "draught, or a draught of a draught," so if we don't have the cash, at least we have the time and the patience! If it's OK, I'll pare things down just a little more to make room for other additions. Another possibility would be to rack our brains for ways to make the structure of the book more apparent, if, indeed, there is such a structure. The plot summary for Ulysses is complicated but clearly structured. But HM's botches and doublings are tougher, since much of the "plot" is metaphysical and might make more sense in your sections on theme. I agree that you are right that length is not the main consideration, but we need to honor the guidelines when they say that "a more concise summary may in fact be more informative as it highlights the most important elements."
Cheers once again! ch (talk) 05:50, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Hawthorne and the two Moby-Dicks theory

Hello ch! Your sensible edits and suggestions are helpful indeed, and you are right that Hawthorne deserves to be mentioned in the lede because the book was dedicated to him. (This makes me think that, since all of Melville's book have dedications, they should be mentioned in all the leads to insure as uniform a policy as we can muster.) Your sentence on Hawthorne stated that "over the course of composition, the book became more metaphysical and questioning, probably under the influence of Hawthorne." This contradicts what is in the article itself, especially the paragraph of Composition that I quote here for convenience:

"The book would be finished a year later than announced, giving room for scholars to develop a theory about the work's course of completion which holds that Melville's original conception was a straight narrative of a whaling voyage, only changed into the book it became after he met Hawthorne. The theory has been harpooned in two ways by Bezanson: he disagrees with both the underlying assumption about Melville's intellectual development before 1850 and the way scholars have been evaluating the evidence. "The implication here," Bezanson argues, "is that Melville was not ready for the kind of book Moby-Dick became, that he despaired of picking up where he had left off with Mardi, that the critics, or financial need, or self-doubt, or a combination of these for six months had him tied down. But the profile that emerges from reading the documents, beginning with the almost rudely bold letter he wrote to John Murray on 25 March 1848, a virtual declaration of literary independence, takes quite another shape." Melville's letters of this period show him denouncing his last two straight narratives, Redburn and White-Jacket, as two books written just for the money, and he firmly stood by Mardi as the kind of book he believed in. His language is already "richly steeped in seventeenth century mannerisms," which are characteristic of the style of Moby-Dick."

Not (yet) quoted in the article is what John Bryant and Haskell Springer write in the introduction to their 2007 Longman Critical Edition of Moby-Dick: "No one knows how Melville came upon the idea of writing Moby-Dick, whether he first conceived it as just another personal narrative, or as an ambitious fiction, like Mardi" (viii). Whether Melville found a plot "or simply determined that he would discover his plot in the process of writing, is not known" (ix). In 1988 the Northwestern-Newberry edition of Moby-Dick appeared, with an essay by Harrison Hayford detailing the development of "the two Moby-Dicks"-theory, which holds that Melville's ambition changed after he met Hawthorne. In his review of the book in Melville Society Extracts (74, September 1988), Warner Berthoff is sceptical and says that "some positive discovery of new archival data" is needed to carry us further. Here is a link to that page of his thorough review (the whole review is worth reading, especially for Berthoff's discussion of questionable textual emendations): Warner Berthoff on the composition of Moby-Dick.

In SUMMARY of the above: in 1954 Stewart started the two Moby-Dicks theory of composition, which was carried further in the following decades by, among others, important scholars as Leon Howard and Harrison Hayford. Though the total of scholars engaging in this enterprise is only six, these men were so influential that the theory has become sort of accepted. However, in 1977 Robert Milder published "A Review and a Prospect" on the theory in ESQ, which exposed the theory's weaknesses and discussed counterevidence. In 1986 Bezanson's essay in A Companion to Melville Studies argues against the theory. Since the 1988 Moby-Dick no one has contributed further on the theory, and in 2007 Bryant and Springer state explicitly that nothing is known about how Moby-Dick was written. Current scholarly consensus, which is what Wikipedia should reflect, seems to me to be this: the theory is unconvincing, because 1)there is not enough evidence to work with, and 2) the existing evidence, such as statements in Melville's letters, is ambiguous.

Back to HAWTHORNE: the dedication says: "In token of my admiration for his genius." It does not say something like "For Hawthorne, without whom this book could not have been written" or anything like that, but instead expresses admiration for Hawthorne himself, independent of whatever influence he may have had. So a sentence in the lead of the dedication to Hawthorne should not imply any influence on the composition of Moby-Dick.MackyBeth (talk) 08:55, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Source for Moby-Dick#Publication_history online

Google Books offers a generous amount of pages for preview, including much of the Editorial Appendix: Moby-Dick; or, The Whale. I have just linked this web address twice on the Moby-Dick page, first at the first citation of the appendix, which occurs at the beginning of the section "Publication history" (currently numbered note 53), and second at the appearance of the edition in "Sources," Melville (1988). The basis for virtually all of the information in the section "Publication history" of the Wikipedia article is section VI of the "Note on the Text," which according to what the appendix states is attributed in "Sources" to G. Thomas Tanselle. Much of Tanselle's contribution is immediately accessible by clicking the Google Books link above and then scroll through to pages 659-688. Maybe somebody who has some minutes or so to spare will be so kind as to check if the Wikipedia language (section "Publication history") is removed far away from Tanselle's formulations so as not to violate policy. Tanselle's contribution is one of the most interesting parts of the editorial matter, your time will be well spent. MackyBeth (talk) 18:49, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale and The Whale; or, Moby-Dick

At Moby-Dick#Last-minute_change_of_title the article says that the British edition has a title page with the title The Whale; or, Moby-Dick, and it makes sense that sooner or later a reader would perceive this as a mistake and change the order of the words, which edit Holothurion has now made. However, the British version was published as The Whale, because the new title arrived too late for the publisher to change this. So he made a gesture and added Moby-Dick to a title page. It seems likely that in the future others will stumble upon this too and make the same edit to correct the perceived "mistake." Then it would probably be wise to delete this admittedly minor fact from the article altogether. Fortunately, the page in the editorial appendix where this is detailed is among the pages Google Books allows us to read: See page 672 for the title The Whale; or, Moby-Dick.

Cheers, MackyBeth (talk) 07:58, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Indeed, the real mistake was completely on my part, as I edited the text based on the title page shown at the article's top, only to realize almost immediately (but after saving the changes) that it belongs to the first American edition, not to the English one (my bad for not double-checking, which I always do). I corroborated the actual fact precisely on the version to which you kindly provide a link to (albeit on a different source) and was in the process of reverting said edit when I noticed that it was already been corrected (thanks for that!), a long with the notification pertaining this talk.
Regarding the matter of deleting or not the fact from the text, I suggest to keep it on it, as, although minor, it complements the information about the book's publication history and the differences between the American and English editions, adding to the picture as a whole. — Holothurion (talk) 08:48, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
Your edit is of the kind that could be included in the Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith policy as a terrifically clear example of an edit made with every intention to improve the article. As for your suggestion about keeping it, I have no intention yet to remove it, but as you can see above, we have been discussing that the article is now quite long already, and the most literary sections (Theme and Style) have not even been sufficiently developed. Eventually some sections will have to be shortened to keep the size in line with the conciseness characteristic of encyclopdiac writing.MackyBeth (talk) 09:41, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
I agree with MackyBeth in welcoming Holothurion's attention to the article, and also that this section on the publication history is running a little long. We might consolidate the subsection on the change in title but keep the basic fact that there was such a change. I warned future editors by adding a comment which is invisible to readers but visible when editing by putting it between "<!--" and "-->". (If you look at the previous sentence in editing mode you can see that I had to mark it with "nowiki" for the darn thing to show since it made itself invisible!) ch (talk) 18:23, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
That's a cool device! Recently I looked at some FA articles to see how concise they are, and to learn from that. I just copied the complete section "Publication history" onto my sandbox and saw it was 15,500 bytes. Obviously this is too long. The Manual of Style for Novels requires 7 sections that should be included in any article on a work of fiction (Plot, Theme, Style, Background, Publication history, Reception, Adaptation). As a rule of thumb, I would propose that a section should never exceed 10,000 bytes. The first step is to curb this section and its subsections in my sandbox first, and then transfer the shortened sections one by one onto the main page. The good news is: there are some lengthy quotations that can be shortened easily. That will not only save us some bytes but also make the section look tighter right away.MackyBeth (talk) 19:14, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

The Rachel

The names of the characters are given extensive discussion in this article, as Melville clearly chose them for their associations. The name of the ship, Rachel, is also an allusion, and the image of Rachel crying for her children is taken from Jeremiah 31, along with the prophet's message of comfort. Shouldn't this allusion be included in the discussion as well?MackyBeth (talk) 17:33, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Nomination for the "Did you know" section on the Main Page

The page has recently evolved so much that it is time to let readers know that Moby-Dick is alive, at least here on Wikipedia.. MackyBeth (talk) 17:33, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

A review of the article as it currently stands, and a few suggestions

It may be of some use to editors to mention what editing I think the article as it now stands needs most:

  • Lead. Since the lead is supposed to prepare readers for the body of the article, the lead will develop along with the article itself.
  • Plot summary. Needs serious shortening, even if editors should agree that it is defensibly one of the longest plot summaries guidelines allow. The advantage of the current summary is that it is complete in the sense that whatever editors find essential enough to keep is already there. The only thing is to reach consensus of what may be missed. I am all for retaining the meetings with the ships, all nine of them. But we could do with fewer scenes of lowering of whaleboats and Ahab pacing the deck.
    • List of characters. Currently removed to subpage. Should it come back and in what shape. A useful suggestion may be to have only a list of the Pequod crew who appear in the whole narrative, and leave the landsmen, well, leave them ashore.
  • Themes/Style. These are probably the most important sections from a literary point of view, but clearly underdeveloped.
  • Autobiographical elements. Should this be a separate section, or merge with Background?
  • Background. A. Sources. Too many quotes set off from the main text, which gives the impression of disorderliness and even carelessness.
  • Background. B. Composition. At the beginning four lengty quotations appear. The first two on Shakespeare should be shortened and be integrated in the main text. The point of them, which is that Melville discovered Shakespeare in 1849, can even be stated without any direct quotation. (However beautiful these quotes are, I have to remind myself time and again that Wikipedia is not an anthology.) I am not sure about the other two, which are the earliest and very important statements about the book's composition. Since they have been and will be the object of scholarly analysis, it is of more importance to have these two in their original wording.
  • Publication history. Shortened this weekend to a reasonable size. In the process editors realized that one or two additional sentences are still needed, a short description of the nature of the expurgated religious passages, and an indication of the specific audience that English three-deckers were aiming at. (This fashion never carried over to the US.) This indication can be found in Tanselle (1988) and would do a lot for readers' understanding of why the book was so heavily censored. (Without Melville's knowledge we must assume, for he refused to accept Bentley's offer, which was to publish Pierre on the condition that it would be excised if necessary.)
  • Reception. A. Contemporary. Should focus on Moby-Dick alone and not include comparisons with the reception of earlier works, as the articles for those works themselves will inform readers of their respective reception histories. Poorly developed section, but that is easy to repair for anybody, since a large part of the editorial matter in the Nortwestern-Newberry edition is included in the Google Books preview. There Hershel Parker details the reception, and though he should not be the only source, this is a source that can improve the section a lot.
  • Reception. B. Later. Seems to be a series of independent sentences, as if at various times various editors stumbled across some information that they simply added. Wonderful, Hawthorne's quotation, but was it a public statement and if not, does it belong in a reception history? (If I recall it correctly, he wrote this to a publisher friend.) The quotation from D.H. Lawrence goes with an unsourced assessment of the importance of his book. F.O. Matthiessen's estimation of American literature looks slightly misrepresented to me: his American Renaissance is not a study of what he finds the "most prominent figures," but other writers simply did not fit into his scheme. He went beyond these five writers to supply the chapter on Poe for Literary History of the United States (1948), and published two books on Henry James (and family). For improvement of this section editors may again turn to Parker in the 1988 edition.MackyBeth (talk) 18:32, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
I agree once more with MackyBeth's well-informed and detailed suggestions, but but have a few sub-suggestions -- would it be clearer if I put them into the text above, where they would be an indented comment, or would people prefer a new list? ch (talk) 17:25, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
I guess putting them into the above text would nicely put together what belongs together, just make sure your indentions are clear so that we don't have to search too hard for your comments.MackyBeth (talk) 18:59, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

The Lede, first paragraph

The entrance for any article is the lead, and therefore the lead deserves special attention. Even if the lead is not fully developed, it is important that it does not contain elements that indicate sloppy editing. The opening paragraph has been edited by Bede735 in a series of edits made to the leads of a string of articles, and perhaps this is the reason that the result, at least for Moby-Dick, is an opening paragraph that flows not as fluently as it should. Please take the time to look at the context of the edits you make, because as it is now, information on the publishing date in the third sentence appears in the first as well. Attaching information about the opening sentence to the last sentence of the paragraph makes the sentence quite long, containing two times the same conjunctive "and." Also, the word "opening" appears twice in that last sentence. Not a good impression for a first paragraph.

