Talk:Satyr/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Alarichall (talk · contribs) 18:15, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

I'll work on reviewing this over this weekend. Alarichall (talk) 18:15, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

The review

I start with a summary of how well the article meets the criteria, and then a section-by-section list of suggested changes and improvements. Most of those are suggestions rather than requirements though: this is a really good piece of work!

I'm happy to help with implementing changes if people agree they should be made but aren't in a position to make them themselves.

• Well written:
  • the prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct; and
  • it complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.

Few problems here: very careful work! I made a couple of tiny copy-edits, but I could find very little to change. I have queried a couple of sentences whose meaning I wasn't sure of.

I do have some suggestions for how we might add new subsection headers, and a few suggestions for moving material from one section to another, to improve the flow and navigability of the piece. See below.

Also: rather few readers will know what (B)CE dates periods like 'Hellenistic era' actually correspond to: would it be possible to include rough (B)CE dates in all the headings?

I prefer to keep section headings as short as possible, but I have added a wikilink to the article Hellenistic Period and the dates of that period in parentheses in the text of that section. --Katolophyromai (talk) 17:45, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

OK, makes sense. Alarichall (talk) 19:07, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

• Verifiable with no original research:
  • it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline;
  • all in-line citations are from reliable sources, including those for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines;
  • it contains no original research; and
  • it contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism.

Totally fine! Nice work.

• Broad in its coverage:
  • it addresses the main aspects of the topic; and
  • it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).

The piece is very good in these respects. I do have a few suggestions below for a few points where the article could be more concise (partly by suggesting that material here might be made into new articles or integrated elsewhere). I don't think I'd insist on those changes for this to become a good article, but I'd like us to consider them seriously.

I have one major suggestion for expansion, which is that we could have a section on scholarly interpretations of the meaning of satyrs. Again, I don't think I'd insist on this for this article to become a GA, but I do think it would be a significant improvement.

• Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.

My only concern here was that the 'Origin' section is so insistent on an Indo-European origin for satyrs. This is plausible, but comparable beings are so widespread in non-IE traditions that it hardly seems inevitable. So this section could be more balanced.

• Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.

No problems here.

• Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
  • media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content; and
  • media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.

The illustrations are great, and work really well.

Header

The footnotes in the very first sentence are unusual: it would be more usual to integrate information about pronunciation and Greek spelling into the sentence. I don't think many readers will realise that footnotes a and b contain this useful information.

The reason I always put this information in footnotes is because only a small fraction of the people reading this will be looking for information about different pronunciations and the original Greek spelling of the word. Having all this in the first line forces everyone else to dig through it before they get to the actual definition, which can be especially burdensome when there are multiple different pronunciations and multiple foreign language spellings. By putting this information in the footnote, it allows us to keep the information for the people who want it without forcing everyone else to dig through a bunch of weird spellings they do not understand. --Katolophyromai (talk) 17:45, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Makes sense. That said, the example in fn 15 of Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Lead_section#Usage_in_first_sentence (as well as my general observations of Wikipedia) suggests to me that including the original spelling and the pronunciation of satyr in the first sentence would be normal. Maybe we could at least put the Greek back in? Alarichall (talk) 19:07, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

The section of MOS:LEAD that you quote from says, "Consider footnoting foreign-language and archaic names if they would otherwise clutter the opening sentence." --Katolophyromai (talk) 23:16, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Yes, but the example given in fn 15 of an uncluttered opening is this: "Genghis Khan (/ˈdʒɛŋɡɪs ˈkɑːn/, often pronounced /ˈɡɛŋɡɪs ˈkɑːn/; Mongolian: Чингис хаан, Çingis hán; Mongolian pronunciation: [t͡ʃʰiŋɡɪs xaːŋ] , c. 1162 – August 18, 1227), born Temüjin, was the founder and Great Khan (Emperor) of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death." I think this shows clearly the easily observed principle on Wikipedia that key original-language spellings and pronunciations do belong in the opening sentence. It doesn't count as 'cluttered' until there's rather more information there... Alarichall (talk) 10:15, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

OK, I've made a change here which I hope is a good middle ground. Alarichall (talk) 18:31, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Are you sure the UK pronunciation of satyr is given correctly from the source? Either way, I'm more convinced by the OED, which gives "Brit. /ˈsatə/, U.S. /ˈsædər/, /ˈseɪdər/", which fits with loss of /-r/ in most British varieties and the voicing of intervocal t in US English. ("satyr, n." OED Online, Oxford University Press, July 2018, www.oed.com/view/Entry/171301. Accessed 21 September 2018.)

