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Talk:Reception history of Jane Austen/Archive 2

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Archive 1Archive 2

FAC checklist

We are almost there! I'm hoping all of our preparation will ensure a smooth FAC:

  • Expand feminist criticism paragraph
  • Paraphrase some of the quotations in the "Modern Janeites" section
  • Add a few sentences on Kipling
  • Copyedit
  • Check images one more time
  • MOS check
  • Check style of citations
  • Check links
  • BE/AE check

Two weeks and counting! :) Awadewit (talk) 02:31, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Outriggr is back and he has always been handy at tracking down high res reproductions; has secret access to some resource or other, dunno, but I'll ask. Page is a credit, bty. Ceoil sláinte 22:49, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
Did he sell his soul? Awadewit (talk) 22:54, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
No, wasn't able to, but not for the want of trying. Apparently the market for souls has crashed recently; its tied with sterling; euro 86c, as of today. Ceoil sláinte 23:03, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
You'd think Satan would be insulated somehow. Awadewit (talk) 23:31, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
He was short selling, apparently. But there is a bail out package arranged, I understand, of a region of €750bl, by a few key arch angels. So Outriggr might not be here as long as we might hope. Ceoil sláinte 23:41, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Passing comments

I only had a quick skim and you've probably got most of these on your checklist but in case not:

  • Are you planing a move to add "works" to the end of title per the bolding?
  • There doesn't seem to be a standard way of referring to these articles (see Category:Reception of writers). The current title is more standard in terms of literary criticism and is shorter, so I wasn't thinking of moving it. The fact is that "Austen" can refer to both her works and her. What do you think? (I did anticipate a small move debate happening in the future.) Awadewit (talk) 18:14, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Anti-Janeites. Against Jane or against the Janeites? (personally, I don't like the borrowed title, there doesn't seem to be much on Anti-Janeites in any form in that section)
  • True on both the popular front and the critical front. There was no popular readership for Austen until the Memoir and "after the publication of the Memoir, more criticism was published on Austen's novels in two years than had appeared in the previous fifty". Do you think this argument would convince? Awadewit (talk) 19:19, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
  • British or US English?
  • There is some mixing of -ize/-ise in there and a "center" in the opening. Either -ise or -ize is fine but not both. OED does prefer ize (but it isn't a hypercorrection to change it back as Jbmurray claimed, standard BE usage is something like 3 to 2 in favour of -ise). Yomanganitalk 18:24, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
  • I have to admit that I may have become tainted by too much time on the wrong side of the Atlantic... And once you start to think about these things you get your head in a muddle. But emphasise looked particularly strange to me, which is why I checked the OED. (Then I checked "realize" at the OED, and found that some people even write "realise," although the OED seems to be even more against that, as I expected.) Anyhoo. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 19:04, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
  • I.e. I'd always understood that "realise" definitely was a hypercorrection, but if so then people have been hypercorrecting for some time, according to the OED. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 19:06, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Ah, BE is easy. Stick a "u" in whenever you have "or"; end everything in -ize or -yze (per the OED); and reverse "er" at the end of words. That should do it. Hmmm, I analyze the farmre's tractour. Maybe not. Yomanganitalk 02:04, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
  • The image of the page of the New Monthly Magazine doesn't add a lot to the article. The entry is illegible until viewed at full size. Maybe you can enlarge the relevant section.
  • "During her lifetime, Austen's novels brought her little personal fame; like many women writers, she chose to publish anonymously." - since all her work in her lifetime was published anonymously how did she get any fame?
  • I've added more material on the Prince Regent to the "Background" section and rewritten the lead sentence to read: During her lifetime, Austen's novels brought her little personal fame; like many women writers, she chose to publish anonymously and it was only among members of the aristocracy that her authorship was an open secret. Awadewit (talk) 19:50, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
  • That's better. It would be nice to know how her secret was revealed to aristocratic circles. She wasn't in a position in society that she'd be bragging about it at dinner even if that was in her character. Did the toffs seek out her true identity? Yomanganitalk 02:04, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
  • "...but all claiming to be the true Janeites,..." that doesn't seem to be backed up later in the article
  • As the article explains, Janeites thought they were defending Austen against misinterpretation: They referred to themselves as Janeites to distinguish themselves from the masses who, in their view, did not properly understand Austen (the term has changed meaning a lot, which is part of the problem here). Awadewit (talk) 19:53, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
  • We added this phrase to the lead to define "Janeite". I can take it out again, if you think that would be best. It is true that the article talks more about the elite's reaction to the masses than the masses themselves. However, the definition is still correct and the statement is still accurate. Let me know what you think. Awadewit (talk) 03:37, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Are the New Monthly Magazine's indifference and some of the comments by Lewes and Bronte the sum of the negative criticism?
  • No, there are also the rather negative reviews of the other contemporary periodicals, the indifference of Victorian readers, Twain, a bit of James. The modern scholarship is different, of course. It is less evaluative. It all depends on how you read that material. Awadewit (talk) 18:14, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
  • I'll re-read it. I got the impression that there was little bad to say. Maybe it just needs bringing out more. Yomanganitalk
  • The negative views are all much earlier - they tend to drop out later, so you should sense much more negativity early in the article and really none at the end. Awadewit (talk) 19:14, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Apart from Twain (No idea how I missed that last time, as that's really what I was expecting to see more of), the negative views seem to get a little swallowed. Maybe that's proportionate and maybe it is just me, but, to give a couple of examples: I didn't really get an impression of the indifference of the Victorian readers - Dickens and Eliot come across as preferred but that's all; the negative comments from the reviewer for the British Critic are given late in the section after a mass of positive views and replied to directly in the following sentence. It just seems a little unbalanced to me, but it isn't an easy job to get the balance when positive criticism evidently strongly outweighs the negative, and the more I re-read it the less I'm able to see how you can deal with it other than how you already have (useful, I know). Perhaps asides like "Overall, these early reviewers did not know what to make of Austen's novels—for example, they misunderstood her use of irony." could be expanded. Yomanganitalk 02:04, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Added: Reviewers reduced Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice to didactic tales of virtue prevailing over vice after the irony sentence. The specific examples of misunderstanding irony require knowing the plots of the novels. The fact is that, after early responses, Austen's novels have been generally well-received. The debate has been over what makes them great, not if they are great, if you follow my meaning (to simplify it greatly). Awadewit (talk) 03:03, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
  • The range from soft porn to fantasy probably doesn't encompass all the sequels and prequels. Perhaps something more on the lines of "Sequels, prequels, and adaptations based on Jane Austen's work range from attempts to enlarge on the stories in Austen's own style to the soft-core pornographic novel Virtues and Vices (1981) by Grania Beckford and S. N. Dyer's fantasy novel Resolve and Resistance (1996)." Yomanganitalk 13:51, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
  • We could, but this is a slippery slope to mentioning every random Austen adaptation. We have mentioned the ones that the scholarship notes as significant in some way. Awadewit (talk) 17:13, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Yes, it is a weird fictionalization of Austen's life. This is one of those times where I think reticence is in order. If it becomes important, we should add it. Otherwise, I say just leave it out. Notice, for example, that the paragraph on the last decade or so of scholarship is tiny. This is not because there isn't any - it is because we don't know what is really important yet. I would rather let opinion gel than have a constantly-evolving trivial list, if you see what I mean. Jane Austen in popular culture was the result of a total lack of pruning at Jane Austen - we had to split the article off. Awadewit (talk) 17:57, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Austen images