Talking about the opening paragraph, over the last year there have been so many changes to the quotations in the lead that I think it is wise to discuss any more changes here before making edits. I made the lead so quotation-heavy that it started to look like an imitation of the "Extracts" in Moby-Dick itself, but lately ch edited out 3 of the 4 quotations. Fortunately we seem to agree that the D.H. Lawrence quotation should remain. What I am now propsing is a slight enlargement, because taken out of context of Lawrence's essay the only descriptive phrase in the quotation is "book of the sea" and that seems to me a bit meagre a description. Here is the quotation in its context as it appears on page 168:

"So ends one of the strongest and most wonderful books in the world, closing up its mystery and its tortured symbolism. It is an epic of the sea such as no man has equalled; and it is a book of esoteric symbolism of profound significance, and of considerable tiresomeness. [Paragraph break] But it is a great book, a very great book, the greatest book of the sea ever written. It moves awe in the soul."

My proposal is that we enlarge the quotation into something along the line of this: D.H. Lawrence found it "one of the strongest and most wonderful books in the world," and decided/concluded that it was/labeled it or whatever verb "the greatest book of the sea ever written."MackyBeth (talk) 17:35, 26 August 2014 (UTC)


Hi all. I just revised the first paragraph of the lead according to what I just stated here. It may be good to remind editors that the article is currently rated B, which I still think is rather generous, and the next level is "Good article" status. That can only happen if no unsourced material is allowed to stand, which is why I edited out the sentence about the opening of the book. The lead is supposed to prepare the reader for everything that follows and therefore may include material for which sources are cited in the article itself. The statement about the opening sentence is no doubt true, but no source is ever given in the article itself. Plus that I honestly feel that such trivia should have no place in the lead. The idea is that the lead will engage readers to keep reading, and I believe this purpose is better served by including the story behind the difference in the title(s), so that readers may think: Oh, so this is why it's called Moby-Dick; or, The Whale!MackyBeth (talk) 19:42, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Tightening Publication history

I just copied the complete section "Publication history" onto my sandbox and saw it was 15,500 bytes. Obviously this is too long. The Manual of Style for Novels requires 7 sections that should be included in any article on a work of fiction (Plot, Theme, Style, Background, Publication history, Reception, Adaptation). As a rule of thumb, I would propose that a section should never exceed 10,000 bytes. Here are the results:

I guess ch will look at the last two sections to see what may be removed. (The report on the total number of pages in both editions must remain, because it justifies the Infobox statement at the top of the page.) Shortening as it now stands amounts to approximately 5,000 bytes. Which means the section is now around 10,000 bytes. Not bad for such a complicated history. And the long version is still in my sandbox, so if anybody thinks some piece of information should be put back, that can be done. Oh, and the note with the Google Books link to the Editorial Apparatus where this section is based on, is still number 53.MackyBeth (talk) 20:35, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Hello ch! You are right that it is better to paraphrase our sources as much as possible, and do direct quotations only when necessary, because the statement is very famous, hard to paraphrase, carries exceptional weight in the exposition, etcetera. You also added one explanatory sentence to the short list of expurgations at "American vs. English edition", number 1 of the list, which are expurgations of religious words and passages perceived as blasphemy. While I agree with you that it is necessary to supply a short description of the precise nature of these passages, I don't think your sentence does the job: "Attributing human failures to God was grounds for excision or revision, as was comparing human shortcomings to divine ones." The only source cited in that area is Tanselle (1988), 681-682. These specific pages are included in the Google Books preview linked at note 53 There, Tanselle says that "References to God were altered" (even omitted) and that "Biblical figures could not be alluded to flippantly or used as the objects of unfavorable comparisons, and to associate them with sexual activity was unthinkable." If your sentence was intended to paraphrase these words, I don't think it carries the same meaning.MackyBeth (talk) 16:50, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for your careful attention to these details, since we should be preparing the article for another run at "Good" status. We want to cross every "i" and dot very "t", even if HM didn't! We rely on each other to pick up mistakes. But in this case fn #75 refers to Tanselle p. 784 in addition to p. 681. If this page is not on Google: "When unworthy human traits are attributed to God" or "when there is a suggestion that God's power may be limited..." Which doesn't mean that my language can't still be improved, of course.ch (talk) 20:00, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
That page is not on Google, so I have to look at the paper version of the NN edition which I have at home. From what you are quoting I would say that the paraphrase could be a bit more general to include all the religious reasons for expurgation. Oh, and we shall indeed move into the direction of "Good" status, and also not forget that there is a chance that this page will feature on the main page on 18 October.MackyBeth (talk) 20:18, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
Good. Though "sacrilegious" is already quite general, and is Tanselle's word (p. 784). The following sentences, though, are needed to give our readers an idea of what Bentley's reader cut. ch (talk) 20:25, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
Have looked it up. Tanselle's discussion on page 784 has to do with the reasons for expurgation of certain individual cases, which is why I pointed to that page in the footnote. Therefore it would seem more reliable to use ror paraphrase only his general description of the religious excisions, which is on page 681.MackyBeth (talk) 16:25, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
The tightening of the Publication history and the subsequent flipping through the Editorial Appendix made me look again at Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Novels#Publication_history to check what should be said about other printings than the first. Only if something interesting could be related, should the later printings be included. The bad sales of Moby-Dick are so legendary that I thought it would be appropiate to include an account of this. So after the tightening by more than 5000 bytes, here are 1,600 new bytes. But hey, the section is still a lot shorter than it was, and more comprehensive at the same time. Or almost the same time.MackyBeth (talk) 22:18, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Lawrence Buell and revising Composition

Today went to the library to assemble material for the section "Style," and lo! Lawrence Buell's new book on The Great American Novel was added to the shelves. So I read what he says on Moby-Dick, and guess what? He finds the evidence for a turn in the composition of Moby-Dick "on the whole convincing" (his book, page 364), so the Composition section needs to be revised. There appears to be no consensus, because some scholar don't find the theory convincing at all (Robert Milder, Walter Bezanson, John Bryant), while others accept it. But that section needed to be tightened anyway, so why not do it now.MackyBeth (talk) 17:44, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

The section Composition is now a comprehensive account on the composition of the book. The section has become slightly shorter while the viewpoints of more scholars are now included. So I would now like to dive into matters of Style, Structure, and eventually Theme. Hopefully someone else will have some time to look at the Composition section to see if anything is unclear or badly written or not adequately referenced.MackyBeth (talk) 17:33, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Censorship and other differences

It is correct to say that censorhip was not the only difference. But censorship was the major difference, and a subheading should I think indicate that, so that readers will have an idea of the main difference even without reading that section. If we use subheadings they better be as informative as they can.MackyBeth (talk) 19:13, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

A review of the article as it currently stands, and a few suggestions

Here is an updated version of what I put here last week. No one has addressed these issues yet.

  • Lead. Since the lead is supposed to prepare readers for the body of the article, the lead will develop along with the article itself.
  • Plot summary. Needs shortening. Probably best to first look at the plot summaries for other long works and to see how they handle the plot.
    • List of characters. Currently removed to subpage, but it could come back with shorter descriptions. Look at Crime and Punishment.
  • Themes/Style. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Novels says Themes is one of the most important sections, but takes a long time to develop. And we haven't even started yet. Style, same thing. Look at this The_Sun_Also_Rises#Writing_style, and the Hemingway style is known as simple. Think about how such a section on Moby-Dick would have to look like.
  • Autobiographical elements. Should this be a separate section, or merge with Background?
  • Background. A. Sources. Too many quotes set off from the main text, which gives the impression of disorderliness and even carelessness.
  • Background. B. Composition. This section was tightened this week and is sort of finished: all that the word "finished" in Wikipedia context can mean is that the editor using that word cannot think of what further to add. But other editors may think otherwise.
  • Publication history. Still needs to supply information about the specific audience that English three-deckers were aiming at. This indication can be found in Tanselle (1988) and would do a lot for readers' understanding of why the book was so heavily censored.
  • Reception. A. Contemporary. Should focus on Moby-Dick alone and not include comparisons with the reception of earlier works, as the articles for those works themselves will inform readers of their respective reception histories. Poorly developed section, but that is easy to repair for anybody, since a large part of the editorial matter in the Nortwestern-Newberry edition is included in the Google Books preview. There Hershel Parker details the reception, and though he should not be the only source, this is a source that can improve the section a lot.
  • Reception. B. Later. Seems to be a series of independent sentences, as if at various times various editors stumbled across some information that they simply added. Wonderful, Hawthorne's quotation, but was it a public statement and if not, does it belong in a reception history? (If I recall it correctly, he wrote this to a publisher friend.) The quotation from D.H. Lawrence goes with an unsourced assessment of the importance of his book. F.O. Matthiessen's estimation of American literature looks slightly misrepresented to me: his American Renaissance is not a study of what he finds the "most prominent figures," but other writers simply did not fit into his scheme. He went beyond these five writers to supply the chapter on Poe for Literary History of the United States (1948), and published two books on Henry James (and family). For improvement of this section editors may again turn to Parker in the 1988 edition.

The main suggestion I have is that editors focus on the sections that still need to be developed instead of altering details on fully developed sections. The point is: the article can never run for GA status so long as required sections are still not sufficiently developed. Simple as that. But when such review takes place, the reviewers will have helpful suggestions on how to cut down sections that need curbing.MackyBeth (talk) 20:13, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Please do not introduce chapter mentions when tightening the plot summary

Hello again ch. I see you are tightening the plot, but it looks like you are introducing an element that should not be in any plot summary. Half a year or so ago, when I put a draft of the plot summary on this Talk page, Victoria pointed out that plot summaries do not mention chapters, which is indeed the case for featured articles as The Sun Also Rises and To Kill a Mockingbird.

