Talk:Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

Translations
Noting here a starting point for a paragraph or section on translations of this poem.


 * Sources
 * The Foreign Language Translations of Gray’s Elegy (extensive website)
 * Paper on the Vasilij Andreevic Zukovskij Russian translation
 * Article on the Italian translations


 * Translators
 * Vasily Zhukovsky - Russian
 * Melchiorre Cesarotti - Italian
 * Giuseppe Torelli - Italian
 * Giacomo Zanella - Italian
 * Christopher Anstey - Latin (one of the earliest translations)
 * George Denman - Greek
 * Ali Haider Tabatabai - Urdu

And obviously many more. Carcharoth (talk) 02:23, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Miscellaneous
Noting here that other articles contain the following that could be worth adding here (sources, if given, are in the articles linked), though some begin to verge on the trivial: A few starting points to see if references to these can be properly referenced and integrated into the article. Carcharoth (talk) 02:37, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Alfred Cellier: "In 1883, Cellier's setting of Gray's Elegy, in the form of a cantata, was produced at the Leeds music festival."
 * William Thomas Beckford: art collector who purchased "William Blake's drawings for Gray's Elegy" (this would be one of several examples of famous illustrated editions of the Elegy)
 * Dewitt Miller: book collector, includes the comment "news came of the splendid sum fetched by Gray's Elegy at the Hoe sale" (a few details of how collectable editions of the Elegy are and whether any are still in private collections)
 * J. J. Lankes: "In 1940, Harper & Brothers published an edition of Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, with thirty woodcut illustrations by Lankes and an introduction by Pulitzer prize-winning poet Robert P. T. Coffin."
 * Alan Wheatley: "His unforgettable readings of English poetry for the English by Radio audience include Thomas Gray's Elegy and readings from Shakespeare with Jill Balcon."
 * Al Capp: "Engraved on his headstone is a stanza from Thomas Gray: 'The plowman homeward plods his weary way / And leaves the world to darkness and to me' "

Possible links and corrections

 * Possible correction ... Under "themes" the article says "" Gray avoids mentioning the word "grave" "" ... what about the line "the paths of glory lead but to the grave"?Statalyzer (talk) 07:16, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Some suggestions below for terms and names that could be linked, but may need discussion first: I have some other suggestions, but referring to authors and works without quoting the titles of the works in full is not good and this needs addressing before more text is added like this (diff to text added). Carcharoth (talk) 00:28, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Article: "responded to the Elegy with his "Imitations of Immortality" ode" ; suggested link Ode: Intimations of Immortality (note different title! A search on both titles just confused me even more)
 * Article: "There were many translations of the poem into Latin, including one by Christopher Anstey, John Roberts and by Lloyd. It was translated into Greek by Gulielmi Cooke, John Norbury, Tew of Eton, Stephen Weston, and Charles Coote."; suggested links: Robert Lloyd (poet) (is this the Lloyd referred to here? - the article doesn't make clear who this Lloyd is, but from reading this, I suspect this is the right Lloyd). The others I've tried to find out who they were and when they wrote their translations, but there are so many translations, sometimes written by obscure figures, it is difficult to know who to focus on, but at least the date of the publication of the translations should be given, and possibly the nationality of the translator as well - gives the context rather than just a meaningless list of names that means nothing to most people.
 * There are some more references that have crept in where a Harvard style reference is given, but when you look down to the list of books and sources consulted, the author mentioned is not listed! This is a bit shoddy, as I want to go and look up some of these sources, but I can't for instance look up the information above (referenced as "Nicholls pp. xxvii-xxviii"), as there is nothing saying who Nicholls is or what work of his is being referenced or what year it was published! Ditto for "Smith 1987", "Williams 1987", "Bloom 1987", "Hutchings 1987", "Johnston 2001", "Mileur 1987", "Holmes 1976", "Smith 1985", "Young 1783", "Arnold 1881", "Gosse 1918", "Anonymous 1896" (this is given in the text of the article, but should still be repeated in the bibliographic list), "Brady 1987", "Ketton-Cremer 1955", "Carper 1987", "Weinbrot 1978", "Golden 1988". That is a total of 18 sources that are incompletely cited in the references, making it impossible for anyone to verify what has been written here.


