Talk:Ariel (poem)/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Beloved  Freak  12:56, 14 April 2010 (UTC)


 * GA review (see here for criteria)


 * 1) It is reasonably well written.
 * a (prose): b (MoS):
 * See comments below.
 * 1) It is factually accurate and verifiable.
 * a (references): b (citations to reliable sources):  c (OR):
 * See comments below.
 * 1) It is broad in its coverage.
 * a (major aspects): b (focused):
 * See comments below.
 * 1) It follows the neutral point of view policy.
 * Fair representation without bias:
 * Fairly neutral; a few issues discussed below with regard to prose.
 * 1) It is stable.
 * No edit wars, etc.:
 * No problems here.
 * 1) It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
 * a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
 * Is the picture of the horse directly relevant? Is it the same type of horse as Ariel? If so, the caption needs to be tightened up a bit; at the moment it seems a bit like: Plath rode a horse. Here's a picture of a horse.
 * 1) Overall:
 * Pass/Fail:
 * Unfortunately this article is not ready to be passed as a Good Article at this time.

Reasonably well written
I found quite a lot of issues with the prose. I suggest a thorough copyedit someone unconnected to the article (it's easier to spot things in other people's work than your own!) before nominating again. I'll outline some of the problems. Some of them are minor issues, some are more important:

Lead

 * 1) In the first sentence, poet shouldn't be capitalised, and there's no need for the word "the": "Ariel" is a poem written by American poet Sylvia Plath.
 * 2) There's a space missing after 1962; this problem occurs later on too.
 * 3) "published posthumously in Ariel in 1965, of which it is the namesake." Those last few words seem a little awkwardly attached to that sentence. Also, do you mean that the poem is the namesake of the collection of poems? Was the poem named after the book? If that is what you mean, that strikes me as strange, so would need some kind of explanation. Could also do with specifying what Ariel is. I know that it's a collection of Plath's poetry, but it's not completely clear. It could be some other publication.
 * 4) "Despite its ambiguity" - what ambiguity? As the article reader, I'm not aware of any ambiguity, and it's not explained.
 * 5) "it is literally understood" - by whom? That could be reworded somehow, although I can't think of a better alternative at the moment.
 * 6) "a variety of relevant lenses" - this seems a bit informal, a bit flowery even. And as a reader who doesn't know too much about poetry criticism, I don't really know what you mean. It's also a bit vague, you should expand on what various interpretations there are. I'll discuss the lead and what it should be covering further on.

Style and structure

 * 1) "additional solo line" - is "solo" used as jargon in poetry criticism? It just doesn't sound quite right to me. Should be "single" perhaps?
 * 2) "follows an unusual slanted rhyme scheme" - what's a slanted rhyme scheme? Could you explain that? Is their another article you could link to here that would help? Also, who says it's unusual?
 * 3) Who's William V. Davis and why do I care what he has to say? This is partly a serious question - is there a reason he is so heavily relied on in this article? Is he an expert in this field? Also, if he is there for a reason, let the reader know why we care about what he has to say.
 * 4) "William V. Davis notes a change in tone and break of the slanted rhyme scheme in the sixth stanza marks a shift in the theme of the poem" - this isn't grammatically quite right. Some suggestions: William V. Davis notes that a change in tone and break of the slanted rhyme scheme in the sixth stanza marks a shift... OR William V. Davis notes a change in tone and break of the slanted rhyme scheme in the sixth stanza that marks a shift... OR William V. Davis notes a change in tone and break of the slanted rhyme scheme in the sixth stanza, marking a shift...
 * 5) "oneness with the horse" - I would question the tone of this, but I see that they are his words, so put some quotation marks round them.

