Talk:This Dust Was Once the Man

This Dust Was Once the Man is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.

This Dust Was Once the Man is part of the Walt Whitman and Abraham Lincoln series, a featured topic. This is identified as among the best series of articles produced by the Wikipedia community. If you can update or improve it, please do so.

This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on December 22, 2021.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
November 4, 2020	Good article nominee	Listed
March 18, 2021	Good topic candidate	Promoted
October 18, 2021	Featured article candidate	Promoted
A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on November 4, 2020. The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that Walt Whitman's poem "This Dust Was Once the Man", an elegy for President Abraham Lincoln, is just four lines long?
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Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:40, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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~~... that Walt Whitman's poem This Dust Was Once the Man is just four lines long?~~

Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Dilys Price

5x expanded by Eddie891 (talk). Self-nominated at 13:25, 14 October 2020 (UTC).[reply]

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Have written a few five-line poems myself. Okay, they were limericks, but still... Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:05, 14 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I came by to promote this, but I wonder how many readers know who Walt Whitman was or care about a 4-line poem. But if you were to mention Abraham Lincoln, it would have more hook interest IMO.
ALT1: ... that Walt Whitman's poem This Dust Was Once the Man, an elegy for President Abraham Lincoln, is just four lines long? Yoninah (talk) 18:05, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yoninah: that’s much better for me- fwiw I think Whitman’s very well known, but the hook is objectively better with Lincoln in it. Thanks for coming up with this. Best, Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 19:43, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. We need a reviewer for ALT1. Pinging original reviewer Hawkeye7. Yoninah (talk) 19:44, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I think Walt Whitman is well known; the reader should have encountered him in high school English. Sourced to fn 3. Struck the original hook to avoid confusion. Good to go with ALT1. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:18, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:This Dust Was Once the Man/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Hog Farm (talk · contribs) 18:37, 4 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

""This Dust Was Once the Man" is an elegy poem by Walt Whitman in 1871" - Missing a word?

Written

" "This Dust Was Once the Man" was included in Book XXII of Whitman's Leaves of Grass" - Yeah, it's cited in the lead, but Book XXII isn't mentioned in the body, just Leaves of Grass. To me, it seems better from a MOS/style standpoint to add the Book XXII detail to where the publishing in Leaves of Grass is mentioned in the body, and then remove the lead citation per WP:LEADCITE.

Just removed it, the specific cluster is more useul

"Whitman first became interested in Abraham Lincoln in the beginning of the American Civil War" - Not sure that "in the beginning of the American Civil War" is the best phrasing here
"Whitman first became interested in Abraham Lincoln in the beginning of the American Civil War. He felt that Lincoln could be a great leader as early as 1860, and grew to admire him" - It's a bit nitpicky, but 1860 is before the beginning of the Civil War proper, so these don't quite fit together well. Maybe use a link like Secession crisis of 1860-61 instead of American Civil War, or mention the election, or something as an alternative

removed the sentence and rephrased the following one

The long citation in the sources for Eiselein gives p. 396 as the applicable one, while p. 395 is cited in the references. Which page is the correct one?

Both, 395 is the page cited in the body.

Not relevant to the GA criteria, but I'm having trouble figuring out why this article is tagged for the Classical Music WikiProject.

Prior version mentioned a non-notable classical music adaptation, de-tagged.

That's it from me, I believe. Short, but a quality article. Hog Farm _Bacon 19:14, 4 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Hog Farm, the above addressed. w.r.t. short, Agreed, but I was suprised at being able to write a 1000 word article on a 32 word poem :P Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 19:41, 4 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The foulest crime in any land or age

This seems more likely a reference to slavery itself - a crime, an institution found in many lands and many ages - against which both Whitman and Lincoln set themselves. 166.181.254.115 (talk) 07:51, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously!!! I was surprised at how the article misses the mark on that one. In fact I came to the talk page to comment on it too, precisely. Apparently nowadays most people can't understand but the literal.RosameliaMartinezTorres (talk) 14:24, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There isn't really scholarly analysis establishing that connection. Feel free to present it, if I have missed it. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 14:29, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If you actually read the article, Vendler does support this interpretation, but far more scholars consider it more likely he was talking about secession or Lincoln. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 14:32, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I also think whitman was much more concerned by secession and the breaking up of the union than slavery, to be completely honest. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 14:33, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Furthermore, it's absurd to say that Lincoln saved the Union from.... himself being assassinated? I guess everyone is tiptoeing around it, but although Lincoln was a great president, he was certainly assassinated, hence the elegy in the first place 2601:641:400:B2A:9496:C5FB:DBDD:E868 (talk) 18:46, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly my thought. Under his hand he saved the Union from his own assassination, makes absolutely no sense. None! I would be embarrassed to call myself a scholar after suggesting such an interpretation. It's frankly surprising that these other gentlemen could keep their demeanor around such nonsense. Furthermore, this to me is obviously a reference to slavery. Obviously! I mean, would Whitman have gotten so worked up about Brexit? Not everyone at the time thought secession was a crime. Even if it was a foul crime, good luck convincing anyone that it's "the foulest crime in history known in any land or age". Seriously! So yeah, I understand there can be differences of opinion, but to not so much as consider slavery is practically, for all intents and purposes, racist. Yet as we all know, there wasn't a single racist bone among the scholars of the day, right? DAVilla (talk) 23:32, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]