 * Just a suggestion, but you might want to consider unblocking Ottava, if necessary on the strict condition he only edit this page and/or his own talk with this conversation taking place there. (You know as well as I that if you can get him to make a promise, he'll abide by it.) There's no real point having this discussion if the person you're addressing the questions to can't reply, especially with Malleus now hounded off the project altogether and unable to act as go-between. – iride  scent  00:36, 18 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I've only just got back from a day out. Let me catch up on what has been happening elsewhere. Carcharoth (talk) 00:41, 18 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree with Iridescent in that it would be so much simpler to let Ottava fix it himself. He got me to fix some things for him but it's just needless effort. Ooh Bunnies! Not just any bunnies... 02:13, 18 April 2010 (UTC)


 * In short, no. I appreciate the work that Ottava put in, but there are very good reasons he was banned, and for some people the small hole that is posted in the BAN policy for this kind of thing is too much of a loophole as is. I don't think there is any chance that Ottava will be unbanned early. It was the opinion of the committee when the ban happened that Ottava and Wikipedia were best served by Ottava completely disengaging from Wikipedia for a time, and from all reports and actions, he is unwilling or unable to. SirFozzie (talk) 07:59, 18 April 2010 (UTC)


 * This is getting off-topic for this talk page. May I suggest that Iridescent, OohBunnies and SirFozzie take this discussion elsewhere? I would like to make sure this talk page is reserved for discussing content issues only, as the other issues have the potential to distract from the editing of the article. Carcharoth (talk) 11:09, 18 April 2010 (UTC)


 * It may seem like needless effort to you, OohBunnies!, but if you make edits like this, you need to (a) attribute that content (if you did not write it yourself, you need to link to where it came from - see the 19:54, 29 March 2010 revision by Iridescent for an example of how to properly attribute such content). And it is a requirement that the person adding content from elsewhere checks it thoroughly to see if it makes sense, and that person should also ensure the added content is seamlessly integrated with the existing article (which had been edited since the original import). The failure to import the bibliographic listings is a basic and fundamental error, and it falls to you, as the editor who imported the content, to fix that. I can provide a listing on the talk page, but it should be you that goes and fixes it in the actual article itself, so you are fully aware of how to do such imports properly. Carcharoth (talk) 11:06, 18 April 2010 (UTC)


 * When I said 'needless effort' I was referring to others having to upload Ottava's content for him, but I will say no more. In regards to my basic and fundamental error, I had been told by Ottava that Malleus was fixing it. Malleus has now left, but I am unfortunately not omniscient. Although being honest, something that will probably get me shat on, if you have the list and the ability to fix it I'm not sure why you feel the need to leave it to me. To teach me a lesson? It makes me want to tell you to get over yourself. Ooh Bunnies!  Not just any bunnies... 21:46, 18 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry if I've offended you. Part of the reason I was so insistent here is that attributing and integrating such imports is a complex business that many Wikipedians would find difficult, but it is something that does need to be done properly (and you did a good job of the rest of the import). If you are not sure how to do what I am referring to above (the bit about attribution in the edit summary really does need fixing by using a new edit summary to refer back to the unattributed edit, or by making a list of the imports on a subpage here), would you like me to ask someone else to do it? I could ask Juliancolton (who assessed the article). If he is willing to work with us here, then between the three of us, we should be able to do a good job and take this article to the next level, though it will take some co-ordination to integrate things properly. It is also entirely possible that this kind of arrangement just doesn't work in practice (for example, other editors leaving, as Malleus did, is something that can't be anticipated). But you never know until you try. Carcharoth (talk) 23:31, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I added an external link for Robert Browning poem Love Among the Ruins in the section under: Influence; Poetic parallels. There is an extra space after Love Among the Ruins,  which. . . Could someone fix it and remove the extra space. I edited it on my iPad and couldn’t fix it. 5:30, EST US 30 December 2018 — Preceding unsigned comment added by GustavM (talk • contribs) 10:34, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I've moved the in-line link to a ref and linked Robert Browning. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:45, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

