Talk:Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard/GA1

GA Review
The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.''

I will make what I believe to be minor, uncontroversial copy edits as I review the article. Please feel free to revert them if you disagree with them. Si Trew (talk) 06:03, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Reviewer: Si Trew (talk) 06:00, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Excuse me for taking so long to get round to this, but it is a long article deserving full attention.


 * GA review (see here for criteria)


 * 1) It is reasonably well written.
 * a (prose): } b (MoS):
 * Some very minor MOS issues on hyphens and section titles, generally pretty good. Prose sometimes is more complicated than need be. Copy edit follows.
 * All these have been addressed by nominee, myself and another editor.
 * 1) It is factually accurate and verifiable.
 * a (references): b (citations to reliable sources):   (OR):
 * Good references, assume well referenced, have checked a couple in print. A few minor POV statements covered below, but I don't think these are OR as such.
 * However there is one reference to Anonymous, 1896, which must fail WP:V. I think this is easily fixed by including the fuller reference (the magazine in which it is published) in the reference, it's in the text itself.
 * 1) It is broad in its coverage.
 * a (major aspects): b (focused):
 * 1) It follows the neutral point of view policy.
 * Fair representation without bias:
 * A few statements that may seem mildly POV (even if not intended to ) if not referenced; or the references being too far away from statements for them to be obviously from the referee not the WP author. But I am sure this is just through wording issues and not POV pushing, so can be easily fixed.
 * 1) It is stable.
 * No edit wars, etc.:
 * No reverts or undos on edit history, collaboration of several editors.
 * 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):
 * File:PortraitThomasGrayByJohnGilesEccart1747to1748.jpg is disputed copyright on Commons
 * File:Gray's_Monument.JPG is tagged as available on Commons now but is own work and so not disputed
 * I'm going to assume the disputed copyright is a Commons problem and it's free for use while it's there, or will be deleted if the copyright is found not to be in accord with GFDL/CC-SA.
 * 1) Overall:
 * Pass/Fail:
 * Happy to pass it, congratulations on everyone's hard work on this article. Si Trew (talk) 06:46, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Pass/Fail:
 * Happy to pass it, congratulations on everyone's hard work on this article. Si Trew (talk) 06:46, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Typos and bibliography
I have corrected a handful of obvious typos, but when I reached the bibliography section I stopped dead - much too big a job to put that right. - Tim riley (talk) 21:30, 4 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you for that. I must admit I got sidetracked but I picked up the version from this morning, which I have been copy editing for all morning (it is worth it, it is a good article if not a Good Article yet) so that should have been after your changes. Si Trew (talk) 13:36, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Copy review
Deliberately for the purpose of review I read this in full for the first time from a paper copy, and made notes as I went, to take an innocent's eyes on the article. This probably, then, seems very picky, but I can only say I came to this as an intelligent but ignorant reader and so if something jarred with me I noted it down, suggested an alternative, but by no means do I insist the alternative is the best.

Initially I had intended to make uncontroversial copy edits as I went along, but I feel not many would be seen as truly uncontroversial. So I leave them here.

On the whole I think it is a little underlinked (but only a little).

It also seems to me that this is written largely in British English but has had some things inserted in American English. Taking that tack, I have suggested a few minor copy changes where the text is unmistakably correct American English but incorrect British English.

Si Trew (talk) 14:55, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Lead

 * "An elegy in name, the poem is not an elegy in the true sense". I think by "the true sense" what is meant here is that it is not written in a certain poetic form (elegiac couplets)? Can we not just say so?
 * stoic, link?
 * There seems to be a general shying away from pronouns here. Last para, for example, "it failed to resolve the questions raised by the poem, or that the poem did not..." could be just "it failed to resolve the questions it raised, or [it] did not..."