In the current plot summary, chapters are mentioned only to account for quotations. But since I am not sure if even that is allowed, I took care that removing these mentions can be done in a few minutes, because doing so will not necessitate any adjustment of syntax anywhere.MackyBeth (talk) 17:24, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks!! Learn something new every day! But when I look at WP:PLOTSUM#Citations, I don't see any advice on this. The article is "advice" or "opinions" so we could develop a consensus. All I see is "Citations about the plot summary itself, however, may refer to the primary source—the work of fiction itself." Are there other guidelines elsewhere? I may have missed them. Ulysses (novel), Anna Karenina, and In Search of Lost Time cite and organize by section headings, though they are not not in-line.
Buell includes his thoughts on how the novel breaks down, so we might organize the chapters under headings and sub-headings (On Land... The Third Day) But that would involve re-organizing.
What do people think?
My other thought is that we might put some of the great quotes MackyBeth selected into boxes. ch (talk) 17:51, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
To start with responding to your last sentence: as per WP:PLOTSUM#Citations I selected these quotes not because I personally think they are great, but because I think these are notable quotes. But I may have overlooked notable quotes, and the book has so many famous passages that eventually we might even have to setlle for just the most notable quotes of all the notable quotes. That same section "Citations," second paragraph, sentence two, says that chapters may be mentioned for these quotes in the plot summary. And my suggestion is to do just that, because doing so will automatically enhance readers' navigation through the plot summary, because the quotes indicate what part of the book they are at. Indeed there is no advice on mentioning chapters in the plot summary, but if you just look at the articles I mentioned above, and also at Faulkner's Light in August which has GA status, there is really only the summary itself. Ulysses (novel) is another matter, since there is a section Structure but not a plot summary at all: the article is rated C for a reason. The idea of a plot summary is that it should force as little interpretation as possible upon the reader and therefore any organization along the lines of a structure identified by a critic (in this case Buell) is a nono. Quotes should be integrated in the summary itself and not be highlighted in quoteboxes. I never saw that organization for a plot summary.MackyBeth (talk) 18:41, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
Here are more examples of Good Articles that may serve as examples: Crime and Punishment has a not too-long plot summary, but a long list of characters. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket has its plot summary divided into episodes. Which makes me think, all of a sudden: what if we divide the plot summary of Moby-Dick according to the English three volume edition? It has 135 chapters, which is exactly 3 x 45, if we forget that one chapter was omitted. As for now, I would suggest that before we act, we 1) think at how the plot may be divided into units so that it is no longer one huge mass of text, and 2) look at high-rated articles on lengthy books, to get some idea of how long a plot summary can be.MackyBeth (talk) 19:08, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
Restored the plot summary so that it does comply with common usage. The tightening has been lost in the process, but I suggest we leave the plot for the moment until we find a more convenient organization for it. So if anyone knows an article on a big book that has a plot summary we can learn from, please say so. Please respect that it took me hours and hours to make this plot summary, so be thoughtful with your alterations.MackyBeth (talk) 20:28, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
I'm very sorry to have given the impression that I was not thoughtful or respectful. I deeply apologize. ch (talk) 04:40, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
Don't worry about that. Yesterday I was a bit irritated that you did not repair the plot summary after I pointed out that chapters are usually not mentioned. The thing to keep in mind is this: the next level for the article is GA status and in order to achieve this the editors involved (which is mostly you and me at the moment) need to develop their awareness of the way other GA articles deal with the difficulties that are specific for lengthy books.MackyBeth (talk) 08:42, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

A possible lay-out for the "Style" section

Readers are invited to look at the section "Writing style" at Herman Melville and see if the organization of that section is a good idea that should be used for the Moby-Dick "Style" section as well. Quoteboxes are used in many articles, usually only to highlight passages, but I used one quotebox to place Nathalia's Wright glosses directly unto the relevant phrases.MackyBeth (talk) 16:05, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Publication history and British censorship versus Melville's revisions Suggestion

MackyBeth's comments (above August 29) are to the point, namely that the section title should tell the reader what is in the section. Here are some thoughts:

  • Tanselle says that Bentley’s “revisers” (p. 681) had “concerns” to “purge” the book of “material that might give offense for any reason” and they “removed” them. Other differences which our readers need to understand fall into several categories, as our article describes: “obvious corrections”; moving the preliminaries to the end; the epigraph; omission of the epilogue; authorial changes (the largest being the addition of the gally footnotes); corrections of M’s notorious mistakes; compositor’s errors; changes intended to improve; style; and expurgations. (Tanselle p. 783-784).
However, a Google search of the Northwestern-Newberry MD which we have been using does not turn up the word "censor" or "censorship" Search = censor or Search = censorship.
So my impression is that “British censorship” doesn't include all the things that the section covers and adds a characterization not found in the source cited.
The “vs.” may be left over from the earlier title, “British vs. American editions” and I’d be willing to omit it.
What to call the sub-section?
"Differences between the British and American editions" would cover the section’s material in a neutral way. “Expurgations, omissions, and revisions between the British and American editions” is a little awkward, but covers the ground. Which seems better?
  • The topic sentence might be clarified by moving the sentence from several paragraphs above: “The London edition differs from the American edition in over 700 wordings, and thousands of punctuation and spelling changes. Bentley's London printers set their text from the American page proofs, which had Melville's revisions and corrections.
  • The sub-section “Last-minute change of title” logically follows the section which it now precedes so the two sub-sections should be flipped.

Cheers in any case ch (talk) 18:52, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for these thoughtful comments. To start with your last point, somehow I never noticed this myself but you are absolutely correct that the change of title, being almost the last thing that happened, should come after the subsection about the expurgations instead of preceding it. The other points I will respond to, but as for now, switching these sections is fine with me. Best, MackyBeth (talk) 20:39, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
The issue whether the word "censorship" can be used to paraphrase discourse that only uses the word "expurgation" is something that, I think, touches on the broader issue that we should present the general scholarly consensus but have to use a limited amount of sources to do that with, and so the risk is that we use a loaded word like censorship when such load is absent from our sources. The consensus is this: nobody believes that Melville knew his work would be handled in this way. When Melville offered Bentley to publish his next work, Pierre, Bentley asked him to comply with such changes as Bentley deemed necessary. Melville refused and Pierre found no British publisher. The expurgations in MD are unauthorized and that is why I used the word censorship. But ch's objection is correct. The solution would be to simply find a source that uses the word "censorship" and quote that. I will have to look up in the biographies whether they use it. Or in the 2006 Longman edition. It is pure coincidence, but this week I reread the review of that edition in Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies by scholar Steven Olsen-Smith, and he uses the phrase "acts of outright censorship" when describing the expurgations. As a matter of fact, in that review he calls for research to identify the individual who carried it out.MackyBeth (talk) 21:09, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
And one more reply. As for the title of the subsection, the title should preferable be as short as it can be without being misleading. It is impossible to enumerate every difference between the editions in the title, and it seems reasonable that a title should mention the greatest differences. These are the excisions, to bring up another word we may use, and Melville's revisions. These are the two elements that run throughout the whole work, and Tanselle says that the expurgations account for the greatest alteration in the tone of the work.MackyBeth (talk) 21:24, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
But.... to take just one example, moving the preliminaries and losing the Epilogue had a major impact on the British reception! Tanselle say that "one of the reviser's concerns was to purge the book of material that might give offense for any reason." (p. 681) (emphasis supplied) Maybe divide into tree subsections? One with "censorship" or "purges," one for the title, and one with the other changes? ch (talk) 21:49, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
A well--organized article discusses material in the sections where that should be done. The impact on the Reception will have to be taken up in, well, in Reception. That section still needs a lot of work, but the NN edition supplies all the necessary information. These changes (preliminaries and Epilogue) had important consequences, but they are local events (Epiloge is one page).MackyBeth (talk) 22:00, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
Your suggestion to change the way the subsections are divided is worth discussion, especially since the information on "Sales and earnings" should actually come after Reception. What it all boils down to, Publication history is a summary of Tanselle's Section VI and essentially the elements are still in the order he takes them up. We are just entering the process of loosening the organization from the sources.MackyBeth (talk) 22:16, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Removal of subheadings to Publication history

So much tightening has been done on this section that there was so little text left for each of the subdivisions that I cancelled them. It was also becoming clear that the editors could not arrive at consensus very soon and I do not want to debate this endlessley. But it is worth pointing out that the most recent headings were making matters less clear instead of more:

  • British changes.
  • British censorship and expurgations.

1) The phrase "British changes" encompasses all changes, so one would expect that the hierarchical structure is such that the censorship-heading is a subdivision to "British changes." A further division than subsection would do the article no good, and on the other hand having the sections hierarchically equivalent is confusing. 2) The phrase "censorship and expurgations" is also confusing. While expurgations do not necessarily mean censorship (though it seems safe to assume that usually it does), it is hard to conceive what censorship can mean if no expurgations are involved. 3) The section has now been shortened so much that subheadings seem now longer necessary anyway, so I removed them. But I will repeat what I said this weekend: if we want the article to evolve into GA, then edits must be carried out a lot more thoughtful than the hasty decisions these headings seem to spring from.MackyBeth (talk) 08:57, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

My good friend and longtime fellow editor, MackyBeth, has made many, many improvement to this article but I respectfully disagree with the wholesale removal of the section titles. There has been extensive discussion here on the TalkPage, but never a suggestion that the Publication History would be improved by making it one block of text.
The reversion was explained on the TalkPage: “so little text was left for each of the subdivisions that I cancelled them.” The subdivisions had 4, 5, 2, and 2 paragraphs, sizes which can be found in many good articles. The best policy reference may be WP:BODY, which explains that there can be as many as six levels of hierarchy.
In response to Mackybeth’s comments, I have re-arranged the text of the present section to fall under these headings:
7.1 Melville's revisions and British editorial revisions
7.2 British censorship and printer’s errors
7.3 Last-minute change of title
7.4 Sales and earnings
Cheers once more! ch (talk) 05:19, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
Yes you are right,ch, that the section is too long to remove the subdivisions. I am glad that you tried to improve the subheading and we are almost there, but not yet. The subheading "British censorship and British printer's errors" discusses the missing Epilogue and Tanselle's suggestion that it was probably lost when moving the preliminaries to the back. This can indeed be called a "printer's error," were it not for the fact that that term usually refers to a specific type of error, the errors that affect the text. For instance, when printing the word "think" when the correct word is "thank." So I thought that this term can best be avoided. The other thing we still need to solve is that, despite the change made, the terms "British editorial revisions" and "British censorship" do not solve the issue that the first term is an "umbrella" term that still implies the other category. It can stand for now, but we must think of a better subheading to replace "editorial revisions." Something in the direction of textual presentation or so, because that is what these editorial revisions are: a different presentation. Your other points I will respond to. Best wishes,MackyBeth (talk) 16:38, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Recent edits without consensus

It is getting frustrating that ch keeps on editing elements for which discussions on this Talk Page clearly indicate that editors first have to reach consensus on. Yesterday it was the issue of the subheadings in the section "Publication history" and today it is the opening line. Above you can still read my reasons for deleting that sentence on 26 August. And now that same piece of trivia was put back on.MackyBeth (talk) 15:49, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Hesitantly and very respectfully in response to the statement that CH "keeps on" editing elements on which discussions on this Talk Page "clearly indicate that editors first have to reach consensus...” Respectfully, discussions on the Talk Page do not involve “editors” (plural) on the topic of "Call me Ishmael" or several other topics, only MackyBeth (singular). That is, there was not “consensus,” since the only other editor did not agree. Again, respectfully, to say that one’s own "lonely" statement is “consensus” is to assume that one is the Owner of the page. See Ownership of articles. ch (talk) 05:32, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
Respectfully as well I would like to check with you if I can still count correctly. Besides myself, ch is a regular editor on this page. That makes two and this is still plural. It therefore makes sense to say that editors should reach consensus first by debating an item on the TP. I thought this was standard procedure on matters that are apparently controversial. I would like to ask ch to be respectful enough as to refrain from using the debating strategy known as "strawman," which he employs by saying that "one’s own 'lonely' statement is 'consensus'" when the truth is that I do neither say nor imply that my view is the consensus, but only that there is NO consensus when my view and the view of the only other editor differ. The way to solve this is to look at the issue and get a sense of what reasons the other editor my have for his view. MackyBeth (talk) 15:21, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
Good! We have consensus! ch (talk) 16:19, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
Okay then, let's move on!MackyBeth (talk) 16:40, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Expurgations or Censorship

As promised, I have looked up what terms biographers use to describe the changes made by the British publisher. Hershel Parker, Vol 1 has nothing on this. This volume ends with the scene of Melville receiving the author's copies of his book and then immedialtely going to Hawthorne's house to give him one. I guess that Vol 2 starts with a discussion of the reviews, and since these reviews were influenced by the expurgations, maybe he uses the word censorship there.