Bibliographic sources
As far as I can tell, the sources being referred to in the text (but not listed in the bibliographic listings) are: That, as far as I can tell, is the list that should have been added along with this edit. I'll point OohBunnies! to this section now so that they can look at this list and see if they agree or disagree. If there is no way of ascertaining whether this bibliographic listing is correct, the material added in the edit I've referred to is not properly sourced and will have to be removed, though hopefully it won't come to that. Carcharoth (talk) 11:34, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Nicholls - Nicholls, Norton (editor). The Works of Thomas Gray. William Pickering: London, 1836.
 * "Smith 1987" - Smith, Eric. "Gray: Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" in Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1987.
 * "Williams 1987" - Williams, Anne. "Elegy into Lyric: Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" in Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1987.
 * "Bloom 1987" - Bloom, Harold. "Introduction"in Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1987.
 * "Hutchings 1987" - Hutchings, W. "Syntax of Death: Instability in Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"in Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1987.
 * "Johnston 2001" - Johnston, Kenneth. The Hidden Wordsworth. New York: Norton, 2001.
 * "Mileur 1987" - Mileur, Jean-Pierre. "Spectators at Our Own Funerals" (need to check the publication year is 1987)
 * "Holmes 1976" - 'Holmes, Richard. Shelley: The Pursuit. London: Quartet Books, 1976.
 * "Smith 1985" - Smith, Adam. Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres. Indianpolis: Liberty Fund, 1985.
 * "Young 1783" - Young, John. A Criticism on the Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard. London: G. Wilkie, 1783.
 * "Arnold 1881" - Arnold, Matthew. The English Poets Vol III. London: Macmillan and Co., 1881.
 * "Gosse 1918" - Gosse, Edmund. Gray. London: Macmillan and Co., 1918.
 * "Anonymous 1896" (Review - 12 December 1896 - The Academy)
 * "Brady 1987" - Brady, Frank. "Structure and Meaning in Gray's Elegy" in Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1987.
 * "Ketton-Cremer 1955" - Ketton-Cremer, R. W. Thomas Gray. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1955.
 * "Carper 1987" - Carper, Thomas. "Gray's Personal Elegy" in Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1987.
 * "Weinbrot 1978" - Weinbrot, Howard. "Gray's Elegy: A Poem of Moral Choice and Resolution" (need to check the publication year is 1978)
 * "Golden 1988" - Golden, Morris. Thomas Gray. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1988.
 * "Bieri 2008" - Bieri, James. Percy Bysshe Shelley. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008.
 * I was asked to comment here, so I'll offer my preliminary thoughts. I'm fairly confident Ottava will find some way to address this issue off-wiki to confirm whether or not the above sources are correct and see to it that all information is properly sourced. Failing that, I suggest tentatively reverting the recent article addition and gradually adding it back in as we access relevant source and verify the content. The bigger issue, though, is the lack of proper attribution, which could make that potential solution impossible. In that case... I don't know what can be done. – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 01:38, 2 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Here's my preliminary thought. Ottava shouldn't have to be addressing this issue off-wiki. Malleus Fatuorum 01:48, 2 May 2010 (UTC)


 * That issue is not something that should be discussed here. This is a talk page to discuss the content (not the contributors). By all means go and file appeals, but don't mix that in with the content issues here. The real issue here is that the importing was done incorrectly. Malleus, if you copied an article from somewhere else and added it to Wikipedia, would you leave off half the books in the bibliographic listing at the end when importing it? No, you wouldn't, so can we please get that issue addressed first. Carcharoth (talk) 02:08, 2 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Julian, for the source and how to correctly attribute, see the 19:54, 29 March 2010 edit to the article. What is needed is for an edit summary like the one used there to be used to correctly attribute the content added with the 01:38, 8 April 2010 edit, and for the missing content to be integrated with the existing article. It is complicated, but that is what happens when you end up with two articles developing in parallel. I'm not convinced it works in practice. I think those who create content off-wiki for importation need to accept that at some point it becomes impractical for them to contribute additions to the article. The most practical way to do so is to have synchronisation, which would require importing versions of this article back to the source, but that would not really be appropriate here (not that there is any way to prevent it). I think the best that can be done is a single one-time import (or in this case, two imports), and then leaving the article to develop here as best as it can. Trying to do more updates than that becomes difficult to do - where is the line drawn between a single import, regular updates, and proxy editing? That's why I'm not going to do any of this myself, though I am prepared to edit the content that exists here. Carcharoth (talk) 02:20, 2 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Frankly, I think that you're being rather precious in asking others to fix things you're perfectly able to fix yourself. Malleus Fatuorum 03:02, 2 May 2010 (UTC)