 * I've done these. Si Trew (talk) 19:11, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Background

 * "many people around him died painfully and alone". How could they die alone if they were around him?
 * Horace Walpole, I think we need a link here, or at least state briefly his relationship to Gray. I've linked him, put "his childhood friend" (or something), and added a couple of refs (to Mack 2000).
 * "during that Christmas" -> "that Christmas"
 * "As Gray began to..." -> "as he began to..."
 * reputation of individuals" -> "individuals' reputations" (or at least "reputations of individuals")
 * Link Stoke Poges
 * "letter to Horace Walpole and sent it to him" -> "letter he sent to Horace Walpole".
 * "Before the final poem was published" -> "Before the final draft [or version] of the poem was published"
 * "Owen... without his approval". While the approval obviously means Gray's, it attaches to Owen, so Owen would pubish a poem without his own approval. Move "without his approval" up; "Gray received word that, even without his approval, William Owen would..."
 * "volume four" can we have "Volume IV"? Someone had already done this
 * "The revised version of 1768 was the version" -> "was that"
 * "where he attended the Sunday service". Vague. I imagine there was more than one. Communion, matins, what? "Attended each Sunday"?
 * "There were many translations of the poem into multiple languages". I doubt the translations were macaronic, so the "multiple...many" is excessive. How about "The poem was translated into many [other] languages"? I cut "into multiple languages" – the following sentence shows that.
 * "The poem was eventually translated into Spanish", a little bit POV: cut "eventually". Also "by 1823" and "by 1882" can these not just be "in 1823", "in 1882"?
 * Mostly except for the first one (dying painfully and alone), and the Sunday service. Si Trew (talk) 19:30, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I changed the wording on the dying bit and as for the Sunday service issue the source says: "on the Sunday following his arrival in Buckinghamshire, attended regular services at the parish church, where both he and his mother would have had the opportunity to pause and pay their respects at the grave of Mary Antrobus" (p. 391, Macks 2000). Ooh Bunnies! Not just any bunnies... 23:43, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Composition

 * "The origins of the poem were most likely found..." there is something not right here, though it is grammatically correct. I just feel that with the following sentence having Mason finding them there, the "most likely" is somehow misplaced; I can not put my finger on it, but somehow it seems out of place. "It seems most likely that the poem has its origins in ..."?
 * "William Mason, who knew Gray and discussed Gray in...", -> "discussed him" (or "his work")
 * "22 stanza" needs hyphen if it is going to match "32-stanza" earlier. WP:MOSNUM?
 * Gray's commonplace book could do with a link or at least be uncapped; particularly because as "Gray's Commonplace Book" it might give the impression it was a published book of that name (like Dickens' Household Words, for example).
 * "more complete", can something be more complete? It is either complete or incomplete. But the meaning is clear enough. "Nearer completion" would not be right. It might be best to leave it as it be.
 * "There are two possible ways the poem was composed". This jars with me after the first para saying the origins of the poem were most likely etc; I wasn't then expecting to be thrown into a controversy after it having been settled on the most likely way. Would it be better somehow to say from the outset there were two possible ways? So that the section starts along the lines of "There are two possible ways", continues "The most likely origin", then the alternative?
 * "wrote to Mason and claimed" -> "to claim"
 * "The two did not resolve", I would make this start of new para. "Disagreement of the events" -> disagreement about? over? or just cut "of the events" (although I should not like to suggest they were generally disagreeable to each other).
 * "Regardless, Gray's outline". Gray's outline is not regardless. "Nevertheless" or "But".
 * "sometime in 1746" -> "some time". "sometime" means "occasional" or "at one time", "erstwhile".
 * "The epistolary evidence verifies" -> "the letters show". (Phew!)
 * "the likelihood of Walpole's dating the composition". Is it uncertain that Walpole dated it? So was it that Walpole's date is probably right, or that he probably dated it at all?
 * ",as Gray said in the 12 June 1740 letter that Gray saw". This clause is a mess and I cannot really make out what it means. First, make this a new sentence. Then, who saw the letter and who wrote it? "As Gray said in his letter of 12 June 1740, he saw....". Is Gray really meant here as the person seeing it, or Walpole (its addressee, I think, and if so probably reiterate it: in his letter to Walpole). Which two were not on speaking terms, there are three: Gray, Walpole and Mason? I presume it was Mason and Gray who were not on speaking terms, but the clause suggests it was Gray and Walpole. This is not pedantry, I assure you, I am genuinely confused who is doing what here. The more I re-read it the less sense I get from it, who saw what and said what.
 * "which alludes to" is there any way to make that stronger than "alludes"? If it says he is writing it, then just say so. "The only other letter in which Gray discusses the poem is that to Wharton of 11 September 1746, where he says he is working on it".


