Talk:Devotions upon Emergent Occasions

Recent edits, and Good Article status
User Ironholds admirably expanded the article, and nominates the result for GA. However this involved deleting without explanation the actual passage from Meditation XVII which includes "No Man is an Ilande" and "For whom the bell tolls", and he then objected to my restoring it, commenting 'We do not make judgment calls like "Best known" without citations'. Fair enough; yet in the lede we have the judgment call 'Most famous is part of the 17th devotion, Meditation XVII, includes the lines "No Man Is an Island" and "For Whom the Bell Tolls"'. Later the fame of the passage and those phrases is cited, although there are still a few other uncited "judgment calls".

He objected that the quotation in question is uncited - but like the other quotations from the Meditation in the article, it is sourced inline. Still, this can be made more explicit.

But I can't really see that it is unhelpful for the reader of the encyclopedia, and for the GA status, not to see Donne's most "famous" words put in their context as he originally wrote them; quite the opposite. Many other GA-status articles on poets and other writers do it; as WP:QUOTE puts it, "Quoting a brief excerpt from an original source can sometimes explain things better and less controversially than trying to explain them in one's own words". Also it would help if the other quotations from Donne were rendered in Donne's own wording and punctuation, as per WP:MOSQUOTE, and not how some later editor decided he should have spelled and punctuated them.Straw Cat (talk) 23:52, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
 * If you can point to the uncited judgment calls I'm happy to solve for them; as for the wording and punctuation, feel free to correct them. I have no particular objection to the quote, merely that it doesn't really fit into the eb and flow of the article - it doesn't provide an opportunity to include critical analysis of the underlying meaning. Ironholds (talk) 00:14, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
 * (In the meantime I'd suggest we stop reverting back-and-forth. I will, at least). Ironholds (talk) 00:16, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not going to revert this edit, accordingly, but it'd be good if you could engage here before making any more tweaks. Ironholds (talk) 00:22, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
 * OK. Obviously, I don't need your permission to expand and improve the article, but am happy to discuss here before deleting anything.Straw Cat (talk) 00:50, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, yes, although additions should follow our guidelines (i.e., be sourced, for example). So, if you can point me towards uncited statements of mine - happy to clarify. Ironholds (talk) 00:55, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks. If you glance at my contributions over the years you will see I am familiar with WP rules and guidelines - also as it happens I have a degree in English Lit. which might help in helping to improve this article. Hence my suggestion that we be guided by WP:QUOTE and WP:MOSQUOTE - which make clear, as I showed above, that including the author's own wording is preferable to privileging other peoples' (however eminent) perhaps contentious or erroneous interpretations and commentaries.Straw Cat (talk) 01:19, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Sure. Then you won't mind citing the Maud statement you've included? Ironholds (talk) 03:13, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Note I ideally mean a secondary source. Making the statement "Maud says X [primary source]" is fine. Making the statement "While some people say Y, the line is also found in X" is both original research and synthesis; we do not exist to make judgment calls or pull in our own evidence. Ironholds (talk) 20:15, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
 * In WP we have a concept called "undue weight". This means that "neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources". You have put in a claim that Eliot got a phrase from Donne, and given it prominence in the lead to the article, while being so far unable to cite this contentious view properly, nor demonstrate that the consensus of scholarly opinion supports your judgment call. So unless you can do this I'm afraid your claim has to go from the article. Hard, I know, but if you want this article to become a Good Article, you have to forestall the objections independent reviewers might make.Straw Cat (talk) 21:52, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I know; I've been editing since 2005. You don't seem to have actually addressed my request. Ironholds (talk) 13:02, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Nor you mine. Perhaps you have not provided citations backing your, er, judgment call because the consensus of scholarly opinion is that Eliot was influenced by Tennyson. I suggest that you either rewrite the passage, including a balanced range of citations (including the Pattison one which I have already referenced above), as suggested in WP:UNDUE - or we take out of the article.