I do not know how the word is normally pronounced in the UK, but I am from the US and I always pronounce it US: /ˈseɪtər/. I have heard other people pronounce it US: /ˈseɪdər/, but I have never heard anyone pronounce it US: /ˈsædər/. I did not actually write any of the pronunciations given in this footnote; they were here long before I came along and I do not have access to the source cited to support them. --Katolophyromai (talk) 17:45, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

And admittedly the OED entry for satyr is old, so maybe US: /ˈsædər/ has fallen out of use. Could we give the OED version of the British pronunciation, citing the OED for that, and both US: /ˈseɪtər/ and US: /ˈseɪdər/, citing both the OED and the Longman dictionary? Alarichall (talk) 19:07, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

I would have no objections to that, but I do not have access to the OED, or at least not currently. I would appreciate if you would add the OED pronunciation and citation for me. --Katolophyromai (talk) 23:16, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Done :-) Alarichall (talk) 10:15, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

It might be good to give a source and improved coverage of the pronunciation of seilenos too. The OED gives 'Brit. /sʌɪˈliːnəs/, U.S. /saɪˈlinəs/'. ("Silenus, n." OED Online, Oxford University Press, July 2018, www.oed.com/view/Entry/179662;jsessionid=E8344A33B26F736ED2571EC0B3A07B96. Accessed 22 September 2018.)

See comment immediately above this one. --Katolophyromai (talk) 23:16, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Done. Alarichall (talk) 10:15, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

Origin

Would it be possible to have a 'terminology and etymology' section separate from (and placed before) the 'origin' section? It would be a good place to explain what is known about the etymology and changing meanings of satyr and silenos. I suggest it would be a good place to explain the relationship to the Latin term faun (in addition to the 'Roman' section later). It might also incorporate this rather lonely paragraph from the end of the article: 'According to Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, the name "satyr" is sometimes derogatorily applied to a "brutish or lustful man"[100] and satyriasis is a medical condition in males characterized by excessive sexual desire.'

That is an excellent idea! I just reorganized the material you mentioned to move it into a separate "Terminology" section at the beginning. I am wishing I had thought of that. I was actually struggling to figure out how to organize the material you mentioned, but I think this resolves that problem. Thank you for that! --Katolophyromai (talk) 17:45, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Groovy :-) Alarichall (talk) 19:07, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Fair enough that M. L. West thinks satyrs are a distinctively Indo-European phenomenon (if that is indeed what he thinks) -- this view deserves to be represented. But 'wild men' are so widespread beyond the Indo-European-speaking world that the emphasis in this section on Indo-European comparisons seems a bit limited. For example, this paper argues that satyrs and Hebrew seirim belong (and were seen by early Christian commentators as belonging) to an "ancient motif of a satyr-like demon", which the author clearly sees as not being specifically Indo-European: Alexander Kulik, 'How the Devil Got His Hooves and Horns: The Origin of the Motif and the Implied Demonology of 3 Baruch', Numen, 60 (2013), 195–229. Likewise, thre's the idea that 'The d̲j̲inn in pre-Islamic Arabia were the nymphs and satyrs of the desert, and represented the side of the life of nature still unsubdued and hostile to man': MacDonald, D.B., Massé, H., Boratav, P.N., Nizami, K.A. and Voorhoeve, P., “Ḏj̲inn”, in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs. Consulted online on 21 September 2018 doi:10.1163/1573-3912_islam_COM_0191. First published online: 2012.

So perhaps this section could represent the idea of Indo-European origins, and represent the Indo-European comparisons, but also indicate the similarity of satyrs to other world traditions?

Indeed, reaching beyond the semitic languages, Joshua Blu Buhs, Bigfoot: The Life and Times of a Legend (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), p. 3, suggests that 'if wildmen are not a universal myth, then they are close', citing Bigfoot, Enkidu, nephilim, satyrs, and Santa Claus (and nodding to other traditions besides). Likewise, Amira El-Zein, Islam, Arabs, and the Intelligent World of the Jinn (New York: Syracuse University Press, 2009), pp. xi-xvi discusses 'the universal belief in spiritual entities' and positions satyrs alongside Phi in Theravada Buddhism and the Assyrian Lamassu, as well as traditions among Indo-European-speakers. And although it only mentions satyrs in passing, this article is another good example of a piece situating satyrs within a wide-ranging examination of human behaviour: Hayden White, ‘The Forms of Wildness: Archaeology of an Idea’, in The Wild Man Within: An Image of Western Thought from the Renaissance to Romanticism, ed. by Edward Dudley and Maximillian E. Novak ([Pittsburgh]: University of Pittsburgh, 1972), pp. 3–38.

