Talk:Tolkien and the classical world

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Tolkien and the classical world/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: TompaDompa (talk · contribs) 19:15, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

I will review this. It may take somewhat longer than usual. TompaDompa (talk) 19:15, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Many thanks as always. It may be helpful to recall, since time is a pressure, that GAN does not require comprehensiveness in the text, nor exhaustive reference checks, spot-checks are sufficient. Chiswick Chap (talk) 05:28, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

General comments

• There should probably be a hatnote linking to Tolkien and the Classical World (book).

• Added.

• "Classical [world]" should probably be defined early on to make the scope clear to anyone arriving at this article.

• Added.

• There are quite a lot of images, often in a gallery format. Less might be more, and the layout could perhaps be improved.

• Every image is exactly mapped to a description in the text; not one is decorative or redundant; each gives the reader a visual impression of an often abstruse reference to classical literature in the scholarly comments. The layout is clean and simple.

• There are some repeated links. Both Plato and Homer are linked more than once in the body (not counting in captions or tables), for instance. I don't mind, but I thought I should point it out.

• Removed.

• I would recommend including rough chronological information where appropriate (e.g. Pyrrhus' invasion of Rome), since antiquity lasted for a very long time. Lest we forget, Homer–Plato–Virgil exist on a similar timeline as Dante–Shakespeare–Tolkien.

• Added.

• I would add There and Back Again: Tolkien and Greco-Roman Antiquity to the general list of sources.

• Added.

Lead

• The sentence that describes parallels sometimes places the classical influence first and sometimes Tolkien's version first. It would probably be better to be consistent.

• Possibly, but the sentence is clear and several of the items can't readily be inverted.

• "Redolent" is a fairly uncommon word that I think it would be better to avoid in the WP:LEAD, since that section is supposed to be accessible to as broad an audience as possible.

• Done.

Context

• "Bestselling" seems a bit unnecessary. Not quite MOS:PUFFERY but not really all that relevant in this particular context either.

• Done.

• Cristini (p. 17–18) argues (more or less) that since Tolkien's mythology for England needed a medieval setting, its backstory in turn needed to be classical-seeming to convey the proper effect of a distant past within the fictional world. This is, I think, a crucial point which really ties it all together.

• Added. Probably going far beyond "context" here, as it's an argument.

Classical themes

• This is seen in Hesiod and Ovid – I know this type of metonymy is fairly common, but I would still suggest adding "the writings of" to avoid readers mistaking Hesiod and Ovid for stories rather than authors.

• Done.

• This is seen in Hesiod and Ovid, as the gods became more detached from the lives of mortals. – Pezzini does use Hesiod and Ovid as examples of narratives of decline, but the detachment of the gods from the lives of mortals is discussed in relation to specific authors or works only when it comes to Catullus 64. I would split this sentence to discuss that separately.

• Cut.

• Pezzini sees Arda's decline – many readers will not know what "Arda" is.

• Glossed and linked.

• I'm missing Pezzini's analysis of the parallels of decreasing lifespans in Tolkien's works and Hesiod's (though it is perhaps more likely that Tolkien was influenced by the Bible here).

• Yes, it's a bit marginal here.

• I would seek to include some kind of direct reference to the Ages of Man and/or the Golden Age.

• Good idea, linked.

• Tolkien's chronicles of the decline and fall of his island paradise of Atlantis – Númenor, right?

• Fixed.

• a Platonic, thought-experiment exercise – I would probably rephrase this to clarify the connection to Plato, include a link, and make sure that anyone unfamiliar with Plato at least recognizes him as a person and not e.g. a place.

• Tweaked.

• If it's necessary to use the word "sophocracy", it should at minimum be linked to wiktionary (wikt:sophocracy).

• Linked.

• Williams also shows how – this phrasing is a bit too much of an endorsement for my comfort.

• Edited.

• Tolkien can be put aside several modern writers and film-makers who have rewritten narratives of ancient fallen cities, often for ideological purposes in the present – Google Books doesn't provide page numbers, but this is the stuff about Quo Vadis and so on, right? An example or two with some explanatory additional context would be helpful.

• Removed, I think we're straying from the topic here (even if Williams did too).

• No need to link decline and fall in Middle-earth in the text when it's already linked from the {{main}} template.

• Gone.

• The theme is not exclusively classical; the whole of The Lord of the Rings shares the sense of impending destruction found in Norse mythology, where even the gods will perish. The Dark Lord Sauron may be defeated, but that will entail the fading and departure of the Elves, leaving the world to Men, to industrialise and to pollute, however much Tolkien regretted the fact. – This veers a bit WP:OFFTOPIC from the subject of this article—Tolkien and the classical world—though it is certainly relevant for Decline and fall in Middle-earth. The second sentence in particular does not really add anything to this subject matter, though I could see an argument that the first sentence is necessary to avoid essentially lying by omission. In that case, I might suggest (rephrasing slightly and) citing Pezzini p. 94, where he says Narratives of decline are indeed at the core of Tolkien's mythology, and this is itself another important facet of classical influence (together with Nordic sagas).