 * If you object to it being assumed that you are a neophyte, might I, with respect, suggest that you consider whether other editors also may not be wildly keen on being patronized like one by you? Straw Cat (talk) 14:45, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Can you point me to where I've been patronising? That certainly wasn't my intent. Ironholds (talk) 23:30, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Handful of dust
The sentence: "other academics consider it the origin of the line "I will show you fear in a handful of dust" from T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land"" is a bit weaselly, since only one source is cited - does this source specifically demonstrate that Eliot, and Waugh, got "A Handful of Dust" from Donne rather than Tennyson's Maud? Straw Cat (talk) 01:03, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The source cites multiple academics as sources of the argument, but I'm loathe to pick them out by name since I haven't actually got the sources the source cites to hand. Ironholds (talk) 03:13, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Can you confirm (to help us achieve GA status) that these sources demonstrate that Eliot, and Waugh, got "A Handful of Dust" from Donne rather than Tennyson (as, for instance, is argued by Pattision: "Eliot's 'I will show you fear in a handful of dust', an echo of Tennyson's 'Dead, long Dead,/Long dead!/And my heart is a handful of dust'" - Tennyson and Tradition, Robert Pattison 1979) Perhaps you could quote their argument, or summarize it?


 * And perhaps this claimed influence, one among many, does not need to be given undue weight by inclusion in the lead. Straw Cat (talk) 10:59, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
 * No, I can confirm that the source says "sources say that...." etc. Again, I do not have the original sources and am loathe to.... I'm fine with de-prioritising it if you want. Ironholds (talk) 20:14, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
 * In WP, we need sources, otherwise it is what we call Original Research; and we don't cite a source unless we've seen it for ourself. Where you want to cite John Smith, but you've only read Paul Jones who cites Smith, write it like this (this formatting is just an example):

Smith, John. Name of Book I Haven't Seen, Cambridge University Press, 2009, p. 1, cited in Paul Jones (ed.). Name of Encyclopedia I Have Seen. Oxford University Press, 2010, p. 2. Straw Cat (talk) 21:27, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, I know; I'm not a neophyte here. I'll work it in when I find myself some free time from work. Ironholds (talk) 13:02, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Red links
The recent expansion introduced a spotty red rash of links to pages that do not exist; not healthy-looking for GA reviewers. Unless someone intends to create these pages in the near future, the red rash needs some ointment.Straw Cat (talk) 23:04, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Why? Red links are a fantastic primer for people to go create articles on the subjects. It's not about short-term creation, it's about being able to provide a prompt to every potential editor and editor who reads the article "there's something at that title in potentia. I wonder if..." Ironholds (talk) 13:01, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
 * In Wikipedia we only encourage red links if it is likely that an article will be created. Is this the case with all these?Straw Cat (talk) 15:04, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Cut some. Ironholds (talk) 23:40, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Dates
" ... the work was registered with the Stationers' Company by 9 January, and published in 1634, and again in 1638 ... " Although sourced, are these dates correct? Straw Cat (talk) 16:10, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Can you give me a basis for questioning their validity? Ironholds (talk) 23:27, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, here's a clue: "and published in 1634" has just been changed to "and published in 1624" by, er, yourself ...Straw Cat (talk) 00:03, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Indeed; sorry, went to check just after I hit enter here. Ironholds (talk) 00:04, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Original title
"Devotions Upon Emnergent Occasions, and severall steps in my Sicknes"-Although sourced, is this spelling completely correct? Straw Cat (talk) 12:07, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
 * If you've got evidence it's wrong, present it. Being indirect is a waste of characters. Ironholds (talk) 15:24, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Looks like a LaTeX transposing error around "Emnergent". Ironholds (talk) 15:25, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Donne's rare prose
I object to describing Donne's prose works as 'rare' because it gives the impression that prose did not constitute a very significant part of his output. In fact the great majority of Donne's work was in prose, with the modern edition of his sermons alone running to 16 volumes. Admittedly much of this prose was not printed during his life time, but then nor were the poems. And like the poems, these prose works were printed and read widely after Donne's death, and circulated in manuscript while he was alive. Hence why I think comments about Donne's prose being rare need to be removed. Celuici (talk) 09:40, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Hrm. I'm currently approximately 5,000 miles away from the sources, but 'printed during his lifetime' seems a probable interpretation indeed. May I suggest rewording in line with that, as you've started doing? Ironholds (talk) 22:23, 24 December 2013 (UTC)