This section might also discuss ancient ideas about the origins of satyrs: see below under 'Mythology'.

Part of the reason for the focus on an Indo-European origin is because M. L. West's Indo-European Poetry and Myth was the only academic source I knew of that attempted to address the origins of satyrs. Now that you have offered other academic sources on the subject, I will see what I can do to add other perspectives to the section. --Katolophyromai (talk) 17:45, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Cool: thanks! Looks you you haven't got round to this yet, right? Happy to have a go myself if you like. Alarichall (talk) 10:15, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

@Alarichall: I have added what information I can. I am unable to access the article "How the Devil Got His Hooves and Horns: The Origin of the Motif and the Implied Demonology of 3 Baruch," because the link you have provided does not work and I cannot find it elsewhere on the internet. For the books Bigfoot: The Life and Times of a Legend and The Wild Man Within: An Image of Western Thought from the Renaissance to Romanticism, I managed to find Google Books previews of them, but I am unable to view the full pages on which the word satyr appears in either of those works. From the snippet views I was able to read, both works seem to only briefly mention satyrs in passing and in the contexts of later stories about "wild men." Neither source appears to say anything about satyrs' origins.

Based on the summary you provided from Bigfoot: The Life and Times of a Legend, I am also concerned about overgeneralization. Satyrs, Enkidu, and Bigfoot do share a general sense of "wildness" and all three have been thought to dwell at some point in remote wilderness places, but they do not really share much else and all three are "wild" in markedly different ways. The Nephilim are not even real "wild men" at all, but rather your standard-issue ancient Near Eastern demigods: big, strong, fierce in battle, and of divine parentage, but not really comparable to woodland-dwelling drunkards and mischief-makers like satyrs. As for Santa Claus, I frankly have no idea what he is doing on the list, since it takes quite a bit of definition-stretching to lump him in with the others.

I was able to access Islam, Arabs, and the Intelligent World of the Jinn, which only mentions satyrs twice: the first time merely in a long list of mythological beings from Greek mythology and the second time in a paragraph describing similarities between a story about the ghost of an Ethiopian satyr in Philostratus's Life of Apollonius and later Islamic stories about jinn. I added the information about the ghost-satyr story to the "Ancient Rome" section, as well as mention of the comparison between that story and later Islamic jinn-stories. The part at the beginning of the book that you referenced, listing satyrs among other mythological entities, is talking about the origins of jinn, not of satyrs. While many of the comparisons given there are applicable to jinn, they are far less applicable to satyrs. I was unable to access the entry in the Ecyclopedia of Islam that you mentioned, but, from the quote you provided, it is unclear whether that article is even trying to draw an etymological connection between satyrs and jinn at all, or merely engaging in the long tradition of interpretatio graeca. --Katolophyromai (talk) 22:32, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

These are sensible points, but the comparisons made by West to IE traditions are at least as tenuous as some of the comparisons being drawn to non-IE traditions, and are sometimes geographically more distant from the Hellenic world. I've briefly adverted to the non-IE comparisons in the article now. Alarichall (talk) 18:44, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Behavior

'In the Catalogue of Women, which is attributed to the Boeotian poet Hesiod...': is it worth indicating why this source is being used? Is it particularly old or informative?

The Catalogue of Women is mentioned here because it is discussed quite extensively in at least three of the secondary sources cited here. You will notice it is referenced again later in the "Mythology" section. The reason those secondary sources all discuss it is because it is, indeed, a very early source. It was also very widely studied in antiquity and attributed (probably wrongly) to the great poet Hesiod, who stands alongside Homer as one of the founders of the Greek poetic tradition. Finally, it contains numerous myths that are not attested anywhere else, including the myth about the genealogy of satyrs that is mentioned later on. --Katolophyromai (talk) 17:45, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

So let's put a clause or sentence into the article to this effect? What about 'One of the earliest written sources for satyrs is the Catalogue of Women, which is attributed to the Boeotian poet Hesiod and contains numerous unique myths. According to this source, satyrs are born alongside the nymphs and Kouretes and are described as "good-for-nothing, prankster Satyrs" '? Alarichall (talk) 10:15, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

I am afraid that WP:OR prohibits us from doing that, since the sources do not explain this. --Katolophyromai (talk) 00:41, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

That doesn't make it original research. It's a simple statement of fact that is surely readily inferred from the secondary sources. I've put in a similar phrasing to make the article more intelligible to the general reader. Alarichall (talk) 18:48, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Not sure what this means: 'Satyrs were widely seen as mischief-makers who routinely played tricks on people and interfered with their personal properties.' Should it say 'property'?