Andrew Delbanco, on the other hand, discusses the expurgations on page 178. He mentions some examples of the differences, each time using a different term for the person who carried this out. These quotations are all from that same page:

  • ...armies of scholars would someday pore over the words of the two first editions of MD, trying to sort out the author's intentions from errors introduced by this or that meddler.
  • it was clear that someone else had tampered with the text. Either Bentley himself or one of his subordinates had cleaned it up, removing passages that seemed blasphemous or obscene.
  • ...the pious reviser substituted...
  • ...some self-appointed censor struck out the word "impotent."
  • ...there were unauthorized structural changes.

From these examples I'd say we can safely use the word censorship.MackyBeth (talk) 17:26, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Restored Last Sound revision

I reverted from a version by JayJasper in which the jpg images did not appear. Hope this was the right move -- many apologies if I didn't understand what was going on. ch (talk) 01:18, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, right move. My reversion of vandalism, the edit you refer to, was unaffected by your helpful restoration of the jpg images. Good job!--JayJasper (talk) 03:33, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Reasons why "Call me Ishamel" belongs in the lead

It’s completely fair to ask if “trivia” belongs in the lead. But good authorities say “Call me Ishmael” is arguably the most famous phrase in the book if not American or Western literature (take your pick): References to “Call me Ishmael”quickly found in works heavily cited in this article:

  • “Modern writers have played with the novel’s famous first line....” followed by a number of examples. Bryant MD (Longman Critical Edition) p. 501 n. 1.
  • “one of world fictions most famous opening sentences...” Buell, Dream of the Great American Novel, P. 362.
  • Bryant and Buell are the most compelling, but the Google search “famous first lines call me ishmael” shows the popularity.

If something has to be cut to make room, the lead includes the fact that MD was reprinted three times in runs of 250 copies.

Also not sure why “novel” was replaced with “narrative” in the first sentence. It’s listed as a novel in the Info box and is often referred to as a novel in the main text. ch (talk) 05:46, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

I concur with ch on this matter. Even for people who have never read Moby Dick, the sentence "Call me Ishmael" is immediately recognizable. It is certainly not trivia (or trivial) in any way. LHMask me a question 16:50, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
Recently I edited out from the lead the remark that "Call me Ishmael" is one of the most recognizable opening sentences in literature, since no source was given. But now that ch found sources that objection no longer applies. So it could be added to the lead as sourced information. The only question I have is why the sentences is "one of the most recognizable opening sentences" instead of saying "one of the most famous." You are also right that the information about the printed editions are too detailed for the lead. So that can be curbed too. My purpose in adding that data was this: since the book is famous for being a commercial failure, I thought it would be useful to give some hard facts about this right away in the lead. That information shows for instance, that the Harper's were quite committed to Melville, because twenty years after its first publication they were still printing a new edition and only stopped doing so when it became unrealistic to keep the book in print.MackyBeth (talk) 16:58, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
I believe you called the "Call me Ishmael" information "trivia" (or, at least, "trivial") did you not? As for the data regarding its lack of commercial success, I don't know that I'd say the book is famous because of that, but that is certainly information that should be included in the body of the article. I don't think it should be in the lede section, though. LHMask me a question 17:01, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
Please readd your contribution on the opening sentence citing a source.MackyBeth (talk) 17:02, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
You don't need sourcing in the lede section, if the same material is sourced later on. LHMask me a question 17:03, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
Correct. Last time I checked this was not in the body of the article. If this has changed, please accept my apologies for undoing your edit.MackyBeth (talk) 17:07, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

If anyone wants to put that information on the opening sentence in the lead with one of the sources that CH found, my suggestion is to choose the most recent source, which is Buell's 2014 book.MackyBeth (talk) 17:37, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Probably it's ok in any case -- WP:Verifiability advises that "all material challenged or likely to be challenged" needs to be sourced." My feeling is that no knowledgeable person would challenge this sentence, but still, to be safe, I'll add a reference in the body if nobody else does. ch (talk) 05:33, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
Please do add that reference or delete the sentence again. Claims to fame are just the kind of material that is going to be challenged, so it's always more precise to actually source it.MackyBeth (talk) 15:01, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Plot

Cut and pasted Plot from August 29; removed the 6 or so instances of Chapter references which occasioned the reversion of Plot. Can now take advantage of the corrections which had already been made. ch (talk) 03:33, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

An idea for the plot might be to supply subheadings that indicate the course of the Pequod's voyage, such as:
  • On shore (Ch. 1-22)
  • In the Pacific (Ch xx-yy).
  • In the China Sea. (Ch. tt-oo)
  • In the South Sea. (Ch. pp-jj)

This idea came to me when I saw how the plot summary is organized for The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym.MackyBeth (talk) 15:17, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Narrative or novel

CH, you asked why I substituted the word narrative for novel. The reason was simply that we discussed this same issue with regard to Typee and I thought it'd be consistent not to call MD a novel as well, so I switched it. But the precise term is not very important to me, and besides, the book is always regarded as The Great American Novel, so if you want to call it a novel, that's fine. But that does not mean it is wrong to call it a narrative. New editor LHM edited out the word narrative, but his edit summary "narrative is a style of writing" does not seem correct to me. As you can still read on the Typee TP, narrative is also a genre description, and one that you stumble across continuously if you read about Melville.MackyBeth (talk) 17:52, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Good. As I recall we said that the later works were in fact novels, but your memory may be better than mine. I'll also restore the recommended link. BTW, LHM is not a "new editor," and isn't this irrelevant in any case?ch (talk) 01:24, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
As ch points out, I am not, in any way, a "new" editor. As for what the word "narrative" means, I'll quote Wiktionary's definition of the noun form:
Noun[edit]
narrative (plural narratives)
The systematic recitation of an event or series of events.
That which is narrated.
A representation of an event or story.
The book Moby-Dick is, unequivocally, a novel. It is a novel that takes a narrative style, but a novel nonetheless. I'm not sure why this is even controversial. LHMask me a question 01:32, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
I am not even sure of what is the controversy, or why I should not call somebody a new editor if I have never encountered him before on the Moby-Dick page. A narrative is a common way to refer to a story, a novel and things like that. A novel can be defined as a certain type of narrative. So if you don't want to use the word novel all the time in an article, nothing is wrong with using the word narrative instead. The definition of narrative supplied by M.H. Abrams in his A Glossary of Literary Terms, the entry "Narrative and Narratology" begins with this: "A narrative is a story, whether told in prose or verse, involving events, characters, and what the characters say and do." The thing with Moby-Dick is that the word "novel" is anachronistic because when it appeared nobody called it so and Melville never thought of it as a novel. But since the book is known as the Great American Novel, many people call it a novel. But I just checked what Robert Milder calls it in the Columbia Literary History of the United States and he never calls it a novel. So if Moby-Dick should be referred to as a novel cannot so easily be answered in the affirmative as you may think.MackyBeth (talk) 14:44, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
It is also worth pointing out that in the lead of The Scarlet Letter, published just a year before MD and also discussed in Buell's new book, the Wikipedia editors have taken care to call the book "a romantic work of fiction." So the use of the word novel for MD may have to be reconsidered after all. But in any case, to call MD "unequivocally" a novel is indefensible.MackyBeth (talk) 15:44, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Hawthorne inscription

What is the reason this was taken out of the lead?MackyBeth (talk) 17:33, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Restored. ch (talk) 05:27, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
??? I did not see the quotation, only the mention that it was dedicated to him. So I added the quotation again. Should someone have objections against quoting the inscription, please state here what they are, because I cannot think of any reasonable objection myself.MackyBeth (talk) 16:27, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Combine sections Structure and Themes?

I've tightened up the section "Structure," and see how it could be usefully combined into one section, "Themes." Does anyone else think this would be useful? Is anyone planning to expand "Themes"? If so, I can move quickly so that they will have a stable target. ch (talk) 06:25, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

The Themes section should be expanded, because this should be one of the most essential section of any article about books. The Manual of Style even says this section contains "the meat" of the book. If any sections should be combined, then perhaps Structure and Style can make a sensible combination.MackyBeth (talk) 14:53, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Having giving this some thought, however: The proposal to combine some of the sections is worth careful consideration, and what is more important, it is worth to see how other articles about fiction are organized. Here is a list of FA Category:FA-Class_novel_articles

And here is a list of GA: Wikipedia:Good_articles/Language_and_literature

The section on Style is far from fully developed, and when it encompasses the influence of the Bible and, especially important to MD, Shakespeare, it might be too long to be combined with another section. The same goes for the section of Themes.MackyBeth (talk) 17:16, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

No Gams

When I made the plot summary and the Structure, I took care not to refer to the meetings of the Pequod as "Gams," because to be called a gam crewmembers should be exchanged. Walter Bezanson (1986) points out that the meetings may not be refereed to as gams, and in the years that Hershel Parker reviewed Melville scholarship for the annual survey American Literary Scholarship he once asked in despair: "Is it hopeless to keep pointing out there was only one true gam during the Pequod's last voyage?" As you see from this outcry, many critics make the same mistake. But when we encounter this term in the sources we use, let's try to avoid it for as long as we can.MackyBeth (talk) 18:19, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Call me Ishmael

Yesterday I had to remove the mention of the opening sentence from the lead repeatedly because it was unsourced. Today it is back without a note attached to it. This can only stand if it is accounted for in the body of the article. So can the editor tell me where in the article I can find this information with a source? Thanks.MackyBeth (talk) 14:55, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

  • It only needs sourcing if it's a controversial claim. It's not, so it doesn't. With that said, it would be niced if that phrase were also discussed in the body of the article, though. LHMask me a question 19:40, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
    • As I said in the discussion on the same topic a few discussions above, it needs sourcing more than anything else in the lead, because a claim to reputation is vulnerable of being challenged. So please anyone who wants to retain this in the lead, please source this!!! It is beyond me why people who claim this is a well-known piece of information refuse to add a source.MackyBeth (talk) 19:56, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
      • Done ch (talk) 20:19, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
        • Not done. Citation needed. MackyBeth (talk) 20:23, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
          • Sorry, sorry, sorry, I'm not following your point. Is the Buell citation not enough? Do you object to "famous" rather than "most famous"? Why does it "need sourcing more than anything else in the lead"? I'm trying to make you happy. Help me out! ch (talk) 20:32, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
            • We have a misunderstanding here. Where did you source it then? I don't see it.MackyBeth (talk) 20:34, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
              • "The narrative opens with the famous line, “Call me Ishmael,” Buell p. 367. ch (talk) 20:40, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
                • Yes I know what Buell says, but where did you put that in the article? Because there is still no citation.MackyBeth (talk) 20:49, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
                • Again, I am sorry to seem so thick, but Buell p. 367 is a citation, and the quote is under Structure. My browser has a "Find" function, which I assume yours does as well. If you want me to keep working on this page, please show Good Faith and accept that the two sources and Google search which I gave above establish the point. If you have an objection which I can meet, please tell me what it is. 21:12, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
                • Apologies, I should have added that it is note 17 and is actually p. 362ch (talk) 21:21, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
                  • Thanks for pointing out where it is sourced, because that was all that bothered me. So this is done indeed. My apologies if I gave you the impression that I doubted your Good Faith: LHM's remark above that a claim "only needs sourcing if it's a controversial claim. It's not, so it doesn't." logically gave me the impression that no source would be included unless the claim became the target of a Citation Needed tag, which can best be avoided. But it seems that I was misguided at this point, since Lithisman has assisted in getting this into the text. My browser may have a "Find" function as well, but I just looked at the References for notes to Buell and then looked them up in the text. The reference to the opening line hadn't been added at the time.MackyBeth (talk) 15:14, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Lede needs a sentence on MD's place in world literature

The lead currently describes Moby-Dick's place in American lit, but has nothing to offer on its current standing in world literature. And an estimation of that should actually have a place in the internationally consulted Wikipedia in English. Since the first paragraph of the lead has been reorganized a lot this week, it is perhaps better to discuss ideas for this on Talk instead of directly adding material. The Glossary by M.H. Abrams which is still listed under Sources has a passage that I think can serve as a terrific basis for a sentence about this, because it enables us to put the book on a shelf somewhere between Dante and Joyce. The passage appears under his definition of Epic, so to give everybody an idea of the context I'll quote the first statement of that definition and then the passage in which MD appears. This information should enable any editor to draw up a reliable paraphrase of whatever seems essential here.