 *   Lots of people are capable of fixing this article. Have you wondered why no-one is rushing to do so? We all look a bit silly standing around saying others should fix things that we are all capable of fixing. But I've made my position clear: I'm willing to edit content like this (just as any editor can edit it) and add to such content once it is clearly going to stay here, but half-imported content is not acceptable, and I'm not going to import material into article-space myself (I would need to read the books in question before being willing to do that), though (as with the listing above) I'm prepared to make suggestions as to what needs importing to complete half-done imports, and I'm willing to accept on trust that others have reviewed this material and it is OK. But there is a big difference between trusting the imports and edits of other editors and doing the imports yourself. Carcharoth (talk) 07:59, 2 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Depends on the circumstances of the import. Leaving aside the irrelevance of who wrote the original, the circumstances in which "import" is a clear positive is when the version to be imported is a clear and unequivocal improvement on the original regardless of any potential errors—this is why we currently have 3,500 articles cut-and-pasted from the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, 8,800 articles cut-and-pasted from the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships and a staggering 12,000 articles cut-and-pasted from the 1911 Britannica, despite the fact that we know all three sources are biased, outdated and riddled with errors.


 * This article in particular, however, has reached its maintenance phase; I do agree with you that improvements now need to be demonstrable improvements, regardless of where they've ultimately come from. If that means it's not as good as it could be, that's a price inevitably paid in valuing verifiability over accuracy, and if you don't accept VNT and the thinking behind it, then Wikipedia probably isn't the place to be. – iride  scent  19:12, 2 May 2010 (UTC)


 * WP:VNT? Ah, I haven't seen that abbreviation used in ages. To address what you said, I agree absolutely when the errors are brought over with the original - in most cases, such as good-faith imports like this and the ones you mention, we have to accept such errors and fix them as they are found. But what I am pointing out here is errors introduced during the importation process. I've been spot-checking and found a few more, tedious though it is (did I ever mention I won prizes for nit-picking?). Carcharoth (talk) 00:08, 3 May 2010 (UTC) The preceding statement included small elements of sarcasm.


 * I've incorporated the missing sources from this revision. – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 22:51, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Still a few missing (they are listed on the talk page of where you got that from). And we've also gone from having sources mentioned in the text and footnotes (but not listed in the bibliographic listing) to having sources mentioned in the bibliographic listing (but not mentioned in the text and footnotes). Which is actually an improvement, if you think about it (instead of referencing missing sources, you now have extra sources that can be cited as the text cited to them is located and added). This is still not ideal synchronisation, but it is getting there. I'll do an exhaustive cross-check, and list what doesn't match up in a new section below. Carcharoth (talk) 00:12, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm just not getting this. Why not just fix it? Malleus Fatuorum 00:31, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I've explained this before. I'm not going to transfer sources from an off-wiki draft to here if I don't have those sources to consult. Others do this either on good-faith (that the originator of the text is reliable) or after checking for themselves. I am willing to help, and enjoy, tidying things up, but when I add sources and sourced information, I prefer to have those sources available. Carcharoth (talk) 01:00, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