Should it not be plural, since we are talking about properties belonging to different people, rather than one person's property? --Katolophyromai (talk) 17:45, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

In my English, property in the sense of 'possessions' is usually a mass noun. The plural personal properties would mean 'characteristics' (like eye-colour or temperament). Either meaning seemed possible here, so could we rephrase? Alarichall (talk) 19:07, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Done. --Katolophyromai (talk) 23:16, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Groovy. Alarichall (talk) 10:15, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

'Δικτυουλκοί (Net-Haulers), Θεωροὶ ἢ Ἰσθμιασταί (Spectators or Competitors at the Isthmian Games), and Ἰχνευταί (Searchers)': include transliterations of the Greek?

Done. --Katolophyromai (talk) 17:45, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Groovy. Alarichall (talk) 10:15, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

I wonder if the handling of the satyr plays could be brought together into a sub-section? There's quite a lot of it, and it might make the section easier for readers to skim. If so, Satyr plays could be linked as a 'main article'. In fact, I also wonder if it might be good to copy the Satyr-play material here across to Satyr plays, and keep a condensed version, focused more tightly on behaviour, in Satyr?

What's your view on this? Alarichall (talk) 10:15, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

I would like to keep the information about satyr plays in this article, since the sources talk about satyr plays at great length and they are probably the main things that satyrs were known and used for during the Greek classical period. I have no opinion on whether the information should be reproduced in the satyr play article. I generally like to focus one or two articles at a time and avoid working extensively on articles that are not one of the main ones I am working on. This is not a strict policy or anything; it is just my general habit. --Katolophyromai (talk) 00:41, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

Mythology

Since the main material here is about Marsyas, maybe link to him as a 'main article'?

What's your view on this? Alarichall (talk) 10:15, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

I do not think we could reasonably do that, especially since I recently added another paragraph to the section that does not have any to do with Marsyas, meaning there are now three paragraphs in the section and only the middle one is about Marsyas. --Katolophyromai (talk) 00:41, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

I don't quite follow this sentence: 'Although satyrs were popular in classical art, they rarely appear in myth.' Visual art is surely one important medium for myth, and I'm not sure why depictions of satyrs should not be seen as mythical. Maybe '...they rarely appear in stories about the Olympian gods'?

William Hansen, the source of that statement, explicitly states, "For all their colorfulness and popularity in art, few stories were told of satyrs, and those mostly of individuals." I cannot change what he wrote and our job here is to just report what sources tell us. Evidently, when he wrote that, he did not consider artistic representations as evidence of stories being told about them. --Katolophyromai (talk) 17:45, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

OK, so let's phrase the text in a way that represents Hansen's views unambiguously. What about '... they rarely appear in stories'? Alarichall (talk) 19:07, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

I changed it to say, "According to classicist William F. Hansen, although satyrs were popular in classical art, they rarely appear in surviving mythological accounts." --Katolophyromai (talk) 23:16, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! Alarichall (talk) 10:15, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

The first paragraph of this section discusses ideas about the origins of satyrs. Surely this would be easier for readers to find if it was in the 'Origin' section? That section might have subsection on Ancient Greek ideas about the origins of satyrs (moved from 'Mythology'), and then another subsection of modern scholarly ideas about the origins of satyrs.