[We were searching for a better copy of lead image, which we found - thank you!]

Any better? Yomanganitalk 23:44, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
We have to have some sort of verifiable source. Awadewit (talk) 23:52, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
Wherever it comes from indirectly they are all scans of the image from a private collection. The picture credits in the book for the one above will tell you the source - I don't recall who's collection it is in. Yomanganitalk 00:09, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
The book just says it is owned by the Austen family, so I have added that to the image description. Awadewit (talk) 17:52, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
Why do you want to use that one anyway? The provenance on the NPG portrait is better. This might be prettier but it is hard to have the features hideously unlike if they aren't shown. Yomanganitalk 00:15, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
Actually, as the "Portraits" essay says, there is "no good, undisputed portrait" of Jane Austen. There are problems with all of them. One reason that we chose this one for this article is simple practicality. Every once in a while, we have to have a small dispute over at Jane Austen regarding the "ugly" image. We have to demonstrate that, yes, that is the best portrait to use and that, no, we shouldn't use the one made after her death, even though it is prettier. :) Frankly, I don't want to have those disputes all over the wiki. This is a legitimate portrait of Austen and it saves us the trouble of arguing with people (most of the time, apparently!). Awadewit (talk) 17:52, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
Pragmatism wins out. Fair enough. Yomanganitalk 18:16, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

page numbers and referencing

?. I don't have my MLA handbook with me right now, but I'd wager good money that page numbers are indeed required.

Meanwhile, I do find the way in which the Southam references are treated very confusing and unorthodox indeed. For instance, what is currently footnote 43 supposedly is a citation from Lewes, but is attributed to Southam. Earlier, I added "qtd. in" in a couple of places, but these were removed. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:23, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

  • I just checked the most recent edition of the MLA handbook - apparently page numbers are now required for "Works cited" lists. That is new. When I learned the style, they were considered unnecessary since the page numbers were given in the notes. *sigh*
  • The Southam book is weird. There are many ways of going about citing it. It is a collection of primary sources. So, the Lewes essay is by Lewes, but contained in the Southam book. I wanted to avoid listing every essay we quote in the Southam book, so I thought simply listing them this way would be easier. Awadewit (talk) 21:31, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
  • I figured, though it's not clear and things were further confused by the fact that you seem to be quoting Lewes cited by Southam in his introduction in that footnote. I would definitely cite all the works cited in the References section. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:35, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Footnote 43: The referenced text is this: 'George Henry Lewes articulated this theme in a series of enthusiastic articles in the 1840s and 1850s. In "The Novels of Jane Austen", published anonymously in Blackwood's Magazine in 1859, Lewes praised Austen's novels for "the economy of art ... the easy adaptation of means to ends, with no aid from superfluous elements" and compared her to Shakespeare.[43]' It would seem prima facie to be a direct quotation from Lewes. But the footnote says 'Southam, "Introduction", Vol. 1, 152.' Now, is this Southam's introduction to his anthology? Or did Lewes write an essay called simply "Introduction." Or have (now I come to think of it) you abbreviated the title of Lewes's essay? See how confusing it gets when you don't list the works cited? Or maybe I'm just a bear of little brain, but I'm not the only one. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:48, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Though the fact that there's an "Introduction" in both volumes makes me assume you're in fact citing Southam quoting Lewes... which was why I added "qtd. in." --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:50, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Yes, I know. I just wanted to avoid citing all of the individual essays, as I was saying. Anyone who had the book would not be confused at all (and that would be anyone looking up the citation), but I'll change them. *double sigh*. Awadewit (talk) 21:54, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

MLA

Out of interest, to what extent are you trying to emulate MLA style here? I ask because of course MLA style doesn't use commas between author (or title) and page number: "Smith 52" rather than "Smith, 53"; "Smith, Blah 49" rather than "Smith, Blah, 49." --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 00:52, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

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