 * Mostly done, but it still needs looked at the structural points I've not ticked, "which alludes to", who's writing the letter about who was not on speaking terms with whom, and the general rehash to make the two possible ways more balanced, or at least not to surprise the reader with a second hypothesis after it seems we will only have one. Si Trew (talk) 19:39, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Had a stab at fixing them all except the last one. The source uses "alludes": "we recognize in this reference to 'a few autumnal Verses' of 'no poem except the Elegy to which Gray could be alluding'", p. 397 Mack 2000. Ooh Bunnies! Not just any bunnies... 00:08, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Genre

 * I see now that we are saying Gray's poem is not in the elegiac tradition of Theocritus. So my comment about the lead stands, where it says it is not an elegy "in the true sense", if this is what is meant by the true sense. I can understand that we don't want to throw Theocritus into the lead, but I still thing "in the true sense" is too vague there.
 * "mention of shepherds" -> shepherds. The others are also mentioned, so either mention them all, or let them stand each as mentioned.
 * "and the focus on nature is for setting and". This just sounds ugly to me, and takes "setting" to be a noun, which is unexpected. "And the focus on gelatin is for setting". How about "its being set in nature", but I have a feeling the word "setting" here could be bettered.
 * "although not necessarily for one individual". I think we have established it is not at all about one person, so this is wordy and rather legalese. How about "although not about a particular person"? I would go farther to "more about life and death in general than any particular person", but I do realise that is stretching it rather. If the reference 10 (Benedict 2003 p. 17) (where I am AGF) says those exact words, keep them but quote them.
 * "In its use of the English countryside", not sure if it used it that much in a literal sense (the poem doesn't itself go around farming or setting fire to foxes or whatever, so "use" is a bit vague here). I realise I am being very picky here, could we just not lose the whole clause? Or "By evoking the English countryside", how's that?
 * "In J. Dyer's Grongar Hill, and later [in another work] ... and..." If this is a list there are two many "and"s, though the point is rather subtle, if not then the middle work Beattie's is a parenthesis, and that's no good either, for ", and later in Beattie's" just put a comma, or ", then later in ". Either it's a list or it isn't but don't lay false scent.
 * Last para "Additionally, ", I jar at the use of this at the start of a para, though there is nothing wrong with it grammatically. Probably I jar at it for the opposite reason you may expect; there is nothing wrong with starting a sentence with "And" or "But", but this is out of the frying pan, into the fire. By not daring to use "And" it says "Additionally" instead. Just cut the word, the para stands well enough without it. "The poem is connected..."
 * "To the ode tradition". Can we have "ode" as a modifier? It sounds a bit ugly to me but I can't find an adjectival form for "ode" in the same way there is, for example, for "elegy" (elegiac). No dictionary I have (Collins, OED, Websters) lists one, so I'll accept it as the best way to put it if substitutes would be worse. (well, it's linked, which is probably all we can do)
 * "And partly relied on the diction of Petrarch". I'm not sure it relies on his diction, since nobody knows how he spoke. His metre? Also why not just Petrarch's diction, or Petrach's metre, not this X of Y business, in English we have the possessive and can say Y's X.
 * "In the shift between the first version and the final version" -> "Between the first and final versions".
 * "More Miltonic and less Horatian" -> "More like Milton and less like Horace". Housman wrote "Malt does more than Milton can to justify God's ways to Man"; he did not write that malt was more Miltonic than the Theistic. This is pure sophistry.


 * I've fixed most of these, but someone else still needs to sort out that in "focusing on the poet's own death" (i.e. not the narrator's), we're in two minds on whether the poet and narrator are the same person. Si Trew (talk) 19:53, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Poem

 * OK, I am a bit concerned that the poem is quoted almost in its entirety, but I can't find any particular reason to fault it. I'd prefer if the interspersed commentary was not all ascribed to one reference (Mack, 2000).