  • p. 76: In the strict sense the term epic or heroic poem is applied to a work that meets at least the following criteria: it is a long verse narrative on a serious subject...etcetera
  • p. 78: The term "epic" is often applied, by extension, to narratives which differ in many respects from this model but manifest the epic spirit and grandeur in the scale, the scope, and the profound human importance of their subjects. In this broad sense Dante's fourteenth-century Divine Comedy and Edmund Spenser's late-sixteenth-century The Faerie Queene (1590-96) are often called epics, as are conspicuously large-scale and wide-ranging works of prose fiction such as Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851), Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace (1863-69) and James Joyce's Ulysses (1922):...etcetera

I'd say give it a thought.MackyBeth (talk) 16:50, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Writing style and Father Mapple

The coming week I will probably not have the opportunity to contribute anything, and after that week my time is more limited than in the last weeks. As you can see at the Herman Melville page, lately I've been working on the Writing style-section there. The idea is that that section should provide a general description of his style, and that when I find information specific to Moby-Dick, that information will be added here as well. So far it looks like Nathalia Wright's book focuses on the style of Father Mapple's sermon, and I wonder if that should be included, because it seems limited. But his sermon is an important part of the prophetic strain in the book and therefore may be better discussed in Themes, especially since the Style-section for MD is not complete without a description of Shakespeare's influence and that takes some space as well. It is probably easier to shape up the section about the Reception of the book than to develop this one, but my reasoning is that if you compare how long this article is now to how little information there still is about the literary aspects of the book, it may be a good idea to develop that first. MackyBeth (talk) 15:38, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Great that you should mention it! I've been drafting a page on Father Mapple, which I moved to mainspace as a stub. It turns out that there was a lot more material than I thought! I have more, but it's a perfectly good draft. ch (talk) 17:42, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
A coincidence indeed! As you noticed, this week I thought I might just as well remove the redlink from his name because nobody is making a page for him. If I remember it correctly, there does exist a publication the source for the hymn of his sermon, which is another source in addition to the familiar Psalm 18. Maybe reprinted in the Norton Critical Edition of MD from 2001, but am not sure.MackyBeth (talk) 18:41, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
Your memory is right -- thanks. I'll add the reference, and eventually a few more, but I labelled it a "stub" to encourage others to pitch in. BTW, WP:REDLINK praises them as encouraging editors to create articles and says they shouldn't be removed unless you are "certain that there should not be an article." Hope that you can find time to look in at Wikipedia and keep everyone on their toes!ch (talk) 20:12, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
Ah, I see that the basis for the hymn is not the King James version of Psalm 18, but the Dutch Reformed Bible. It is perhaps a good idea to give some examples of parallel passages so that readers can see for themselves how Melville used his source. To get an idea what that would look like, see the two quoteboxes at Herman Melville that show how he used Matthew. I could make that edit this weekend. Oh, and the Talk Page at Father Mapple has a 10 September review of your DYK-nomination, pointing out that the article does not yet mention in which chapter the Father appears.MackyBeth (talk) 14:55, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
The note at the end of the sentence was to the chapter, so I assume that the call was to add the name of the book. Is there some way to get the quoteboxes to look better typographically?ch (talk) 15:48, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
As far as I know from comparing the quoteboxes I found in different articles, the only influence we have on how the quotebox looks is the choice of background color. The lighter the background, the better the letter can be read. Both Ernest Hemingway and Mary Shelley have blue quoteboxes, but not the same kind of blue. I've also come across articles that have them in yellow, though I do not remember which articles.MackyBeth (talk) 19:10, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Gams reconsidered

Theoretical background

With all respect to Hershel Parker's exasperation (noted above in "No Gams," there is good evidence that "gam" can reasonably be used in a less stringent way:

  • Merriam-Webster Gam: “2) (by extension) A social gathering of whalers or other ships.”
  • Wiktionary [1] likewise.

I ran my index-finger up and down the columns of the dictionaries in my study:

  • American Heritage Dictionary, Webster’s Ninth, and Random House Dictionary of the English Language (2nd ed.), all gave definitions comparable to “a visit or friendly conversation at sea or ashore especially between whalers.” No mention of captains staying on board.

My HM books told the same story:

  • Bryant/Springer Longman Critical Edition (2007): Explanatory Notes gives HM’s Ch 53 definition, and says that “most of the Pequod’s encounters [are] too brief and unsocial to be called gams by this definition.” But they go on to say that “Melville uses them structurally and dramatically throughout the remaining eighty chapters," and specifies "For the nine gams see Chs 52, 54, 71, 81, 91, 100, 115, and 128, and 131.” (P. 527) Their Glossary gives: “A social meeting of two or more Whale-ships at sea,” which they quote from MD Ch 53, without adding the bit about the two captains remaining on board. (p. 654).
  • Hayford/ Parker Norton Critical MD calls HM’s definition in the text “stringent.” They add that “most of the encounters the Pequod has with other ships” do not fit this definition, though they do not say which of the other encounters do fit it. (p. 198 n. 4).
  • Walter E. Bezanson, "Moby-Dick: Work of Art": “the gams are the bones to the book’s flesh” (reprinted in Norton Critical MD p. 654)
  • Buell, Dream, p. 521 n. 6 “the Samuel Enderby ... with which the Pequod gams...” (Ch 101 The Decanter). HM does call this a gam. (Ch 100 Leg and Arm).

So it is reasonable to follow common usage and scholars, including Parker and Bezanson, in using “gam” to describe the Pequod's nine meetings with other ships. Other words are vague or confusing: the article now uses "meet," which doesn't convey the importance for the structural/ thematic use. “Encounter” seems strained, as demonstrated by Bryant/Springer first using “encounter” then the more natural “gam.” Buell follows suit.

Practical suggestion
We can tacitly introduce the analysis of Bryant/Springer and Bezanson, amply backed up in other works, that the gams are the "bones," that is, a structural and thematic element, while reminding readers of the "stringent" sense. I made a set of edits to try this out.

Cheers, ch (talk) 02:46, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

This sounds reasonable enough, provided that the description of the only real gam will identify it as such. Since these encounters are often referred to as "gams" in Melville scholarship, it would seem defensible to use the term in the article as well. For completeness' sake, let me pont out two things. Bezanson's piece in the NCE is from the 1950s. In the 1986 Companion to Melille Studies he corrected this by saying that these encounters are no gams unless crewmembers are exchanged. Second, the Oxford English Dictionary defines the word "gam" by explaining that crewmembers should be exchanged.MackyBeth (talk) 16:43, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Moby-Dick the novel; Moby Dick the whale

My face is red -- although the hyphenation issue is out of proportion for the lead sentence of the lead, the IP user's edits brought up a legitimate issue. Our previous discussion at [2] of the section Moby-Dick#Last minute change of title got it wrong. The IP user references Talk:Moby-Dick/Archive 1#Hyphenation of Moby-Dick of a few years ago, but that discussion does not give any Reliable Source, only opinions and sightings of half-remembered boooks.

I have the physical copy of the Northwestern Newberry Moby-Dick (sic!) in front of me and online, and both clearly show the half-title of the London edition reads "The Whale; or, Moby Dick," that is, with no hyphen. Tanselle does not comment on the punctuation here, but repeats it in the next sentence explaining that Bentley (the London publisher) added it at this one spot to "accommodate" Melville. That is, it was Bentley's act; Melville did not see it in proof before it was published. The Editorial Appendix to the NN volume at pp. 810-812 has an extensive explanation for choosing the hyphen in the title, that is, for the novel, but no hyphen for the whale. The editors point out that in the mid-19th century these differences "may mean nothing more than consistency in such punctuation was not a matter of concern." (p. 812).

As a practical matter for this article, Wikipedia policy is to follow both the standard text and the overwhelming usage, which is "Moby-Dick" for the novel, "Moby Dick" for the whale (maybe people feel that it's bad enough to stick harpoons into him without sticking hyphens!). I will find a place in the article to mention this.

Cheersch (talk) 16:31, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Or the White Whale

Speaking of editions and publication history, the article never mentions that a number of editions exist entitled "Moby Dick or, the White Whale" (including an Amazon Kindle version). It would be interesting to have a note about where and how this spurious title came about. Moongateclimber (talk) 10:57, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Image of Melville as a crewmember

Here is an article about the list of the Acushnet crew with Melville's name on it.MackyBeth (talk) 17:53, 20 November 2014 (UTC) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2811188/Shipping-record-shows-Herman-Melville-joining-whaling-crew-Pacific-voyage-inspire-Moby-Dick.html

Very nice! I suggest putting in a link, to the autobiographical section which, I presume, you've helped write. Taking care, Grandma (talk) 18:01, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Ishmael is not the main character

It is a good thing that Lithistman has undone the edit stating that Ishmael is the main character. The edit summary says that it is made undone because the explanation is unnecesary, but it is really much worse. Ishmael is only important for being the narrator, as a character he has no decision-making authority and is almost insignificant. Confusing his role as narrator and character is a staple of Moby-Dick criticism, but so are protests against the confusion.MackyBeth (talk) 16:23, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

