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Talk:Olivia Shakespear/GA2

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Reviewer: Malleus Fatuorum 21:25, 27 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Lead
  • "Shakespear was a distant husband; the marriage became sterile and loveless ..." I know that you mean Henry, but that doesn't quite work for me. In fact the whole second paragraph doesn't really work for me. If they had a baby nine months after their marriage then they must have been at it hammer and tongs, so Henry surely couldn't always have been a distant husband.
  • The second and third paragraphs begin "In XXXX".
  • I think the structure of the lead is a bit muddled. As this is an article about Olivia, not her husband or her lovers, I'd prefer to see her work featured more prominently, not just tagged on at the end as an apparent afterthought. For instance: "Olivia Shakespear, born Olivia Tucker, (1863–1938) was an English novelist, playwright, and patron of the arts who wrote six novels and, with Florence Farr, two plays ...". The emphasis needs to be on Olivia, not her toy boys.
    Will do this last. I always have trouble with leads. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 13:28, 28 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Early life and marriage
  • "One of 13 children, she had six brothers holding the rank of general in the British Indian Army ....". I'm wondering what this tells me about Olivia as opposed to the corruption in the officer corps during the time of Olivia's mother.
    I've trimmed this out, but it goes to the fact that her favorite cousin Lionel Johnson, the only male in the family not to join the military, became a poet, friend of Yeats and finally died of alcoholism. Am perhaps trying to tie together too many strands here. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 13:35, 28 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "... where the daughters were raised in a social world that indulged in leisure". Not sure what this is trying to say. Centred on pleasure? I don't see how a world can indulge in anything anyway.
  • "He attended Harrow, went on to study law and joined a law practice in 1875. He was rule-bound in his professional life and controlled and rigid in his personal life; he indulged in hobbies of music, carpentry and water-colour painting, taking regularly scheduled painting excursions in the countryside." I'm uncomfortable with that not least because it's telling me about Henry, not about Olivia, the subject of the article. It's also rather awkwardly written; "indulged in hobbies of"?
  • "In the late 1880s, Hope Shakespear dissolved his legal partnership—his partner may have been embezzling from clients' trusts—and formed his own practice. John Harwood, Olivia's biographer and author of Olivia Shakespear and W. B. Yeats: After Long Silence, writes that Shakespear's attitude to the situation showed a certain amount of "timidity" on his part and a definite "dislike of scenes". I think there may be too much detail here, but it's certainly potentially interesting. But you need to relate this "dislike of scenes" to his relationship with Olivia in some way, else it just seems irrelevant. Why is he called "Hope" here anyway, rather than Henry?
    Apparently the dislike of scenes caused him to dissolve the partnership without fixing a potentially serious situation, which surfaced later and caused them to lose a great deal of money. Will work on this a bit, or trim. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 13:28, 28 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "During this period Olivia moved from socializing with military wives to literary women". That seems a little a propos of nothing; this is the first we've heard of her socialising with military wives, so to be told she moved away from it is, well, a little "so what?"
Friendship
  • "The most important aspect of their relationship was Olivia offered to Yeats ...". I don't understand this sentence at all.
  • "He was destitute at the time, lived at home...". Is "destitute" really the right word here? Whose home? His own? His parents?
  • "... Yeats, probably at the dinner with Lionel Johnson (who became disruptively drunk),[9] inquired about the woman seated opposite him". Inquired of whom? His host(s)?
  • I don't understand the punctuation of the quotation at the end of the sentence beginning "They quickly established a firm friendship". Why the '"?
  • "...with Olivia a sympathetic listener about his obsessive love for Maud". Listening about doesn't sound right, you listen to.
  • "John Unterecker writes in "Faces and False Faces", friendship became the dominant aspect in relationship". What if "Faces and False faces"? There seems to be at least one word missing there as well, before "relationship".
  • "Kline believes the two began a friendship based on the discussion of literature and his willingness to review her work". That doesn't quite work for me.
  • "In August Yeats returned to Ireland to stay with his uncle George Pollexfen". Surely he must have returned for some other reason, not just to stay with his uncle.