Context

 * 1) "It has been speculated that..." - these are weasel words and are vague, ambiguous and to be avoided! Who is speculating? Are they right to do so? See also Words to avoid. This is a problem throughout the article and one reason to get a thorough copyedit.
 * 2) That first sentence is also not quite right, grammatically: "being written on her birthday as well as the general theme of rebirth in the poem" Also, what general theme of rebirth? That's not been mentioned yet, nor is it expanded on.
 * 3) "Ariel acted as a sort of psychic rebirth" - are we talking about the horse here, the poem or the poem collection? What exactly do you mean by psychic rebirth?
 * 4) "The poem, written just five months before her eventual suicide, thus, not surprisingly given its' name as well, is one of her Ariel poems." This is not right grammatically, and it's hard to tell what exactly the point of the sentence is. It's also not clear how exactly Ariel came about. Did she compile it before she died? Did she name the whole thing after the poem? Obviously not too much detail is needed, as it will be covered by the article on the book, but the above sentence is just very confusing. In the lead, it suggests that the poem was named after the book. Here, that maybe it was chosen for Ariel because, fortuitously, it had the same name. Or was it chosen because she wrote it five months before her suicide?
 * 5) Random apostrophe in that sentence.
 * 6) "The name Ariel is the same" - this sentence is a bit detached. You haven't gone into enough detail about the relevance of the horse.
 * 7) "Ted Hughes, Plath's husband, adds" - what's he adding to?

Interpretations
"Freud (who she was read up on)" - too informal
 * 1) "It is commonly gathered from her extensive journals..." - weasel words again. Who has commonly gathered? If it's that commonly gathered, and you have the sources to back t up, just start with Sylvia spent the last days of her life.... Only, don't call her Sylvia, call her Plath! And when you say "last days", do you mean days? Or weeks, or months? Because this poem was written five months prior to her death, right?
 * 2) "writing the majority of her poetry that she was writing" - this is a little unclear; do you mean she wrote the majority of the poetry that she would write in a day, in the morning? Also... unnecessary repetition of "writing".
 * 3) This sentence isn't very neutral in the way it describes her life. From what I understand, Plath had severe mental illness and experienced a lot of emotional pain, but this sentence actually makes me feel less sympathetic towards her! It makes me think (sarcastically) "oh poor thing, being disrupted by pesky children, having to take them to school." Also, what exactly do you mean by "taking care of drudgery" - household chores? This whole sentence would be better I think, if you just simply describe what her day was, and then explain that she found it tedious or full of drudgery or whatever.
 * 4) Who's Kathleen Lant and why do we care what she says? (see above comments re William Davis).
 * 5) "This stanza, she argues..." - who argues? Lant? Plath?
 * 6) "because she is interpreting Plath's poetic "undressing" as an erotic metaphor for her undressing the structure she adhered to in her pre-Ariel/Collosus poems" I, as the reader, really don't know what you mean by undressing the structure in her other poems.
 * 7) Collosus should be Colossus - and needs a bit of an explanation as to what her Colossus poems are
 * 8) I gather the next sentence is also about this. "This is seemingly further supported" - weasel words. "another critic" - who exactly?
 * 9) "she is taking off the Latinite diction which she had previously characterized much of her ouvre of poetry" - not right grammatically. Also, for the uninitiated, this whole bit about undressing her previous structure needs explaining more. As a non-expert, I don't really understand what you're getting at. Is it just that she's employing a new structure in this poem, or is this poem specifically about her poetry writing? And if so, why is she having an orgasm? I don't mean to sound obtuse, but the average reader of this article is probably going to have some interest in poetry, or Plath, but would probably need a little more to understand where you (or rather the sources) are coming from. Also, what is Latinite diction? Is there a relevant article you could link to?
 * 10) "an earlier attempt to define herself a poetic identity" - not quite right grammatically, is a word missing?
 * 11) "As she begins to fully thrust all this power and all of herself" - sentences like this are a bit too flowery and not quite encyclopedic in tone.