No, because the first section is about the origins of belief in satyrs; whereas this sentence deals with the genealogy of satyrs in Greek mythology. They deal with very different aspects of satyrs. Mythological explanations of satyrs' parentages clearly belong under "Mythology" rather than in the same section that talks about modern scholarly explanations for where stories about satyrs may have originated from. --Katolophyromai (talk) 17:45, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

I get the reasoning here, but I'm not sure that 'mythology' is the clearest heading for the information in that case. What about having two sub-headers in 'mythology': 'origin myths' and 'characters in myths'? Alarichall (talk) 19:07, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

I would rather not do that, firstly because the "Mythology" section is already a subsection and I do not like having subsections of subsections because I think that just gets too complicated. Secondly, the part about the mythological origins of satyrs is only one paragraph and I would not consider it long enough to warrant its own subsection. --Katolophyromai (talk) 23:16, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Fair enough. Alarichall (talk) 10:15, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure what 'Most myths containing satyrs concern only famous individuals' means. Would this be clearer (and correct): 'Rather than appearing en masse as in satyr-plays, when satyrs appear in myths it is usually in the form of a single, famous character'?

I would be fine with that wording or something similar, but I do not really see anything wrong with how this sentence is currently worded. I have already quoted the statement from William Hansen that is the source of this statement above. --Katolophyromai (talk) 17:45, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

My confusion was that it wasn't clear that the 'famous individuals' in question actually were satyrs. Satyrs might appear in myths about other famous individuals, like Zeus. So rephrasing would be nice if that's OK. Alarichall (talk) 19:07, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Oh... I see that now! That makes sense. I have now changed the wording to say exactly what you suggested above. Thank you very much for clarifying. I assumed that it was obvious that the "famous individuals" in question were famous individual satyrs. --Katolophyromai (talk) 23:16, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Groovy, thanks! Alarichall (talk) 10:15, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

Hellenistic era

The stuff here on the Pouring Satyr is really nice, but I wonder if it might be better to copy it across into a new, short article on this sculpture? It's clearly notable enough. (And then to link to that article also from Praxiteles of course.) Or it could be incorporated as a section in Praxiteles? Either approach would allow Satyr to provide a more concise handling of the work. A new article on the statue might also cite Allison Surtees, 'The Pouring Satyr: Copies and Context in Greece and Rome' (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Johns Hopkins University, 2011) to help make its notability clear.

Want to offer a view on this? Alarichall (talk) 10:15, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

Middle Ages

'Satyrs were also frequently conflated with the western European wild men': maybe, but this phrasing suggests that western European wild men existed independently of traditions of satyrs, which isn't obvious to me. Roger Bartra, Wild Men in the Looking Glass: The Mythic Origins of European Otherness, trans. by Carl T. Berrisford (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994) suggests rather that traditions of satyrs are one of the various sources (alongside, for example, biblical material) that flow into western medieval ideas of the 'wild man'. Maybe we could say 'Satyrs were also frequently conflated with, or were among the sources of, the western European wild men'?

What's your view on this? The word conflated is used a few times in this article, and sometimes I think it's used quite precisely (where two clearly different ideas flow together, like iconography of satyrs and pans) -- whereas with the wild men I wonder if it's being used a bit too loosely (since wild men may partly be a development of the idea of satyr, rather than a clearly separate concept)? You probably know better than me, but I'd appreciate your considered opinion. Alarichall (talk) 10:15, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

'Satyrs are sometimes described and represented in medieval bestiaries,[75][76] where they are often conflated with wild men': a bit repetitious: rephrase and/or conflate with previous sentence.

Done. --Katolophyromai (talk) 17:45, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Ta! Alarichall (talk) 10:15, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

Renaissance

'Satyrs also became used to express post-humanist sentiments': I like this sophisticated but clear section, but I'm not sure what this sentence means. What are 'post-humanist sentiments'? Can we rephrase/explain/provide a wikilink?

What's your view on this? Alarichall (talk) 10:15, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

I have added links to the article Posthumanism. --Katolophyromai (talk) 00:41, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

I followed up your source here and see where you're coming from. But the phrasing implied that early modern thinkers were post-humanist, whereas the source is clear that post-humanism is a recent critical trend. So I've rephrased to make it clear that early modern people were expressing ideas similar to modern post-humanism. Alarichall (talk) 19:10, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Early modern period

This material on se'irim is relevant to a few parts of this article: maybe the 'origin' section, certainly the stuff about late antique Christian writers, and of course also this early modern section. It strikes me that Wikipedia seriously needs an entry for sa'ir/se'irim (with one of these redirecting to the other): I'd already thought about writing one, actually. I suggest, then, that the paragraph here on se'irim is copied across as a stub for a new article on se'irim, which can support the various points where Satyr refers to those beings. We could then provide a more focused account in Satyr of how sa'ir and satyr interrelate.