Themes
surnames after, but it is a bit more random than that in the article as it stands.
 * Opening para, by now we know it is "Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard", this need not be repeated.
 * "the death of the poet" -> "the narrator's death". You have to take care here, because in the lead and onwards you mention the narrator, and (I presume though it is never quite made clear) distinguish the narrator of the poem from Gray himself; here you combine the two.
 * Swift's version, I would suggest "satirical" rather than "comedic".
 * "Graveyard School", link to Graveyard poets if that is what you mean. (earlier)
 * "contains a duller emphasis" -> "has less emphasis". Before reading the next sentence I thought what it meant was that it was more morose or pessimistic.
 * Link euphemism.
 * New para at "There is a difference in tone..."
 * Which two versions of the elegy? We've established there were several. The first and last? The two published versions (the one with errors, the one without)?
 * I'm a bit at odds with this word "obscure" that also occurs in the lead. I am not sure that being rustic or common necessarily means one is obscure, and think this word should be cut. If the common or rustic man is mentioned, at least on a headstone, he can't have been that obscure. Can't they just stand on their own without qualification?
 * Taking reductio ad absurdem here, and the that the poetry immortalises them (as said later), they may be lost in name (which they are not if they have headstones) or in thought (which they are not if they have this elegy to them), so by RAD they are not obscure. The word I think is wrong, only that, they are just normal people but "obscure" has a somewhat odd twinge, maybe only in its modern use, and an air of high-falutin' about it, "the little man from the village". I am not going to say about oh it means Latin for round the corner, just that I find it the wrong word to use, and mention it only because it is important.
 * "The first version of the elegy", new para.
 * "The later version of the poem kept the stoic resignation regarding death, as he is still accepting death". Who? Gray? The narrator?
 * "The epitaph's conclusion also serves as an appropriate way to conclude the poem based on the philosophy within the poem as the indirect and reticent manner matches Gray's avoidance of spontaneity within the poem". And breathe. This sentence needs completely rewriting. Suggest as a first stab "The end of the epitaph is also the end of the poem, and serves to illustrate Gray's [the narrator's?] sideways stance and hesitance".
 * "faith that there is a hope". I don't think the faith is that there is a hope. Faith and hope mean the same thing here, I think, or at least, there is a hope or faith in something invisible, but the faith is not in the hope.
 * Locke, link to "philosophy of the sensations" to John Locke.
 * "To aid in the contemplation found in the later part of the poem" -> "To aid his contemplation, found later in the poem" (or drop "found" completely). Who is doing the finding, the narrator or the reader?
 * "The ending of the poem" -> "The end of"
 * "Additionally," cut
 * "It emphasises death affecting everyone". Well it is rather inevitable. I think what it means here is it affects survivors.
 * Link Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.
 * "ending of the poem is connected.... in that the beginning of the poem dealt ... and the ending describes... ", slip into past tense. "Deals".
 * "but still questions the matter anyway", I think "still" and "anyway" are synonyms here, one should go (I say "anyway" goes).
 * "When it comes to the difference" -> "Of the difference". Might lose "dead" after "renowned" (they're all dead so it doesn't need saying).
 * "democratic" here may not be quite right in any sense of the word really. How about "Death is not the perfect leveller"? Or is that worse?
 * "lie persons" -> "lie those" or "lie people".
 * "untoward circumstance", cut "untoward". (POV: it's OK in the quotes but this does suggest vaguely to me the opinion of the article's writer)
 * "The poem ends with the narrator" new para.
 * "Like many of Gray's poems, the poem". it. it. it. Pronouns need not become an endangered species. If you tell me oh well there is no antecedent for "it", which strictly is true, then write "The poem, like many of Gray's, ..."
 * "The ramifications of the comparison between the obscure and renowed is...." Do you think this compound noun is perhaps a wee bit too long? At least it should read "ramifications ... are"; but that the writer has forgotten how many ramifications we have is a clear sign that the noun is too long anyway. Finally we then get to "there are political ramifications" and have to remember the "Although". The whole sentence is upside down and probably needs splitting into two or three.
 * The sentence starting "The setting, Stoke Poges", rather gets stuck in a tar pit of parenthetical commas. "Both John Milton and John Hampden spent time near the setting of Stoke Poges, which was also affected by the English Civil War". I note in passing John Milton is given his forename here but only his surname earlier. I suggest cutting "John" here for both people (and link Hampden).
 * "The poem's composition could also have been prompted" – surely this belongs in section "Composition"? Which then requires a bit of juggling there: having decided there were only two balls, there are now three or four, introduced by this one later sentence (and referenced).
 * Jacobite needs a link, ideally to the trial itself. (Battle of Culloden was in 1746, is this the "trial" referred to?)
 * "that the messages are too universalised to require" -> "the poem's message is too universal to need", and later, "poem's composition" -> "its composition".
 * "support the working poor but look down on the poor that refused to work" -> "the poor who worked, but look down on those that refused to".
 * "rebellions or struggles by the poor in English history" -> "the poor's past rebellions and struggles"
 * "The poem ignores... manner": the political aspects here are dangling. These political aspects? But the whole sentence is a bit turgid.
 * "allows for Gray to discuss" -> "allows Gray to discuss" "Lets Gray discuss"
 * "Gray" and "the narrator" are again confused in this paragraph.
 * "Arguing that poetry is capable of preserving those who have died". I don't know if this is relevant but of course Shakespeare's sonnet "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day" (VIII if I remember correctly) also does exactly that in its last two lines; I only mention it not to cry "thief!" but that it comes from a long tradition.
 * "The argument between living.... those who have died" is an awfully long sentence.
 * "It is probable that Gray", POV or references needed.
 * "compared to the guilty Cromwell". POV, I realise in the poem itself this is all right, but not as outside it, in my view. so either the "guilty" (or "guilty Cromwell") should be quoted or removed. Stet, it is clearly in apposition to another reading of him being guiltless.
 * At "The poem's primary message" new para. Primary should mean "first" not "main", but it doesn't any more, the shock.
 * John Hampden again gets his first name in the last sentence, whereas Milton and Cromwell do not. I can accept that Hampden may need qualifying i.e. not because there were other Miltons and Cromwells but because he is not as well known (people assume Milton is John Milton, Cromwell is Oliver Cromwell), but within this article his name should be used consistently, and hwre we have Cromwell and Hampden and Milton all sometimes used with their first names and sometimes not. Any particular way is acceptable, and at first use I have no problem to use their full names then
 * (Just a vague observation of discomfort here, that doesn't really belong in a copy edit) The last couple of paras of this section are really rather more heavy than they need to be, in my subjective opinion. No particular gripe against the content, but it sometimes seems to make heavy weather of it.