  • I agree with the thrust of your argument, but would take a bit of an issue with the characterization of Ishmael as "insignificant." Without him, the story is not told. LHMask me a question 20:54, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
    • Please do not misrepresent my point, which is not that Ishmael is insignificant overall, but only in his function as a character. With a rank of a sailor, he has no influence on the course of events. As a narrator he is of course far from insignificant, for indeed without him the story is not told.MackyBeth (talk) 21:34, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
The point could be made more clear that Moby-Dick is not "about" just plot, that is, the course of events. We should, of course, cite reliable sources: Walter Bezanson says the novel is not so much about Ahab or the White Whale as it is about Ishmael, who is “the real center of meaning and the defining force of the novel.” (Bezanson (1953) p. 644). John Bryant's "Moby-Dick as Revolution" sees a "flip-flop" between Ahab and Ishmael, and refers to Ishmael as "central character" in the first section of the book. The Ahab/ Ishmael push-me/ pull-you is put in other terms in much of the literature. What Ishmael does is thematically central, such as befriending Queequeg, and what he "narrates" goes far beyond the "story." For just one instance, isn't his talk of "attainable felicity" (Ch 94) as much part of the action on a thematic level as most events in the plot?
On looking at Ishmael (Moby-Dick), I found that several quotes had been truncated to diminish Ishmael's importance. I filled-out some of the quotes in an attempt to strike a balance, but others might want to check to see that all sides are reasonably represented.ch (talk) 06:37, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
I kind of suspected that there were a lot of guardians of this wiki page on a very fine novel! Is Ahab the main character? Maybe, but other than a brief early sighting, he doesn't make a real appearance until far into the novel. The whale only appears as a distant symbol until very late. But don't worry, I don't have strong feelings about this, and I'm happy to stand corrected. The discussion here is very interesting, however. Take care, Grandma (talk) 04:00, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
Ishmael is the main character of the first part of the book, the "shore chapters," but the main character of the book as a whole is Ahab. As for Grandma's comment, contrary to what you expected Wikipedia does not attract a lot of editors with an interest in literature. Many pages for famous books are not sufficiently developed yet.MackyBeth (talk) 16:02, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
@MackyBeth, I am noticing this now. And, also, not a lot of editors with an interest in fine art either. As for my edit of Moby Dick, I wasn't meaning to stir things up, but like I say, I found the discussion that followed to be interesting anyway. Taking care, Grandma (talk) 16:11, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
If you look at the last paragraph of the Plot as it stood before September 29, you will see that the plot summary includes, as it should, the transformation of Ishmael from character to narrator. The removal of this is one reason I gave up on editing here, the constant irritation of other people undoing what you had good reasons to add.MackyBeth (talk) 16:26, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
@MackyBeth, Honestly, it's been years since I read Moby Dick, but my recollection is that I perceived that the novel had many transitions, but at least a large part of it was experiential for Ishmael. And, indeed, I became so engrossed in it that it was experiential for me too! Thank you, yours, Grandma (talk) 16:31, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
One difficulty of the book is who is doing the talking in the more expository chapters, character-Ishmael or the older narrator-Ishmael. Bezanson is excellent on this, pointing out the sentences in the present tense such as quoted at the end of the pre-29 September plot summary. The point of view is sometimes with the character, sometimes with the narrator. And sometimes it is impossible to say.MackyBeth (talk) 16:45, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
@MackyBeth, And, at times, I thought that Melville should have given the novel another proof reading! I say that with all of the love in the world. Grandma (talk) 16:47, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
A books of such grand ambition can hardly come off with perfection. It would be nice if we had a copy with his annotations for improving future editions, but apparently Melville hardly ever looked back once a book was done.MackyBeth (talk) 17:21, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Since I am the guilty party who removed the last paragraph of Plot which MackyBeth refers to above, I should apologize for not explaining more clearly that the problem was not the information, but rather adding it to the Plot section, where it 1) includes Original Research (not a big problem, but a matter of referencing) but 2) does not belong. Perhaps we could find someplace else to put it, so I will add it here for reference:

Some years after the adventure Ishmael tells his story, and now changes roles, becoming the narrator instead of a character. He defends whaling to the point of ascribing all his future achievements to the trade: "I prospectively ascribe all the honor and the glory to whaling; for a whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard" (Ch. 24, "The Advocate"). Ishmael approaches his task as narrator as deliberately unfinished: 'God keep me from ever completing anything. This whole book is but a draught — nay, but the draught of a draught. Oh, Time, Strength, Cash, and Patience!' (Ch. 32, "Cetology"). Ishmael tells the story by way of attempt at clarification: 'But how can I hope to explain myself here; and yet, in some dim, random way, explain myself I must, else all these chapters might be naught' (Ch. 42, "The Whiteness of the Whale"). Story-telling is less of a priority: 'So far as what there may be of a narrative in this book' (Ch. 45, "The Affidavit").

The Plot section is a problem for a novel where so much of the "action" is in the consciousness of Ishmael. Is he the Protagonist? Or does Ahab's agency make him the Big Cheese? That's a great question, but we should not draw our own conclusions but use our sources, which generally see the novel as an interaction between Ishmael's romantic meditations and Ahab's monomania. It's a draw. Maybe the lead could be sharpened a little on this question, presuming we can source it in the article. ch (talk) 20:09, 20 November 2014 (UTC) Cheers ch (talk) 20:09, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

The issue with the Plot summary was just an example. For another example, see the current discussion on the Herman Melville TP about a Stanley Williams quotation. The quotation was removed because one person found it too academic, even though there is no jargon in it at all. Nothing is improved by removing the quotation. Wikipedia means that people who have the drive to improve articles and (the familiarity with) the sources to improve them with are going to have to deal constantly with anybody who happens to come by and adjusts anything not to the state of knowledge but to their own taste. And so working on articles ceases to be fun and only yields irritation. So, why go on?MackyBeth (talk) 17:45, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Sources or References

The section Sources, now changed to References, used to list all sources used for this article, whether cited or not. Only one source was not cited: Robert Gale's book on Plots and Characters. The plot summary is shaped with the help of this book, and therefore it is a scholarly duty to list it. The title of the section was changed to "References and further reading" but after I deleted "further reading" the Gale book was dropped. I tried to get used to that but simply cannot live with the knowledge that a book used for the article is not mentioned anymore. So my suggestion is to put the book back and change the title of the section back to Sources if that is necessary to contain material used but not mentioned by inline citations. Let me know what you think.MackyBeth (talk) 10:08, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

I restored Gale. The guideline at WP:FNNR is indeed that we may include items used but not cited. There was no way for other editors to know that Gale had been used until MackyBeth revealed that information.ch (talk) 17:26, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
Thanks!MackyBeth (talk) 02:23, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Added strong references - too dependent on too few books. Collect (talk) 17:50, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Indeed, the source cited at footnote 85 seems to be valuable new research. However, I am not so sure about the reference at footnote 87: I suspect that that source simply takes its data from Tanselle's research published in the 1988 Northwestern-Newberry Moby-Dick, the source that is underlying most of this section. In which case I have two objections to that addition:
  1. footnote 87 distracts the reader from the original source (Tanselle 1988) to another source derived from Tanselle rather than a genuinely new source.
  2. My checking of the history of this article reveals that the edit made on 22 February 2015 does not add new information, but merely goes on to attribute information added by me to another source than I used. This is not making the article stronger, as Collect claims it does, but quite contrary a step toward obscuring where the information really comes from.

Please keep in mind that the editors who have done most of the work on this article in recent times, myself and ch, intend to prepare the article for a run at GA status, and this kind of tinkering should be discouraged. Nevertheless, the source cited at note 85 is a welcome addition.MackyBeth (talk) 18:51, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

The OUP cite does not cite Tanselle for the figures - it is quite well footnoted, with Tanselle mentioned pp 121-3 as being one of the editors of a definitive book. In fact the Oxford book appears to make specific reference to the Harper's royalty statement. Thus I see no reason for intuiting that the OUP book is other than a very reliable source for such claims on its own . Collect (talk) 19:09, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
I have to relie on the online version cited in note 87 and that does not include pages 121-123. However, page 134 sounds as if it is based upon Tanselle, and has nothing to add to his work. Even the reference to the sales statement, not royalty statement as you said, was probably based on Tanselle. This kind of archival research is very unlikely to have been carried out for this book. You may want to look at Tanselle's page 688 online by clicking on note 58. Unfortunately, page 689 is not available online but checking page 688 should be enough to make anybody think that Tanselle was the source for this.MackyBeth (talk) 19:24, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
The OUP is a fairly reliable publisher - and the book footnotes all sorts of stuff. I would, moreover, note that excessive reliance on any single source raises issues at GA reviews. The more the sourcing from independent cites, the better, as a general rule. Tanselle alone is used 28 times in the article (out of 100). Heflin is used 10 times. Bryant 14, though several of his works get used. Any GA reviewer will raise the issue of more than 1/4 of all cites being from a single work. And more than half from three authors alone. Cheers. Collect (talk) 19:58, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
Yes, the OUP is a reliable publisher, what makes you think I would doubt that? There is nothing wrong with George Cotkin basing his page 134 on Tanselle's work. I assume he credits Tanselle in his footnotes at the back of the book, even though those footnotes are not available in the online sample of the book. Point is, if the article is already using Tanselle, there is no need to use other sources based upon his work and adding nothing to it. Independent sources on this matter are only sources not based on Tanselle. There are many, many books this article needs to cite when it comes to dealing with the criticism of Moby-Dick, but only very few scholars undertake the kind of research pertaining to the textual transmission and sales figures of a specific work, even if that work is Moby-Dick. Here is a list of all editions that made use of both the British and American versions:
  1. Norton Critical Edition, 1967. Editors Parker and Hayford.
  2. Northwestern-Newberry Edition, 1988. Editors Hayford, Parker, Tanselle.
  3. Longman Edition, 2006. Editors Bryant and Springer.

That's it. All other recent printings of Moby-Dick take the 1988 text at best, and no other edition is a fully new edition. These 5 scholars are responsible for all the basic work, so the section "Publication history" cannot be based on any more sources.MackyBeth (talk) 20:15, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

What a remarkable claim, indeed. Cotkin's work was editorially vetted, and received handsome reviews. As a result, it meets Wikipedia specific WP:RS requirements, which do not say "only new information can be sourced to a book published by OUP" last I checked. No GA reviewer will find an iota of problem using it, and they absolutely will question over-reliance on a total of three authors for any good article.[3] Would you prefer that the reviewer note the thinness of the reference sources list? Cheers. Collect (talk) 20:26, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
Please read before you write, for you are still thinking that I have something against OUP, and I just explained this is not the case. You seem to assume that I am against using Cotkin's book, which I am not, at least not if it is used the way sources are normally used: to add information not previously part of the article. But you are attributing sourced information added by me to another source for no good reason. Oh, and I have just read your edit summary, but the word "plagiarized" does not belong there: plagiarism is only at stake if one uses a source without saying so, and I have no reason to doubt that Cotkin is correctly attributing his information to the same Tanselle work that is used for this article. No plagiarism involved. Once again: please do not attribute statements to me that I do not make. Cheers.MackyBeth (talk) 20:36, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
What a remarkable claim, indeed. Cotkin's work was editorially vetted, and received handsome reviews. As a result, it meets Wikipedia specific WP:RS requirements, which do not say "only new information can be sourced to a book published by OUP" last I checked. No GA reviewer will find an iota of problem using it, and they absolutely will question over-reliance on a total of three authors for any good article.[4] Would you prefer that the reviewer note the thinness of the reference sources list? Cheers. Collect (talk) 20:26, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
FN for Chapter 71: Henry David Thoreau, The Journal of Henry David Thoreau, ed. Bradford Torrey and Francis H. Allen (Salt Lake City, UT: Peregrine Smith Books, 1984), vol. 3, p. 115 [November 14, 1851]; New York Daily Times (November 15, 1851), p. 2. does not credit Tanselle, so we must assume he used the primary sources he mentions directly.
Note - Cotkin gives $1,260 as total royalties - a figure I did not actually find in Tanselle (mea culpa?). It does appear in Robertson-Lorant in 1998. Collect (talk) 20:52, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
Oh yes, the figure of $1,260 is in Tanselle! Look at note 88. The figure is on that page 689 that is not included in the online version of the edition, but I do have the paper edition. Good you have Robertson-Lorant, for I have yet been unable to obtain it for the Herman Melville biography page. Her book is from 1996, not 1998 though.MackyBeth (talk) 21:01, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
Google is pretty good at finding the footnotes - I suspect the $1,260 antedates Tanselle then as well. Questia has a lot of material and also failed to find the footnote :( which is why I presumed it had to be in there somewhere. Cheers. Collect (talk) 21:09, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
Not sure if I know what you are talking about. I was talking about note 88 of the Wikipedia article for Moby-Dick. Oh, and Tanselle has an old article from Harvard Library Bulletin in 1969 about "The Sales of Melville's Books". He is the main investigator in this topic. Cheers.MackyBeth (talk) 21:12, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Correction and Comment I join MackyBeth in welcoming all fresh eyes to join us, since we are merely the most recent in a long line of editors which will now stretch into the future. I thank Collect for pointing to this real problem, though I disagree on this particular point.