More synchronisation of bibliographic listing and footnotes
The follow bits in the bibliographic listing and footnotes don't quite match up with where the text originates from. It seems the proliferation of references dated 1987 are to the collection by Bloom published in 1987 (Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1987), and the dates in the text are (correctly) to the date of first publication of the works and the dates in the references are (correctly) to the date of the actual publication being consulted. Making that clearer would be good, to avoid confusion. In the case of the Weinbrot reference to two separate years, the 1978 date should either be replaced with the 1987 date (if both references are to Weinbrot's essay from the 1987 collection), or the separate 1978 work should be identified. Carcharoth (talk) 01:23, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
 * In bibliographic listing but not footnotes
 * Clyde de L. Ryals (1996)
 * Graham Hough (1953)
 * Herbert Starr (1968)
 * W. K. Wimsatt (1970)
 * In footnotes but not bibliographic listing (all listed here)
 * Smith (1987) [this is Eric Smith, not the Adam Smith for 'Smith (1985)']
 * Williams (1987) [this is the same Anne Williams for 'Williams (1984)', but a different book by her]
 * Bloom (1987)
 * Hutchings (1987) [Note that the text says Hutchings was speaking in 1984, but the reference publication year is given as 1987]
 * Mileur (1987)
 * Brady (1987) [Note that the text says Brady was speaking in 1965, but the reference publication year is given as 1987]
 * Carper (1987) [Note that the text says Carper was speaking in 1977, but the reference publication year is given as 1987]
 * Weinbrot (1978) [Note that one reference is dated 1978 and the other is dated 1987]
 * Bieri (2008)
 * Bieri (2008)
 * PS. Apologies in advance for being so nit-picky about this, and for not making the fixes myself. It is complicated sorting through these sources, which is why it would be great to have others double-checking this. Many thanks to anyone who sorts out the synchronisation here. Carcharoth (talk) 01:28, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, I added more (perhaps all?) of the books. – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 02:18, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I think you did get all of them, and I'm now happy with this article (though the Weinbrot references still need the years checking, one is 1978 and the other in 1987, and there is still confusion over the "Imitations of Immortality" versus "Intimatations of Immortality" bit). Hopefully someone will consider those bits, along with the earlier suggestions I made above (the first two sections on this page), but now the bibliographic confusion has been sorted I'm going to leave this article alone for a bit now. Could you ping me when someone puts it forward for GA or FA? Carcharoth (talk) 03:21, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I've fixed those two issues as per information I've received off-wiki. Are the attribution issues from that initial edit fixed? – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 03:44, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I think between your edits and the comments on this talk page, the attribution issue is largely fixed. You could do a dummy edit saying that edit x should be attributed to source y, but the edit field might be too small. I linked the Intimations of Immortality ode - maybe that could be expanded next? It is certainly a great name for a poem, though I'm still puzzled as to what 'Imitations of Immortality' is - seems to be something different or the same or similar. Carcharoth (talk) 14:56, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Never :) – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 16:42, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Prose issues
Upon request, I went through the prose in the article and found the following issues:


 * Please fix comma use. Commas should be used in compound sentences and not in those that aren't compound. The following sentences are missing commas:


 * "The events dampened the mood during that Christmas and Antrobus's death was ever fresh in the minds of the Gray family."
 * "On 3 June 1750, Gray moved to Stoke Poges and on 12 June he completed Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard."
 * "By February 1751, Gray received word that William Owen, the publisher of the Magazine of Magazines, would print the poem on 16 February without his approval and the copyright laws at the time would not allow Gray to stop the publication."
 * "The theme does not emphasise loss like other elegies and the focus on nature is for setting and not a primary component of the poem's theme."
 * "His description of the moon, birds, and trees lack the horror found in the other poems and Gray avoids mentioning the word "grave" and instead uses other words as euphemisms."
 * "During the summer 1750, Gray received so much positive support regarding the poem that he was in dismay but he did not talk about the poem in his letters until the 18 December 1750 letter to Wharton."


 * "The loss was compounded by news that followed a few days afterward that Horace Walpole, Gray's close friend, yet one he just recently disputed with, was almost killed by two highwaymen who demanded his money." -- > "The loss was compounded a few days after by news that Horace Walpole was almost killed by two highwaymen who demanded his money. Thhough Gray recently disputed with him, Walpole was still a close friend."


