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The Lucy poems

Nominator(s): Kafka Liz (talk), Ceoil and Ottava Rima

• Featured article candidates/The Lucy poems/archive1
• Featured article candidates/The Lucy poems/archive2

I am conominating this for featured article with and Ceoil and Ottava Rima. We have worked long and hard on it, and I think it now meets Featured Article criteria. There is a peer review here. Thanks, Kafka Liz (talk) 01:01, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

• Comment: Re: "This includes Hunter Davies, who determined that the poems impact rely more on their popularity...". If I am reading the intent of this sentence correctly, and perhaps I am not, place an apostrophe after "poems" because the poems collectively possess "impact", and change "rely" to "relies" because "impact" is singular. Also, I am not sure it's absolutely correct to say he "determined" something "when he claims" it, as there does not appear to be clear cause and effect. -- Michael Devore (talk) 05:37, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

The use of "impact" would suggest a cause and effect relationship. Ottava Rima (talk) 06:17, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Note - I reworded the sentence, by the way. Ottava Rima (talk) 05:01, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

And thanks for the copy edit, Michael. Ceoil (talk) 19:56, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Comments - sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:41, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Tech. Review from Truco (talk · contribs)

• External links (toolbox) and ref formatting (WP:REFTOOLS) are found up to speed.
• Dabs need to be fixed (toolbox).--₮RUCӨ 00:22, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, but fear not; dab now fixed. Ceoil (talk) 00:44, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

...are now up to speed as well.--₮RUCӨ 01:36, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Phew! Thanks. Although you review was generated by a script - no offence Truco - no support or opposed vote was offered, so thats ok. Ceoil (talk) 01:46, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

See my reasons on your talk page, and in addition, the dabs are in the toolbox, the only script I use is REFTOOLS.--₮RUCӨ 15:41, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Image review - All images have sufficient descriptions and verifiable licenses. Sorry I didn't get a chance to review this article earlier. I'm finally doing so now. (It is funny to see my professors' names in the bibliography! Such a small world we live in.) Awadewit (talk) 17:31, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Lets pretend such people aren't connected to us, shall we. Otherwise, there are a lot of references that should probably be struck from many of these pages. :) Ottava Rima (talk) 18:36, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

(By the way, I'm teasing.) Ottava Rima (talk) 18:42, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Oppose for now Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20

31, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Prose is clunky (too many Latinisms?), also repetitious.

• Sentence 1: "five verses" Most people think of a verse as a line or stanza; true, it can mean a poem, but the sentence remains ambiguous: it can be read as five poems or a series of poems each with five verses.
• Sentence 2: "seminal?" Is it needed, when Wordsworth and Coleridge are mentioned? "Co-authored?" Although "coauthor" can be used as a verb, "jointly authored" is better, or even "jointly written." "represents both Wordsworth’s first major publication and the beginning of the English Romantic movement?" It didn't represent W's first major publication, it was W's fmp; similarly, it marked the beginning of the ERM ("represent" is too general).
• Sentence 3: "The "Lucy" series chronicles the poet’s unrequited love for the deceased eponymous heroine." Sounds like a funeral director's note. To "chronicle" is to record; it could apply to a poem if something is already known about it, but it sounds off in an introductory sentence. Same with "unrequited," "deceased," "eponymous." Please find simple substitutes.
• Sentence 4: "Although she remains physically distant and subtly incorporeal in all five poems, to Wordsworth she represents "the joy of my desire" and is longingly referred to as 'cherished'." What does it really mean? "Physically distant" and "subtly incorporeal?" Is it someone always seen from afar, and then always shrouded in mystery? And why "although?" In other words, why can't a figure shrouded in mystery be the joy of my desire, especially in poetry? More importantly, it is too much abstract information too soon. We need to know something more concrete about these poems. (Especially for people like me who are vaguely thinking of "Lucy Gray" from junior high-school!)
• Sentence 5: "The foreseen reality of her death weighs heavily on the poet throughout, imbuing the verse with a melancholy, elegiac tone." The expression "foreseen reality" assumes we know something about the death already, but we don't. The last part, on the other hand, seems like an overkill. "Melancholy, elegiac tone?" What else can it be?
• Sentence 6: "Although today the "Lucy" poems are considered among Wordsworth's finest work, Wordsworth did (not) conceive of them as a group nor were they published as a series during his lifetime." The subordinate clause should offer a counterpoint; as it stands, it is ambiguous: it seems to be stressing "finest," not related pieces.
• Sentence 7: "Between the 1798 and 1802 editions of Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth made many revisions to the poems and their sequencing." Why is this important? And why 1798? The poems were written only in 1800 (we were told upstairs).

Someone like me, who knows a few poems of W. by heart (or thinks he still does), should be reeled in swiftly by the lead. The first seven sentences, however, have snuffed whatever little excitement I brought here. I'm afraid the article will need to be majorly copy-edited (if the rest is anything like these sentences). Will swing by again in a week or thereabouts. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:31, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I cannot, for the life of me, see one proper objection in the above. Instead, I see absurd comments. For example - "deceased" needs a "simple substitute". You can't get more simple than "deceased". Ottava Rima (talk) 01:22, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose for now - Agree with Fowler&Fowler that this needs a thorough copy edit. I was not able to get beyond the third paragraph of the lead:
• "Whether Lucy was based on a specific historical figure or was a purely fictional creation has been a matter of prolonged debate among literary scholars." - "specific historical figure" - why not "a person in his life" or something else less stilted. Why have the extra "a matter of"? Whether Lucy was based on a person in Wordsworth's life has been debated. Is it necessary in the lead to note that it was "prolonged"?
• "Some have speculated that the character represents Wordsworth’s sister Dorothy, while others hold that she is an idealised figure." Very stilted and clunky. Some have speculated that Lucy is based on Wordsworth’s sister Dorothy, while others see her as an idealised figure. "holds" #1 (why all clunky "holds?).
• "Both schools agree, however, that the character is a device for the poet to develop his thoughts and meditations on loss, nature and beauty." Can you lose the "however"? "Both schools"? Why not start the paragraph by saying that Lucy is a means for Wordsworth to meditate on beauty, nature and loss. (Should not start out with "loss" in this triad:"loss, nature and beauty" is not a satisfying order.) Then you can get into whether she is modeled on a person in his life.
• "No precise historical identity for Lucy has been established, and modern scholarship holds it unlikely that Wordsworth modeled her on any specific individual. - Clunky "holds" #2
• "Generally reticent about the poems, he himself never addressed the subject." - Tony1 101 "he himself"?

Should not the lead invite the reader in, instead of making the poems sound like dead relics of scholarship? —Mattisse (Talk) 22:23, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Not liking the word choice is not an objection. Furthermore, points like why "a specific historical figure" is necessary - it doesn't have to be a person he knew or part of his life. It means a person who was alive at one time. Regardless, you seek substitutions of phrases but not one of the criterias. Ottava Rima (talk) 01:28, 8 March 2009 (UTC)