One first problem is that the reference to Gettman in note 85 is incorrect. The date of publication given in the note was 2010 but the date of publication on the copyright page is 1960 (2010 is only the date for the digitally published version). Therefore the information in the book precedes Tanselle and Tanselle (either 1969 or 1988) supercedes it. I suggest that we agree by Consensus that Gettman be removed. Meanwhile I have corrected the date in the note.

Two comments on the use of Cotkin. The Cotkin book is indeed a reliable source, but there are literally thousands of Reliable Sources on Melville and Moby Dick, and there is no easy way to decide which one to use at a particular place. The review quoted at Questia says that Dive Deeper functions as as a clearinghouse of critical and historical data on Moby-Dick, which makes it a WP:Tertiary source. MackyBeth follows this policy in preferring the secondary source for this type of reference.

The first purpose of footnotes is to show where the information came from, and a second job is to tell the reader where to find more information. For the first job, Wikipedia policy is to prefer WP:Secondary sources, that is, scholarship which is based on direct contact with WP:Primary sources. This is why Tanselle 1988 is the most appropriate reference in this case.

Of course, Tertiary Sources, even textbooks, are fine for more general statements, and this article uses them in many places. The problem which can never be solved to everyone’s satisfaction is to balance scholarly but boring sources such as Tanselle with reliable but lively works that will entice our readers into pursuing the subject and “dive deeper.” Other works can certainly be added to the notes, but it will always be a challenge to decide whether to add DelBanco or Parker or Cotkin or one of several dozen other Reliable but not special sources.

We need more discussion as to how and where to add a wider variety of sources useful to a variety of readers without being haphazard and only using what comes up in a Google Book search. The References section and Notes are not the place for an extensive bibliography of the field, but I am sorry to disagree with the suggestion that the article relies “on a total of three authors.” The notes and references cite several dozen works and the total number of authors is a lot more than three. Cheers to all! ch (talk) 05:35, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Hopefully the explanation offered by ch settles the matter. I have a few things to add. First, to me the publications of G. Thomas Tanselle are not "boring" at all. I find his writing style vivid and admire the soundness of his reasoning. It's just that he works in the specialized field of bibliography and many readers who enjoy literature do not enjoy the account of how the texts of works came down to us in the shape we know them. Second, when Collect said that there are too little sources, I guess that he was referring not to the article as a whole but to specific sections, especially "Publication history." This section involves facts rather than interpretation. While the article eventually should represent many influential interpretations of the meaning of the whiteness of the whale, establishing how many copies of the book were sold during Melville's life is a fact that leaves little room for discussion. Now, one may argue that the section on "Style" incorporates not enough sources. True, but not too long ago this article did not feature a discussion of the style at all! The article will continue to develop and the way to help developing it is not to point out to editors where the gaps are but to become an editor yourself and help filling those gaps. Third, Collect worries that the GA review process will point out not enough sources are used. Adding sources for the sake of enlarging the list of references is not the way to develop an article. Wikipedia articles need to reflect scholarly consensus, and if consensus is that Tanselle provided the definitive account of the publication history, it seems reasonable that that source is the major one informing that part of the article. Fourth, I am aware of many books and essays on MD that are not yet cited in the article but that ought to be cited. This is a very large list, going back to at least a classic study from 1949: Howard P. Vincent, The Trying-Out of Moby-Dick. This book has yielded a wealth of outstanding criticism that will gradually be taken up in this article. The flipside of that coin is that editors make it a point not to allow mediocre criticism that has failed to make impact on Melville studies to be incorporated in the article. There simply is no room for it.MackyBeth (talk) 09:38, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

I demur on calling Cotwin "tertiary" which is generally used for "encyclopedias" and not for peer-reviewed books published by major university presses. And I find no source "boring" which provides useful content - just that if we overly rely on specific sources (over half of the time relying on three authors) we forget that one of our aims is to provide a wide rage of sources on topics for readers to then explore. Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:02, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Here you have a sample of three Cotwin reviews and especially the last one suggests that this is an entertaining book rather than a work of serious literary criticism. But to stick to the point, when ch caled the book a tertiary source he was referring not to the book as a whole but only to that part which you used. And for that part Tanselle is the secondary source. And oh, even publisgers like the OUP do publish trivial books as well as first-rate material.MackyBeth (talk) 12:19, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
The fact a book is entertaining != making it a "tertiary source" under the Wikipedia definition <g>: "Tertiary sources are publications such as encyclopedias and other compendia that summarize primary and secondary sources." The organization and sourcing of Cotwin is that of a well-sourced book on a specific narrow topic with specific claims falling well outside the term "summary", which makes it one of the better types of sources to use, in fact, and quite importantly broadens the reference base of the entire article. Your apparent definition would even bar Tanselle for use of any claims made in sources which he used which were "secondary sources" by a strict count. So let us live by the Wikipedia usage, and the GA belief that a broad range of sources is superior to stressing three sources for more than half of the entire article. Really guys - this is from experience. Collect (talk) 12:33, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
The link to reviews of Cotwin's book I provided in my previous response contains the verdict of Library Journal, which I quote here: "Since there seems no rationale for what any given chapter here discusses, the book does little to help the serious reader 'dive deeper' into Melville's work. On the other hand, readers who enjoy trivia and tangents may appreciate the book." According to that review, the book discusses the coffee chain Starbuck's and a 1955 heavyweight championship. Hardly sounds like an important addition to Melville studies.MackyBeth (talk) 12:54, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Quote: So let us live by the Wikipedia usage, and the GA belief that a broad range of sources is superior to stressing three sources for more than half of the entire article. Dear Collect, I have been pointing out several times now that we do NOT have any intention to "stress" any source in this article. We simply use sources, and the relative weight of any source will become lighter as the article develops and information from more sources are added. But that is not what you did: instead of supplying new information, you merely re-attributed information added by me to a source not used by me, an unexpected procedure from someone with as many barnstars as you have earned. Cheers. MackyBeth (talk) 13:13, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

OUP states "Creative combination of cultural history and easily accessible reference tool: Cotkin's succinct, engaging approach allows general readers to easily traverse Melville's labryinthine masterpiece Illustrates the novel's immense legacy in American culture, showing its influence on the visual arts, recording artists, and Hollywood" specifies it is a "reference tool" by that minor publisher's standards.

PW has " In this entertaining companion to Moby-Dick, California Polytechnic State University historian Cotkin addresses the novel chapter by chapter, briefly invoking a chapter’s premise before exploring its subjects, themes, and author, as well as the novel’s life, reception, and legacy. Cotkin’s comprehensive method is attuned to both popular representations and individuals who have heeded the novel’s call to “dive into the mysteries of meaning, into the storms of existence.” There’s the novel’s presence in the art of Red Grooms and Frank Stella, its reverberations in Hart Crane’s poetry and Cormac McCarthy’s novels, as well as its use in Abbott and Costello’s comedy routine, in marketing whale meat, and in Star Trek, where Ahab manifests as Khan, villain (and Melville devotee). Melville’s influence on rapper MC Lars and the novel’s rewriting into Japanese emoticons feel less urgent, but whimsy is balanced with plenty of punches at Ahab’s target, “the pasteboard mask of reality.” Melville’s interest in hieroglyphics is paired with the novel’s passages on the cryptic markings found on whale skin; over such markings, Cotkin writes, “Melville quaked with anxiety because he sensed—from the hieroglyphics of God’s creation—that the meaning of it all was meaningless at best and evil at worst.” Cotkin’s discussion of Melville’s use of the novel to wrestle with theodicy provides additional glimpses of the depths of “America’s novel.”"

Boston Globe: ".... Mostly, the book works so well because it is both serious and seriously entertaining (much like its subject). As Cotkin points out, “[h]umor is the ballast that keeps afloat Melville’s ship of tragedy.” Luckily for those of us who love “Moby-Dick,” this new companion is as affable as it is smart." which seems favourable indeed.

Booklist Review:"... The 135 chapters may drift about as chaotically as the flotsam left when the Great Whale smashes the Pequod, but this flotsam has been pried from the depths, and it will thrill Melvilleans.--Christensen, Bryce Copyright 2010 Booklist"

[5] is also of interest -- looks from here like the reviews were generally favourable. More to the point - the book easily passes the RS gantlet, thus is usable. When I trimmed Joseph Widney down to a "good article" (I understand this may be a unique task) I restricted use of any single source to a maximum of ten cites.

By the way, using a different source for the same basic info is not intended as a slap in any way at the editor who first added the claim- it is intended to provide additional sources or the entire article. I apologize if you feel I did it to slight you or anyone else at all. Cheers. Collect (talk) 13:25, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Collect, let's say we made a false start there, because you would not have earned so many barnstars if you were not a serious editor. If I had a copy of the Cotkin book, I would probably use it for this Wikipedia article, but I don't have a copy. From what I now know about the book, it looks especially useful to develop the sections "Reception" and "Adaptation" with.MackyBeth (talk) 13:37, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

The section "Editions"

I added two editions and now all scholarly editions of MD are listed. I also added Berthoff 1988 (online) to References, because this review of the NN edition by an important scholar contains reservations to quite a few of the emendations, reservations that have ultimately led to the Bryant/Springer edition. My question is: should this section provide a paragraph discussing the editions and how they relate to each other? For instance, merely listing the editions does not tell readers that the 1967 Norton Critical Edition contains only one critical essay that was retained in the 2002 edition. That essay is Bezanson 1953, which, as I now see, is not quoted here in the article yet but is used for the Ishmael (Moby-Dick) article.MackyBeth (talk) 15:08, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

The problem is that we are not supposed to add our own knowledge or deductions to any article - that a section was added or removed is not something we are supposed to mention unless a reliable source mentions it. We can say "essays added include xxx, yyy" or "essays deleted were xxx or yyy" but at the peril that someone will say that no actual specific source makes that claim (sigh). Not a great position to be in - but is the removal of an essay of significance? Or one of economics? Collect (talk) 21:01, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
When was the last time I added - or even tolerated the addition of - unsourced material? When I ask other editors' views on whether or not to supply a paragraph detailing the differences between the editions, I do not wish to have it inferred that such paragraph be unsourced. The "Preface" to the 2002 revised NCE discusses this and therefore may be used as a source, and the introduction of the Bryant/Springer edition sets forth what the differences are between theirs and the 1988 edition. The point is whether such paragraph is a good or a bad idea.MackyBeth (talk) 21:18, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
Argh! I fear you misread my post, or I misworded my meaning. Yes - a preface may be used to say an essay was added or deleted - but then the problem is - is such a change ephemeral in relation to the subject, or is it of significant encyclopedic value to readers here. If the change is only altered in a preface, and makes no difference to anything we write about the topic, we can generally ignore that bit. The key to a good article IMO is knowing what is important and what is unimportant, and carving the unimportant marble from the Pietà. (in analogy mode, alas) Collect (talk) 21:29, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
Editors can and do hold surprisingly different views about what is and what is not important enough for inclusion in an encyclopediae, so I thought I'd bring it up. Your marble metaphor is flawed in one interesting respect: for a sculptor, the marble is already there, but for a well written Wikipedia article, you need two kinds of skills. One skill is providing the marble: adding sourced information. The other skill is carving: bringing the added information back to a reasonable size, which not only includes deleting information that is not essential, but also the ability of writing economically and synthesizing power, so that the information gets as condensed as possible. Usually both approaches are carried out at the same time by different editors, me being one who provides the marble.MackyBeth (talk) 21:48, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
Then please accept my offer of having a strong chisel <g> sans any animus whatsoever on any part. Deal? Collect (talk) 22:16, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
Strong chisels are always handy! Since a concise writing style is not my best developed skill, I am always full of awe at how concise the featured articles are written.MackyBeth (talk) 08:39, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

images

No sourcing needed <g>. Some were of too great a weight visually - so I went to some suggested sizing and placement to make the page visually improved, I hope.