 * "Gray's life was surrounded by loss and death, and he knew that many people around him died painfully and alone." - "Gray's life was surrounded by loss and death, and many people around him died painfully and alone."


 * "As a side effect, the events also caused Gray to spend much of his time contemplating his mortality." - 'also' is unnecessary. You already have 'as a side effect' in there, so using 'also' in there is redundant.


 * "With spring nearing, Gray questioned if his own life would enter into a sort of rebirth cycle or if, he was to die, if there would be anyone to remember him." -- "With spring nearing, Gray questioned if his own life would enter into a sort of rebirth cycle or, should he die, if there would be anyone to remember him."


 * "It was so popular that it was reprinted twelve times and reproduced in many different periodicals until 1765,[9] including in Gray's Six Poems (1753), in his Odes (1757),[10] and volume four of Dodsley's 1755 compilation of poetry." -- needs "in" before "volume four" to maintain parallelism.


 * Instances of "stated" is in the article, a word to avoid. Replace with "said" or similar.


 * The quote in the first paragraph of "Composition" section, that end-quotation needs to go after the full stop.


 * "Mason's argument was only a guess" - I'd remove "only" in there, not needed.


 * "The stanza form, quatrains with an ABAB rhyme scheme, was common to English poetry and used throughout the 16th century while any foreign diction that Gray relied on was merged with English words and phrases to give them an "English" feel." -- either add a comma before "while" or split that sentence up as it's a bit drawn-out.


 * Would insert a comma before "while" in the following two sentences: "The early version ends with an emphasis on the narrator joining with the obscure common man while the later version ends with an emphasis on how it is natural for humans to want to be known. The later ending also explores the narrator's own death while the earlier version serves as a Christian consolation regarding death."


 * First quote in the "Late 18th and early 19th-century response" subsection, the end-quotation needs to go after the full stop.


 * Paragraphing especially in the second half of the "Late 18th and early 19th-century response" is fairly choppy. Try and either expand or combine paragraphs if you can. In particular, avoid one or two-sentence paragraphs.

–MuZemike 19:00, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
 * These have been resolved, to the best of my knowledge. – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 20:46, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Harvnb and all that
Taking WP:BOLD, I am going through and converting the existing references to use  and. This will not change the references at all as seen, except to link them in the references to the bibliography.

In doing so I spot Anonymous, 1896. This fails WP:V.

Si Trew (talk) 18:41, 5 July 2010 (UTC)


 * It doesn't, it's in the references, I missed it. Fixed. Si Trew (talk) 20:35, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Ambrose Bierce on the Elegy
Noted satirist Ambrose Bierce parodied the initial lines of the Elegy in his famous Devil's Dictionary (ref: http://thedevilsdictionary.com/?E, under ELEGY):

The cur foretells the knell of parting day; The loafing herd winds slowly o'er the lea; The wise man homeward plods; I only stay To fiddle-faddle in a minor key.

I think this parody is notable enough to be included in the article, but I am unsure as to where. Critical response? Influence?--Gorpik (talk) 11:11, 6 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Tend to agree. Published in 1906, so 20th response section might seem most appropriate place? Martinevans123 (talk) 16:40, 3 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Bierce's childish cynicism is hardly notable, especially in view of the fact that there have been 2000 parodies of the Elegy. How does it advance our knowledge of Gray's work and its interpretation and in what way does it warrant mention over 1999 other candidates? Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 19:03, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Wordsworth
The sentence on Wordsworth under the section on the poem's influence makes no sense. Lyrical Ballads was published in 1798/1802, Intimations in1807. It may be that Gray's poem influenced both, but the article seems to suggest that Intimations is in Lyrical Ballads. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.131.231.56 (talk) 07:28, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Lines 73-80
While I understand that the poem cannot/should not be reproduced here in its entirety, is there any reason that lines 73-80 -- the two best-known verses, beginning with "Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife" -- are omitted here? In the "influences" section, it is noted that Thomas Hardy's fourth novel is named "Far from the Madding Crowd", and in "critical response", the fact that Wordsworth singled out lines 77-80 for special praise is mentioned. The lines themselves, however, are not included. Would anyone object if I were to add them? DoctorJoeE review transgressions/ talk to me!  15:47, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Very good point. Fully support inclusion. Martinevans123 (talk) 16:37, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Revisions 2015
While I appreciate all the hard work that went into the rewriting in order to meet the good article standard, many parts read like a string of references sewn together on the slenderest of commentaries. In some cases there is no explanation of why certain conclusions were reached by the authors cited, which make the article obscure and unhelpful in those places. In some cases, also, the editor has plainly mistaken what his source was saying, as in the passage that asserted that Gray followed Petrarchan metrics. Since Petrarch wrote in Italian and Italian versification differs widely from English, this is plainly impossible. Some other assertions of influence are similarly questionable without further explanation. I have accordingly edited out such instances. They diminished the article's effectiveness and quality. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 12:53, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