I've now implemented this suggestion. Alarichall (talk) 21:02, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

I think this paragraph needs to be expanded into its own section (maybe called 'European colonialism' or 'European encounters with the New World'?)

In the seventeenth century, the satyr legend came to be associated with stories of the orangutan, a great ape now found only in Sumatra and Borneo. Many early accounts which apparently refer to this animal describe the males as being sexually aggressive towards human women and towards females of its own species. The first scientific name given to this ape was Simia satyrus.

There's enough work that discusses how satyrs were used to construct colonial experiences, particularly in the Americas, that a full section could be developed: Bartra's book mentioned above does this; so does Gustav Jahoda,Images of Savages: Ancient Roots of Modern Prejudice in Western Culture (London: Routledge, 1998), ISBN 9781317724919.

I found the Google Books version of the book you mention here and have added all the information I could find in it related to satyrs to this article, including quite a bit about the early modern identification of satyrs with great apes. --Katolophyromai (talk) 17:45, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks: this seems a useful step forward! Maybe with a bit more work, a separate section on colonialism could be developed in future, but I don't think we have to have it to award GA status. Alarichall (talk) 10:15, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

Nineteenth century

This section has cool material, but unlike the earlier ones reads as a bit of a list rather than having a sense of a guiding historical narrative. Perhaps Victorian sexual morality (and challenges to it) might be a theme that could tie the material here into a more coherent text? Articles that would help with this are David Scobey, 'Nymphs and Satyrs: Sex and the Bourgeois Public Sphere in Victorian New York', Winterthur Portfolio, 371 (Spring, 2002), 43-66, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1215421; Isabella Luta, 'Nymphs and Nymphomania: Mythological Medicine and Classical Nudity in Nineteenth Century Britain', Journal of International Women's Studies, 18.3 (2017), 35-50; and Erin Walsh Anderson, 'Bouguereau's Nymphs and Satyr: A New Interpretation' (unpublished MA thesis, Montana State University, 2011).

I will try to work on this. --Katolophyromai (talk) 17:45, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! Looking forward to seeing what you come up with. Happy to do some work myself if you want. Alarichall (talk) 10:15, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

I have now added information from two of the sources you listed above to try to give this section an overarching theme, which is the use of satyrs and nymphs as a means for artists and creative individuals to circumvent Victorian sexuality mores without offending them. --Katolophyromai (talk) 23:19, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Nice work! I think this now reads much better. Thanks! Alarichall (talk) 21:03, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Twentieth and twenty-first centuries

Again, this is a bit of an eclectic list, but I recognise that when dealing with recent times and such diverse media and representations, it's hard to give a section a coherent thematic shape.

I wonder if it could be divided into two sub-sections, 'Visual arts' (including Matisse, Nijinsky, Mari, Disney, and Barney) and 'Fantasy writing' (including Lewis, D&D, and Riordan)?

I have been trying to list notable representations of satyrs in chronological order as best as I can. I also would rather avoid having subsections of subsections, because they are too complicated and they also make the table of contents look messy and uneven because only a few subsections will have them, while the vast majority of them will not. --Katolophyromai (talk) 23:36, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

I see where you're coming from, but on this point I really do think that subheadings would be useful, and I'm much more interested in creating clearly organised and easily navigable content than I am in having a superficially neat contents list! Moreover, it would be easy to change the current section 'After Anquity' into 'Medieval and early modern', and then elevate the headings for 'Nineteenth century' and 'Twentieth and twenty-first century' to the same level. Then we could have sub-headings within 'Twentieth and twenty-first century' rather than sub-sub headings. I'm not saying that my suggestion of dividing the twentieth-century material by genre is the best way forward, but the listy character of this section as it stands puts it rather below the others in terms of coherence and it would be nice to find a way to give it more shape, as you have done very successfully with the early material. Alarichall (talk) 10:15, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

It could certainly give 'List of satyrs in popular culture' as a 'main' or 'see also' article.