Dorothy and Ezra Pound
  • "... any man who wanted to marry her wd be put off by the fact or yr friendship". Does the quote really say "fact or your friendship" or is that a typo?
  • "Yeats had recently returned to London from Ireland and turned his attention to a thorough investigation of spiritualism and the occult, turning to Olivia for advice. She in turn took the young American poe ...". There are really too many "turn"s in that sequence.
  • "In the autumn of 1909 and the winter of 1910 ...". If you ever take this to FAC you're going to have problems where you mention seasons like that, as they occur differently in different hemispheres. The MoS has a section on this somewhere.
    I have inline comments to as reminders about this. Have to find the exact dates in the sources. Not sure this will go to FAC. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 22:19, 28 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Later life and death
  • "After Dorothy's wedding much of the documentation of Olivia's life ceases. She moved out of Brunswick Gardens in 1924, throwing away personal correspondence and donating hundreds of books". You donate to; perhaps better phrased as "giving away hundreds of books"?
  • As a widow Olivia continued her long friendship with Valentine Fox, worried about the health of her brother Harry (Georgie's stepfather) who had become insane, and about her own health—she had bronchitis caused by smoking". There seems to be something missing here, before "worried". Is "as a widow" really necessary?
  • "... acting in part as his agent in London and carrying out requests from him". I'm not sure you can "carry out a request" can you? Could that last bit just be dropped?
  • "She sent Pound to organize the funeral and to clean out the house". Should that be "clear out the house"?
Novels: description and reception
  • "Love on a Mortal Lease, which received lukewarm reviews, presents a well-defined heroine placed against a lackluster background." Right at the begining of this section we were told that it received mixed reviews.
  • "Only a few hundred copies were sold". Is that a few hundred copies of both books rather than each book? If so, then it seems to cast a little doubt on the later claim that The False Laurel, of which fewer than 200 copies were sold, was the least successful. For that to be the case, then the "few hundred copies" sold of her first two novels would need to be at least 400, which sounds a bit more than "a few" to me.
  • "... [Olivia] marries an older ex-Indian officer who, in series of events in India, learns he is her stepfather. Horrified, she returns to England". That doesn't quite work: he learns that he's her stepfather, but she's horrified? How did she find out?
    • I'm still struggling with this. It now says "The plot is complicated: an orphaned young woman, Rosamond, lives with a man known to her as Uncle Hilary, and marries an honorable older ex-Indian officer who believes his wife died in India. The couple return to India; in a series of events they learn the former wife still lives and is Rosamond's mother with another man." First, are we using BR or Am English spelling? Earlier we had "centre", but here we have "honorable". Secondly, the ex-Indian officer's wife isn't his "former" wife, she's his wife. Thirdly, what does "Rosamond's mother with another man" mean"? Malleus Fatuorum 00:51, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think maybe I should take it out. I'm working from a plot synopsis that I don't entirely understand, trying to synthesize, and it's not working. I'll fiddle a bit, but if you don't understand, and I don't understand, it should probably go. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 00:57, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Images
  • If the author of File:Olivia Tucker Shakespear.png is unknown, then how can a PD claim of life of the author plus 100 years be justified?
    Haven't a clue, but it was published in 1897. Will have a look at the licences.
  • Similar applies to File:FlorenceFarrFace.jpg, which is claiming life of the (apparently unknown) author plus 70 years.
    Took this from the Florence Farr article. Will investigate
  • There's no description at all for File:Maudgonne.jpg. Where did it come from, when was it first published, who was the author?
    Took from Yeats article. Will investigate. There is another one I can use, that's free I think.
  • Again, if you're looking to take this to FAC then all of the images should have alt text, which they probably ought to have anyway. In every case I think you could get away with "alt=Photograph".
    Will do.
    Have requested an image review and will remove any that can't stay. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 22:59, 28 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I've removed the three images mentioned above. I doubt I can find proof of photographer death date, or whatever I need, so it's best to take them out. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 17:19, 29 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
References
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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