The article likely needs another two or three images -- though the sections on criticisms etc. are remarkably hard to illustrate <g> but perhaps these Commons images would be useful? [6] has the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Customs House - which not only covers whaling directly but by allusion Melville's stint as a Customs Inspector as well for those who notice.

I would like the New Bedford statue of a Harpooner by Bela Pratt if someone will find an "absolutely public domain" example, of course. I did a first day cover for the Moby Dick/Melville envelope years ago, but if anyone has a photo of the actual statue to upload to Commons, it would look, IMO, great. The envelope, AFAICT, does not have any hyphen.

We might even dare to include the last of the US whaling ships - the Charles W. Morgan (ship) [7]. Any other possibles? Collect (talk) 22:53, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Sections on criticism are hard to illustrate... with pictures, but instead the article will feature quoteboxes that demonstrate how Melville used his sources. For an example of how this will look, take a peek at the section "Writing Style" at Herman Melville.MackyBeth (talk) 08:42, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
Good to see attention being paid to the visual weight of the images, but the images are now too small to figure out what they are! Besides, many people use Wikipedia on their tablets or phones, where a 150px is postage stamp size. Would anyone object to making them just a little bigger, maybe 250 px?ch (talk) 17:20, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
Especially the chart of the voyage should not be too small. For the rest I actually don't really care about illustrations that were no part of the original book, but it's good to see that someone tries to find out if improvement is possible.MackyBeth (talk) 17:27, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
Um -- you do know how huge 250px is as a set size? Will set it there -- but I thibk you will find it quite overpowering. Collect (talk) 18:16, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
You are right, the size is a bit large now, which is indeed a nuisiance especially since the illustrations do little to enhance our understanding.MackyBeth (talk) 18:26, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
The MOS/Images at WP:IMGSYN suggests 225px unless there is significant detail which would be obscured, such as in a map. More guidance at WP:IMGSIZE
So 225 is fine with me if it works for y'awl, though I agree with MackyBeth that it seems too small to show the detail on the chart of the voyage.ch (talk) 22:15, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Wikilinking and refs for words inside quotations

Is contrary to the MoS alas - can you remove the links and refs inside the quotations? They are assuredly a problem for GA review.


WP:MOSQUOTE "As much as possible, avoid linking from within quotes, which may clutter the quotation, violate the principle of leaving quotations unchanged, and mislead or confuse the reader."

Cheers. Collect (talk) 13:15, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Do you have any specific edits in mind with this suggestion? I see no links within quotations added recently.MackyBeth (talk) 13:40, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
The two quotes in the Style section 1) Have links and refs 2) Use the WP:REFGROUP format, which is certainly permitted but which readers find confusing, as in the discussion at Melville/ Melvill ch (talk)
Which two quotes are those? I can't remember having put links in quotations. Today I only made quoteboxes with underlinings and notes but no links.MackyBeth (talk) 18:23, 22 March 2015 (UTC)


In fact I would suggest losing the big boxes, and sticking to (say) "In black distress, I called my God,/ When I could scarce believe him mine,/ He bowed his ear to my complaints-- /No more the whale did me confine[g]. "With speed he flew to my relief, / As on a radiant dolphin[h] borne[i]; / Awful, yet[j] bright, as lightning shone / The face of my Deliverer God." And the comparison with the Psalm in text form rather than as a parallel construct - as the importance is Melville's use of seaman-specific language there, and the rest is minor, Battenfield is not so important that his every note should be in this article. This will improve the net usage of the article, and IMO improve it.

The part above the Psalm with sentences progressing from "first" to "fifth" should be broken down and the ordinals lost. One suggestion to play with might be:

Melville uses a wide vocabulary drawing on nautical and literary references of the period. Such adjectives as "cetological" are more literary than nautical, while other terms are decidedly those of the sea-farer. He borrows from well-known classics, including the analogies of Homer and Shakespeare, to obscure seaman's slang, and prophetic archaism.[5]
He uses verbal strategies both individually and in combination. His use of the modified word "Leviathanism"[23] and repetition of modified words, as "pitiable", "pity", "pitied" and "piteous" (Ch. 81, "The Pequod Meets the Virgin"),[24] is one strategy.
He also uses common words in new ways, as when the whale "heaps" and "tasks,"[23] providing a verbal imagery in doing so.
Specialized vocabulary, such as "fossiliferous" provides a technical aura to some parts[23], while unusual adjective-noun combinations, as in "concentrating brow" and "immaculate manliness" provide accentuation to simple wording (Ch. 26, "Knights and Squires").[25]

The goal is to make this more understandable to readers, while keeping the gist of the meaning as I read and understood the source. "Participial modifiers" is a tad arcane here, to be sure.


Some of this is likely not the most felicitous rewording, but I think it makes the points which are germane to the reader reasonably well. Collect (talk) 20:03, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't see you answering my question: where are the links inside quotations that should be removed? I mean, let's settle that first before we go into other subjects. Cheers.MackyBeth (talk) 20:41, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
You link to the phrases used in the Psalm variant - this is quite confusing to readers - especially in such a long section. I suggest we stick to just two subsections of the Psalm in the case at hand, and explain each as we go along, rather than listing the entire variant and the entire Psalm of which it is a variant. Collect (talk) 21:48, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
Adding underlining is a clear change to the quotation, which is contrary to the MOS, and adding notes is at the very least contrary to the spirit of the MOS, whether or not they are technically links (which in fact they may well be, since they link to the notes).
We may not need to settle this technical point first, since I agree with Collect that the blue quote boxes are not needed and the Style section is getting unfocused. ch (talk) 21:59, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
How would you emend my draft wording for the Vocabulary section? (it is far more about vocabulary usage than style as far as I can tell) And a "link" is anything you can click on which does something, again IMHO. Collect (talk) 22:05, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
Please try to avoid confusing and discuss one topic in one heading here, which is about links. A link is something where you click to another page, an underlining is not. It makes no sense to talk about an underlining as if there is no difference with a link.MackyBeth (talk) 22:12, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
The first entry in this section is "WP:MOSQUOTE "As much as possible, avoid linking from within quotes, which may clutter the quotation, violate the principle of leaving quotations unchanged, and mislead or confuse the reader." Underling etc have everything to do with "the principle of leaving quotations unchanged." ch (talk) 22:17, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
The MOS is talking about linking, not underlining. Don't make up guidelines of your own.MackyBeth (talk) 22:19, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
I apologize if I have distracted from the main point, which is to second Collect's request to remove the underlining and notes from the boxes. While I continue to admire the attentiveness, intelligence, and learning that went into creating the boxes, they seem out of proportion to the needs of this article (see new section).ch (talk) 16:26, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for your kind words. To me the thing was that underlining is a mere typographical device and as such falling in the same category as do boldface and italice, but different from links. So to say that removing underlining would be in keeping with the spirit of the guideline stating that links and quotations don't go together seems to me to stretch the concept of "the spirit of the law."MackyBeth (talk) 16:17, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Cotkin/Tanselle and Censorship

This week I had a chance to look at Cotkin's book, and just as I thought, he credits Tanselle though you'll have to search the notes to see where:

  • on page 271, the notes to chpter 48, he cites Tanselle's 1969 essay "The Sales of Melville's Books"
  • on page 276, notes to chapter 86, he cites Tanselle's "Historical Note VI" in the 1988 Moby-Dick edition.

Of course, he should have cited Tanselle as well at the chapter with the data, but I guess he was just being sloppy. Sloppiness or simply a bad job of proofreading is evident everywhere in the book: at one point the title A Comparison to Melville Studies occurs, instead of A Companion, on page 56 he mentions that F.O. Matthiessen discussed not only Melville but also Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman as well in his American Renaissance. No Hawthorne? On page 235 a typo is overlooked, so that Melville voraciously read Shakespeare in 1847 instead of 1849. A book with errors like this does not seem a good source to quote from.

This discussion has made me think back of an issue in the "Publication history" section ch and I debated half a year or so ago, about the word "censorship" in one of the headings. On the Talk Page I quoted how some scholars described the British revisions with that term, but I did not add such quote to the page. Since I figured that "censorship" is too strong a qualification to be used unsourced, I now looked up some quotes which I will add this weekend, so that the use of the term in the article is backed up. Cheers.MackyBeth (talk) 20:39, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Boxes in Style section move to Father Mapple?

The two text boxes are excellent commentaries on Father Mapple's hymn. However, they are out of proportion for this article, while the section Father Mapple’s sermon in the Father Mapple article lacks this depth of analysis. I suggest that the text of the boxes be moved to a new section there, with a link to this article, leaving the main text here. ch (talk) 16:47, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Nice solution - we can stick to simply showing some of the changes (not boxed), ascribing them to Melville's desire to portray a church service aimed specifically at seamen. With a single ref needed for all of it. Collect (talk) 16:53, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
MackyBeth, any thoughts? There would be room at Father Mapple for more analysis, whereas the Style section here is now roughly 1,500 words, which is more than Themes and Structure combined.ch (talk) 21:58, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
Transferring this to Mapple is alright with me, ch. Actually, I had thought of putting it there but wanted to see how it would fare on the MD main page. And oh, I plan to develop the sections Themes and Structure in the near future: the MOS for Novels says the "Theme" section contains the "meat" of the article, and in that respect some work needs to be done. Cheers.MackyBeth (talk) 16:17, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
I've made the move.ch (talk) 06:26, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Proceed with caution before expansion

A few thoughts. Good that MackyBeth is giving us warning of more material to come but I would urge that we look over the recent changes first and digest them before making major additions. At Herman Melville there is one apparent contradiction introduced into the first paragraph of the lead, the reintroduction of a sentence which we agreed to cut, and a misspelling in the text. The section on Writing Style has a lot of good material but in a jumbled order and is out of proportion to the article as a whole, more like a set of notes than the careful essay we are capable of. I will add this comment at Herman Melville. All the best.ch (talk) 06:46, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

I responded to this message at the TP for Herman Melville, where the message seems to belong. I realize that it will be necessary to rewrite some of the recently added material, which will require the skill of condensed writing, I mean casting the essence of the material in fewer words. This is one reason I am beginning to look forward to the GA review process: not so much the possible higher rating, but the advice and suggestions for further improvement by an experienced reviewer may enhance the quality of this page faster than otherwise. So what do you think, is it about time for a review request or not? The last GA review dates back from 2008, so it may be worth a try. Besides, nominating the article might raise other editors' awareness that this page is worked on, and they may decide it's worth the effort to help bringing everything to proportion.MackyBeth (talk) 09:07, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Add image of whaling ship Charles W. Morgan?

A picture of the Acushnet, the Pequod's model, would be a fine addition to the page. Alas, the Acushnet was destroyed in 1853 or so, but in the vessel collection at Mystic Seaport is a ship of almost the same model, the Charles W. Morgan (ship). Worldwide, it is the only lookalike of the Acushnet still existing. Images of the ship are already uploaded on Wikimedia and Wikipedia, so I was thinking that the addition to this page of an image of that ship with an appropiate text would be worth suggesting.MackyBeth (talk) 22:25, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Added Olsen-Smith quotation

Half a year ago or so, ch and I discussed the use of the word Censorship. A quotation justifying the use of that word is now supplied. This is not the beginning of an expansion of that section, because it has taken us a lot of work to bring down the size. Some small additions may be useful, however, since Collect was right to point out that the section should not depend on too few sources. So if it is possible to broaden the base of the section by adding a few quotes as evidence that scholarly consensus exists on Tanselle's account, why not do so?MackyBeth (talk) 17:12, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

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