I checked out the article "List of satyrs in popular culture." The entire article contained only one citation and that one was to a primary source. Many of the entries in it would also fail WP:N by any reasonable application. I have therefore redirected that article to Satyr#Twentieth and twenty-first centuries for the time being. Perhaps someone will rewrite it using reliable secondary sources someday, but, for now at least, I do not think we need that article. It was spun off from this article back in October 2008 when it was fashionable to handle "In popular culture" sections by turning them into their own articles. The "Twentieth and twenty-first centuries" section of this article contains far more information on the subject, is far better cited, and is far more encyclopedic than "List of satyrs in popular culture" ever was. --Katolophyromai (talk) 23:36, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

I think it's a huge shame you've removed List of satyrs in popular culture. Of course we need to strive to improve the amount of referencing on Wikipedia, and obviously that article could be improved a lot. But a lot of people have gone to a lot of effort over the years to gather that list of material, and it would be invaluable to anyone who wanted to research recent portrayals of satyrs, unreferenced though it is. Obviously your section is much higher quality, which is great, but why deny people the chance to make use of and improve the list at the other page? I still think it should exist and be linked from Satyr so that people can benefit from the work that has been done and, over time, add in references and more material. Alarichall (talk) 10:15, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

I've taken the liberty of reinstating this list and linking to it from here. It may be low-quality, but it's extensive, and it can be improved on :-) Alarichall (talk) 21:10, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

As for the rather scattered nature of this section in Satyr, I'm happy to accept that it's hard to draw together neat accounts of recent high and popular culture on this subject, so I don't see this as an impediment to GA status. Something to keep an eye on in future though as this article continues to develop. Alarichall (talk) 21:10, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

New section: scholarly interpretations

I wonder if the article might close with a section on scholarly interpretations of satyrs? Some of the earlier sections touch on the possible meanings of satyrs, but they tend to be (quite reasonably) focused on description. Katolophyromai will undoubtedly have a better sense of what might go in this section and what its sources might be than I do, but here are some thoughts...

The paragraph on Nietsche from the 'Nineteenth century' section might go into it.

The survey might recognise the importance of satyrs to the expression of sexuality. It might be nice to cite François Lissarrague, ‘The Sexual Life of Satyrs’, in Before Sexuality: The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World, ed. by David M. Halperin, John J. Winkler and Froma I. Zeitlin (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), pp. 53–81 (first publ. as ‘De la sexualité des Satyres’, Métis, 2 (1987), 63-90), since this seems to have been quite a major study for showing the importance of satyrs to the history of sexuality.

Looking back at my old notes from Hayden White, ‘The Forms of Wildness: Archaeology of an Idea’, in The Wild Man Within: An Image of Western Thought from the Renaissance to Romanticism, ed. by Edward Dudley and Maximillian E. Novak ([Pittsburgh]: University of Pittsburgh, 1972), pp. 3–38 I find some material that might be handy, which focuses on sexuality but also touches on the role of the satyr as a noble savage in the early modern period:

‘Thus, although the Greeks divided humanity into the civilized

and the barbarous, they did not obsessively defend the notion of a rigid distinction between animal and human nature ... Thus, over against, and balancing, the lives of gods and heroes, who differed from ordinary men only by the magnitude of their power or talent, there stood such creatures as satyrs, fauns, nymphs, and sileni; beneficent monsters such as the centaurs, and malignant ones such as the Minotaur, born of a union of a woman, Pasiphaë, and a bull. These creatures played much the same role for the classical imagination that the Wild Man did for the medieval Christian. Above all, they served as imagistic representations of those libidinal impulses which, for social more than for purely religious reasons, could not be expressed

or released directly’ (p. 24)

‘Now, medieval

man had no need to revive the dark side, the Cyclops or Minotaur side, of the classical conception of wildness; this side was a;ready present in the very conception of the Wild Man held up as the ultimate monstrosity to the believing Christian. What he did need, when the time was ripe, was the other, erotic representation of the pleasure-seeking but consciousless libido. And so when the impulses that led men to ventilate their minds by exposure to classical thought began to quicken in the twelfth century, Western man subliminally began to liberate his emotions as well. This at least may be one significance of the attribution to the Wild Man of the characteristics of satyrs, fauns, nymphs, and certain of the good monsters, such as the centaur teachers. This association of the Wuld Man with pagan images of libidinal, and especially of erotic, freedom created the imaginative reserves necessary for the cultivation of a

socially revolutionary primitivism in the early modern era’ (p. 25).