• Tweaked and added Pezzini. The sentence is indeed necessary to avoid over-egging the pudding here.

• classical epics – I would include a link to epic poetry.

• Linked.

• the Roman or Greek pantheons, or to an extent also the Æsir of Norse mythology – I might try to clarify that this gloss is not from Tolkien but from scholars (specifically Richard Purtill), if that's possible without the phrasing getting overly awkward.

• Gave it a shot.

• I might mention omens as an additional manner of divine interaction, though Pezzini does kind of treat it as a sidenote.

• Mentioned.

• I would mention the "desire for fellowship" that in Pezzini's view distinguishes the Valar from the classical gods (p. 83).

• Added.

• I would include Pezzini's point that the Valar rarely hide their presence when intervening, unlike the classical gods (p. 84–85).

• Added.

• I would mention Pezzini's point That the gods' messages can be presented as warnings, and not threats or orders and, above all, that they can be ignored by non-divine characters are both unusual scenarios in classical epic (p. 86).

• Added.

• I would mention Pezzini's point that divine inspiration is typically a good thing in Tolkien's writings and a bad thing in the classical works (p. 92).

• Added.

• I might mention Pezzini's point about how the portrayal of divine intervention changed in subsequent drafts (p. 93).

• Not convinced it's worth it (so his thoughts evolved as he wrote, gosh).

• I would include Pezzini's point that Gandalf is an emissary of the Valar (p. 94–95).

• OK, at the risk of tangling up the example, which is from The Silmarillion.

Specific parallels

• If "unambiguously and intimately" needs to be quoted verbatim, it should be made clear where the quote comes from.

• Fixed.

• the only drowned island in surviving ancient literature – "surviving"?

• Yeah, removed, we needn't be that picky.

• like ancient Athens – I would link to whatever page you find most appropriate here.

• Done.

• Consider linking to thalassocracy.

• Done.

• I would include Delattre's observation that "Mittalmar" resembles the German word for the Mediterranean: Mittelmeer.

• Mm, noted, but once we descend into that sort of thing the material becomes at once diffuse, fragmentary, and extremely extensive.

• (here, inverted) – that means that it has been rotated to have north at the top, right? I would clarify that.

• Done.

• I would mention the connection between Atlantis and Tolkien's attempts at writing a story about time travel here, if only briefly. Pezzini discusses this (p. 36).

• Done, very briefly.

• the city was famed for its walls – I would say "both cities were famed for their walls".

• Done.

• David Greenman finds it fitting that Tuor, "Tolkien's early quest-hero", escapes from the wreck of an old kingdom and creates new ones, just as Aeneas does, while his later quest-heroes in The Lord of the Rings, the hobbits of the Shire, are made to return to their home, ravaged while they were away, and are obliged to scour it clean, just as Odysseus does in Homer's Odyssey. – this falls on the wrong side of WP:Close paraphrasing for me. At Tuor and Idril, the parallels are presented using a table instead, which sidesteps this issue.

• Done.

• Ithaca should also be explicitly mentioned, methinks.

• Added.

• I would cover Greenman's discussion of parallels between The Odyssey and the Hobbits' return to the Shire separately. There's a fair amount of material, such as the division of the heroic role between several of the Hobbits rather than the single Odysseus.

• I think that's going way too far down a rabbit- (hobbit-?)hole for this article. It could be relevant over at Scouring, perhaps.

• Conversely, Greenman notes that Idril's advice to enact a contingency plan for a secret escape route out of Gondolin was heeded by her people, and that she had always rejected Maeglin's advances and remained faithful to Tuor. – this does not really make it clear to readers unfamiliar with the story of Troy that the former is a contrast to Cassandra and the latter to Helen. The reader can perhaps "put the pieces together" with help from the preceding sentence, but they shouldn't have to.

• Tweaked.

• I think it is well worth mentioning "Nor Bablon, nor Ninwi, nor the towers of Trui, nor all the many takings of Rûm that is greatest among Men, saw such terror as fell that day upon Amon Gwareth" (Bruce p. 103–104, Cristini p. 11 and 16–17).

• I guess it's worth it, if only to say once again that JRRT drew the parallels.

• Cristini says The most evident analogy is perhaps the behaviour of Creusa and Idril, who clasp the knees of their husbands to prevent them from joining again the battle when all hope is lost. (p. 13), and this comparison is also made by Greenman (p. 5–6), so I would include it.

• All right, it is a striking detail.