In going through the sections on the critical response, it was clear that several passages were off-topic, in that they dealt with criticism of the rest of Gray's poetry, rather than the idividual work which is the present article's subject. This was particularly so when dealing with Dr Johnson and Wordsworth, who deplored Gray's artificiality in general but exempted the Elegy. That needed repeating only once, rather than over and over. In almost every reference to Wordsworth the distinction was not made and such passages have therefore been deleted. Earlier claims that certain works of his were indebted to the Elegy were not substantiated by facts, only by assertions, and were therefore unacceptable in an encyclopaedic article.

In addition, various sentences in the final sections more properly belonged elsewhere in the expanded article and have been transferred. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 11:07, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Putting in another Wikisource Template
I've put another Wikisource template nearer to the Poem section. I'm a new Wikipedian and while editing I marked it as a minor edit, but re-reading the minor edit guidelines, it looks like that sort of thing is verboten.

I think that a more highly-visible link to the original text of the work on Wikisource, either at the top of the article or near the commentary on the poem, would be a good thing. I've added the Wikisource template to the top of the Poem section, but it may have stolen the limelight from an image directly beneath it, so further edits might be good. Nokkromancer (talk) 05:24, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Morality and death
"...the poem's discussion of morality and death..." : was "mortality" intended here? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Backep1 (talk • contribs) 11:08, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Somebody would need to check the original source, but as its title refers to "A Poem of Moral Choice and Resolution" I would guess that "morality" is correct. MichaelMaggs (talk) 22:58, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, I see your point now. I ought to pay more attention to the moral of the poem. Backep1 (talk) 07:01, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Omission
Have we left out the most powerful stanza? Namely:

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,

And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,

Awaits alike th' inevitable hour.

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

174.56.173.38 (talk) 03:50, 1 October 2023 (UTC)kolef174.56.173.38 (talk) 03:50, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
 * No, "we" have not; the final line is referred to further on in the article. Sweetpool50 (talk) 10:43, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Ah, but "we" left out the preceding three lines which are so beautiful and powerful. 174.56.173.38 (talk) 20:16, 9 October 2023 (UTC)
 * The French translation of two more lines from that stanza are discussed later. To my mind, the "Poem" section is overloaded with quotation already. If it hadn't been that the earlier version had been given Good Article status, I would have thinned them down or made sure that most only appeared where there was room to discuss their function within the poem as a whole. 'Power' and 'Beauty' are subjective conceptions and would need WP:RS. Sweetpool50 (talk) 22:03, 9 October 2023 (UTC)
 * All that power and beauty lead but to the grave, no? 174.56.173.38 (talk) 19:18, 17 October 2023 (UTC)kolef174.56.173.38 (talk) 19:18, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Please read WP:OR and WP:NPOV. Wikipedia is not the place for personal essays and opinions. We just collect what other people have said, using sources regarded as reliable and valid. Gorpik (talk) 09:51, 18 October 2023 (UTC)
 * That misses the point. It would not be difficult to find citations to third parties in support of my suggestion, and those should be included in the main article.  174.56.173.38 (talk) 00:04, 5 November 2023 (UTC)kolef174.56.173.38 (talk) 00:04, 5 November 2023 (UTC)