 * I've done many of these (ticked) but the larger ones need looking at by someone more knowledgeable. Si Trew (talk) 20:10, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * In response to "the death of the poet" -> "the narrator's death", there is a poet in the poem that is not Gray. Ooh Bunnies! Not just any bunnies... 00:30, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Other notes:
 * The source uses "obscure": "Having first considered the possible advantages and disadvantages of a life of country obscurity... from the vantage of what we, as humans, leave behind us in the shape of testaments and memorials, Gray's elegist broaches hte larger and potentially more troublesome issue of nature's profligacy" - Mack 2001 p. 405. Obscure in this sense means unknown, I believe.
 * "The poem's composition could also have been prompted" - The Composition section is about the writing of drafts and other aspects of the publication. That line is about the possible political aspect of the poem and how it coincided with a political event.
 * Linked Jacobite as there is no page on the trial.
 * ""Gray" and "the narrator" are again confused in this paragraph." I don't believe it does confuse the two. Gray is used as the poem affecting real life and the narrator is used as part of the poem's internal aspects.
 * "At "The poem's primary message" new para." I unsplit it. Splitting the paragraphs seperates sentences from their citations.
 * I've attempted to sort the rest. Ooh Bunnies! Not just any bunnies... 02:13, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Influence

 * I look at the first sentence of the opening para here and it is just the sunshine coming out after the heavy weather of the stuff before. It says what it says so cleanly, so concisely, and there is just nothing to fault it. My hackles raised at the "English" in quotes, but they are needed, and the sentence is short enough not to need to explain them.
 * "to emend" I think is may be wrong ("amend"?): my Collins defines it as "to make corrections or improvements in a text by critical editing". It may be meant, but is, unfortunately I think it is one of those words that will be thought of as wrong even if it is right, so suggest avoiding it. I will not be the only one to think so.
 * "Alfred Tennyson" I suggest "Alfred, Lord Tennyson"; though I know both are correct and Wikipedia doesn't stand on honorific titles, it is the name he is more known by, and the title of his WP article.


 * '"kneel" and "toll"' I think needs explaining, and would it be just one phrase "kneel and toll"? My Brewer's doesn't give it, though presumably it means to kneel in prayer and pay repentance. M Wikipedia search gave nothing useful.
 * Link Wessex Poems and Other Verses.
 * "It is posible that parts of T. S. Eliot's"... new para. I'm not splitting paras just arbitrarily for length here, but Eliot is a long way poetically from Hardy.
 * the yew tree, is it worth mentioning this is traditionally associated with churchyards? Probably not.