• she states [...] that "the most striking similarities" are with ancient Rome – Straubhaar prefaces it with "Perhaps", so the quoted part should really be "[p]erhaps the most striking similarities".

• Edited.

• and Elendil, from Númenor – I would link Elendil here, at first mention.

• Done.

• Isildur and Anárion found the Númenórean kingdoms in Middle-earth – Arnor should be mentioned here for readers confused by the mention of plural kingdoms.

• Added.

• both Gondor and Rome experienced centuries of "decadence and decline" – Straubharr doesn't specify "centuries".

• Edited.

• both Gondor and Rome experienced centuries of "decadence and decline" and Tolkien's account of Gondor can be seen as the decline and fall of Rome both link to Fall of the Western Roman Empire, and appear in consecutive paragraphs. The former in particular is kind of an WP:EASTEREGG.

• Fixed.

• Ford draws a parallel between this and Jordanes's tale in the 6th century Getica of a happy ending for Rome. – this is not strictly speaking incorrect, but it leaves out so much detail that it becomes rather misleading. Honestly, I would leave this out of this article entirely; it relates much more to the medieval than to the classical (as Ford says, "one reading of this story is Anglo-Saxon wish-fulfillment").

• Cut.

• The first two rows ("Decline...", "... and fall") of the table "Judy Ann Ford's comparison of Gondor and Rome" don't really reflect Ford's comparison. The decline part isn't from Ford, and Ford doesn't compare the sack of Rome in 410 to the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. On the other hand, the table could include e.g. the southern rivals (Carthage/Harad, with elephants/oliphaunts), the devastating plague (Antonine Plague/Great Plague), and their language (Latin/Westron) becoming a lingua franca. Ford does make several additional comparisons.

• Fixed.

• The Vintage News does not strike me as a WP:RELIABLE source.

• Removed.

• Bilbo puts ring on "by accident" – this looks like "scare quotes". This also does not seem to be the main point de Armas makes about the first use of the Ring, which is that Bilbo uses it for a good purpose—escaping danger—rather than an evil one (p. 124).

• Edited.

• A classical source that Tolkien "might have borrowed" from, though there is no direct evidence for this [...] and without suggesting that Tolkien was aware of the Ring of Gyges – why the emphasis on whether Tolkien was influenced by this story?

• Trimmed.

• Glaucon thinks that people – anyone who isn't familiar with the structure of Plato's Republic is going to be completely lost at the mention of Glaucon here.

• Trimmed.

• Livy's defence of the bridge by Horatius Cocles – this is rather difficult to parse. It's Livy's account of Horatius Cocles defending the bridge, but it could just as well be read the other way around.

• Edited.

• the bridge – I daresay most readers will have no idea what bridge this refers to or why it's significant.

• Glossed.

• convincingly – that's just a straight-up endorsement.

• Edited.

• one-eyed giant – I would expect a link to cyclopes here.

• Linked.

Underlying oneness: Mediterranean but not necessarily classical

• I would link Asia Minor.

• Linked.

• not Italy or the Aegean – I would definitely link Aegean Sea here.

• Linked.

The effect of Jackson's The Lord of the Rings on cinematic Greece and Rome

• It's a bit odd not to mention that the "accomplished archer" Bloom portrays in Troy is Paris.

• Added.

• I'm missing Keen's point about the move away from Rome in favour of Greece ("Rome for history and Greece for myth", as it were).

• Had alluded to it; extended.

Summary

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. Is it well written?

   A. The prose is clear and concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; the spelling and grammar are correct:

   See my comments above.

   B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:

   See my comments above.

2. Is it verifiable with no original research?

   A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:

   B. 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:

   See above about The Vintage News. Other than that, all sources are, as far as I can tell, reliable for the material they are cited for.

   C. It contains no original research:

   See my comments above.

   D. It contains no copyright violations or plagiarism:

   Earwig reveals no copyvio. See however above about WP:Close paraphrasing.

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:

   While I have given many suggestions about possible additions and things that would be nice to elaborate upon, I haven't found any major aspects discussed in the sources that are straight-up missing in the article.

   B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):

   See my comments above.

4. Is it neutral?

   It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:

   See my comments above.

5. Is it stable?

   It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:

6. Is it illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio?

   A. Media are tagged with their copyright status, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   The sole instance of a fair use image seems valid to me. All other media use licenses that are acceptable per WP:CFAQ.

   B. Media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

   See however my comments above about room for improvement.

7. Overall:

   Pass or fail:

Ping Chiswick Chap. TompaDompa (talk) 03:07, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

TompaDompa, all items addressed. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:24, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

I did a last few fixes myself, and the article now meets all the WP:Good article criteria. Great job! TompaDompa (talk) 14:38, 13 May 2023 (UTC)