Lead

 * 1) If the article is written in American English, and you're using American date formatting (which you seem to be), there needs to be comma after the date, like this: October 12, 1962
 * 2) The lead section needs to summarise the rest of the article. As it stands, it does not. most of what is mentioned in the article is missing from the lead. On the other hand, what is mentioned in the lead is not expanded on further in the article, which it should be. Once the lead accurately summarises the article, tehre will be no need for a citation in the lead, as it will be adequately referenced later on.

Interpretations

 * 1) Don't put colons in the subheadings
 * 2) The sentence beginning "Literary critic Kathleen Lant", there is a hyphen used instead of an emdash

Psychological

 * 1) This list should really be prose if possible. Lists should be laid out with *s for bullet points, not hyphens.
 * 2) "All these different Ariel's..." - incorrect use of apostrophe.

General

 * 1) Throughout, you need to remember to use quotation marks for poem titles and italics for book titles. this is always important but particularly when you are referring to several entities (poem, book, horse) of the same name.
 * 2) There in some underlinking in the article. Some words that could help the reader to link are: Dartmoor, Ted Huges, The Colossus and Other Poems (when you mention these poems), Ariel (The Tempest)
 * 3) Citations should be placed after commas and other punctuation marks, not before. (see the one following "previously characterized much of her ouvre of poetry")
 * 4) Most of the excerpts of the poem are laid out separately, but then in the "Autobiographical" section, they are inline. Is this intentional?

Factually accurate and verifiable?

 * 1) I'm a little concerned with source #2, which is relied on heavily. From your citation, it appears to be a book called Modern American Poetry, but when I click on the link, I go to a page hosted by a university. The context of what the page is is not clear. Then there's a list of random excerpts from different sources, from different critics or essayists. I have no idea who they are or why they're important. I don't know who has typed up the excerpts. In short, I don't think this qualifies as a reliable secondary source. It's not at all clear from the article text that you are using several sources in one here. You need to use, and cite, the originals.
 * 2) Reference 4 (Janjua) - what exactly is this? Is it a book? If so, is it self published? I can't see anything that suggests it's a reliable source.
 * 3) References 5 and 6 seem to have the same problems as ref #2.
 * 4) Unfortunately a fair bit of the article comes across as original research. More citations are needed, and some parts need to be rewritten so that they don't sound like a Wikipedia editor's opinion. The psychological interpretations section for example, has a whole paragraph which appears to be original research. There is no citation so as far as I can tell, that's just your opinion.

Broad in coverage

 * 1) I don't think that the article is quite broad enough yet. There is not much on the background of the actual writing of the poem. This is touched upon in the lead, but needs expanding on in a dedicated section.
 * 2) The critical reception section is very thin. It says that " The poem has been criticized by numerous literary figures" - could we have some examples of who has criticised it and what they have said?

Overall
You have obviously put a lot of work into this, and it's definitely on the right track, so I'm sorry to fail it. Unfortunately it's not at GA standard just yet, and I think that there are so many issues to be addressed, that it wouldn't be helpful to put it on hold at this time. I have mentioned many issues above, some are fairly minor, but I wanted to help as much as possible by giving specific examples. Before nominating again, I suggest going through the points I have mentioned, and if you haven't already, I would look over some of the poem articles in Category:GA-Class Poetry articles and Category:FA-Class Poetry articles, to see some examples that are already GA or FA. Then, I suggest taking it to peer review, as it's always helpful to get as many people's eyes on it as possible. Also, ask someone, perhaps at the poetry project, to give it a final copyedit before you nominate. It's easy to miss the little things in your own writing, especially when you've spent a lot of time on it. I hope you're not discouraged by this experience, and I'm sure it will be ready to pass in the near future. If you do go to peer review, let me know if you like, and I'd be happy to comment on it then. One last thing, if you disagree with this outcome, you are free to nominate it for a Good article reassessment. Let me know if you have any questions. Regards, -- Beloved Freak  12:56, 14 April 2010 (UTC)