 * I think these points have been dealt with now. I'm pretty certain that "kneel" was a typo; should have been "knell". Malleus Fatuorum 13:51, 12 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, I should have realised that myself. Sorry about that. Si Trew (talk) 15:14, 12 July 2010 (UTC)


 * OK that's looking good. Si Trew (talk) 15:18, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Critical response

 * The quotation from Gray's letter of 18 December 1750: there is a discussion currently at Wikipedia_talk:MOS, suggesting consensus that Wikipedia favours changing punctuation even within quotations to a more modern style. So the ampersand "&" (apparently archaic nowadays in some eyes) would be changed to " nd", and the capitals on nouns (except of course proper nouns) might also go. I think that is rather a folly, and there are counterarguments to leave them as they stand, but I merely note it for consideration. (Of course there are no long S's in these quotes, it is the discussion after that says about more general points.)
 * "From its publication" -> "From the time that it was published". It wasn't its publication that gained the praise, but the poem itself.
 * "for its universal aspects". An aspect necessarily takes in a view from one angle, and so cannot be universal.
 * "and G. became one of the most famous 18th century poets during his life". Slip here lose the hyphen between 18th and century. But if he lived in the 18th century it is really rather redundant to say he was one of the most famous of that century and not, say, of the 21st. So cut "18th century" entirely, and probably for "poets during his life" write "living poets". Similarly 20th century does not need the hyphen but a non-breaking space, see WP:HYPHEN:
 * Values and units used as compound adjectives are hyphenated only where the unit is given as a whole word. Where hyphens are not used, values and units are always separated by a non-breaking space (&amp;amp;&amp;nbsp;).


 * "In Canadian historic tradition". The tradition itself s not historic. "In Canadian history". Plains of Abraham could be linked.
 * "He supposedly said" is that WP:WEASEL? Not sure as the reference says "quoted" (well "qtd") in the work, but we should lose "supposedly" if we can, if it is RS and no doubt V then unless the reference also says supposedly we should lose it.
 * "sufficiently apparently" (in a quote). Allowing for the variation in English since that time, this still strikes me as a typo. I would also like Johnson's quote "and with these sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo", later grammarians would insist on "from which every bosom", so is this correct? I imagine it is, but can we check? Johnson was rather the grammarian so I imagine if he wrote it he meant it, but can we double check please?

Later response

 * The italics in Young's quote, can we make clear whose emphasis it is? In printing of that time, italics were not particularly used for emphasis, so that it may be we should make them magiscule.
 * "anthropomorphised" -> "personified".
 * "Beyond John Young" -> "As well as".
 * "Robert Potter's 1783 is a general"... his 1783 what?
 * "made by Johnson in the notes of the text". Who was making the notes? Johnson or Wakefield?
 * OK I see the next sentence "In 1785 G. Wakefield produced" and this needs to be combined with its previous; it is putting the cart before the horse.
 * "Following in 1791 was James Boswell's" -> "James Boswell followed in 1791 with" and link James Boswell or Life of Samuel Johnson or both.
 * "Of Lamar tine" is that a typo for "time"? It still doesn't make much sense to me even then. Lammas time?

20th-century response

 * Opening sentence "Critics at the beginning of the 20th century believed that its use of sound and tone made the poem great", "it" here attaches to "the beginning of the 20th century". Write "At the beginning of the 20th century, critics believed the poem's use of sound and tone made it great".
 * Empson 'claiming that the poem "means, as the context makes clear...' "that" -> "what"
 * "Metaphysical poetry", link and drop cap.
 * "Later in 1947," -> "Later, in 1947," (or just "In 1947").
 * "The prevailing view ... was to view". Too many "view"s, for second read "was that"
 * "was to view the poem as a powerful and". As a powerful what? Cut "a", probably
 * psychological questions within the poem" -> "in the poem"


 * I think all these issues have been addressed. Malleus Fatuorum 14:09, 12 July 2010 (UTC)


 * yes, that's looking good. Si Trew (talk) 15:26, 12 July 2010 (UTC)