White's ideas were developed by Bartra to show how the satyr and other monsters also had a role in constructing space: satyrs imply

the existence of a mythological space inhabited by wild men that are clearly distin-

guishable from barbarians. In contrast with barbarians, who constituted a threat to society in general and to Greek society as a whole, the wild man represented a threat to the individual. . . White clearly demonstrates that, conventionally, barbarian lands were geographically remote, and the moment of their incursion upon the frontiers of the Greek world would signal an apocalypse: the appearance of hordes of barbarians implied the fracturing of the foundation of the world and the death of an epoch. In contrast the wild man is omnipresent, inhabiting the immediate confines of the community. He is found in the neighbouring forests, mountains and islands. (Roger Bartra, Wild Men in the Looking Glass: The Mythic Origins of European

Otherness, trans. Carl T. Berrisford (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994), p. 14.)

The survey might note the use of the term satyriasis as a technical medical term for hypersexuality and priapism, which according to the OED dates from the seventeenth century, alongside nymphomania, first attested a little later, in the early eighteenth century. If you don't have access to the OED, I can help you out.

Overall review

As I say, overall, this is great work and little needs to be done to give it GA status -- but it might be nice to take the opportunity to consider all these possible changes, to make the article even better.

Alarichall (talk) 09:26, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

I have left replies to your comments above. I must disagree with your proposal to add a section about the "meaning of satyrs." Satyrs have held very different meanings for different people and groups of people throughout history. They do not really "mean" anything other than whatever meaning individual people choose to associate them with. What satyrs signified during a particular historic period is already addressed in the respective section dealing with that historical era. --Katolophyromai (talk) 17:45, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Well, I can live without a separate section on cultural meanings. Obviously the significance of satyrs does vary over time and space (that's one reason why it's interesting). I'd suggest that cultures don't sustain beliefs in objectively not-real beings without a reason, and that scholarly attempts to explore these reasons are worth including -- but doing this section by section is fine. I agree that there's some good stuff here already, but think it could go a bit further. I'm happy to add some brief summaries of the material cited above before or after we give the article GA status :-) Alarichall (talk) 20:20, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

@Alarichall: I thought I would let you know that I left replies to some of your comments above a few days ago. I probably should have pinged you then, but I assumed you had this page on your watchlist. You may indeed have it on there, but, since you have not yet responded, I thought I would give you this ping just to make sure you see my replies. --Katolophyromai (talk) 23:54, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

@Katolophyromai: see replies above! Since you hadn't responded to everything yet, I didn't want to interrupt you! Alarichall (talk) 10:15, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

@Alarichall: Unless I am mistaken, I believe I have now replied to all your comments above. --Katolophyromai (talk) 23:19, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

@Alarichall: I was wondering if you saw that I left a notice here two days ago stating that, unless I have missed something, I believe I have replied to all your comments here. I understand if you are busy and I do not mean to be impatient, but I was kind of hoping you would give me some idea of what you are planning to do next. This review has been going for two weeks and I was hoping you might be close to passing to article, since you mentioned at the beginning that there was not very much that needed to be done in order for the article to be ready for GA. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:19, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Yes, sorry, noted! I've just been very busy the last few days. I'll check this all out later this week :-) Thanks for your work! Alarichall (talk) 20:46, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

@Alarichall: Hello! I just thought I would remind you that you said you would look at this sometime this week. It has now been five days since you said that and the week is almost over. I am sorry if this sounds impatient, especially since I certainly took my time implementing your suggestions and I know you said before you took this review that you would probably not have very much time, but I just thought I would remind you that this is still waiting for you to finish up, just in case you forgot. I personally think the article is ready, or at least very close to being ready, to pass, but you are the reviewer, so that is your decision to make. --Katolophyromai (talk) 22:14, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

@Alarichall: Thank you for your response. I have looked over your changes to this article and I approve of them, although I thought I should point out that the Islam, Arabs, and the Intelligent World of the Jinn source, or at least the parts of it I was able to access, does not make any claims about the origins of satyrs. It does compare one story about a satyr to later stories about jinn, but the fact that the satyr story is earlier and stories about jinn are not attested until over a millennium after the first stories about satyrs, as well as the fact that the book itself is about jinn, I am pretty sure the source is arguing for influence of satyrs on stories about jinn rather than vice versa. Regarding the How the Devil Got His Hooves and Horns: The Origin of the Motif and the Implied Demonology of 3 Baruch source, I think it would be good to include more about the source's argument for a relationship between sa’irim and satyrs (assuming that it has one), but I am unable access the source. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:20, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Noted :-) I've improved this a bit and will keep working on it. I've also improved the reference to the latter article: you should now be able to access it via academia.edu or probably sci-hub. Alarichall (talk) 21:01, 16 October 2018 (UTC)