Talk:Madeleine L'Engle

awkward phrasing throughout
For the biography of a woman who devoted so much of her life to the practice and pedagogy of writing, this article is full of bizarro sentences. Someone with strong editorial skills needs to do something about the many active/passive voice issues; run-on sentences; and widespread comma frenzy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.163.238.118 (talk) 07:15, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Meg's Ph.D?
"It is sometimes ambiguous whether Meg ... has also acquired her Ph.D."

Odd statement. Are there other times when it's unambiguously stated one way or the other? --wwoods 06:47, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure L'Engle has it each way at least once, and I don't think it was clearly just a case of before she didn't, now she does. But the sentence does look weird, and I'm not averse to removing or replacing it. -- &#2325;&#2369;&#2325;&#2381;&#2325;&#2369;&#2352;&#2379;&#2357;&#2366;&#2330;|Talk&#8253; 20:12, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Picture
I switched out the picture on this page. The one that was previously here wasn't tagged, and may be deleted. I went and found a publicity picture used on her page at WaterBrook Press. If the first picture doesn't get deleted, it's the better one, and should probably be incorporated into the article. -Tim Rhymeless (Er...let's shimmy) 06:17, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Meaning?
"The questions that she raises engage the thoughtful reader." What exactly does that mean? Oswald Glinkmeyer 00:08, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, whatever it means, it's original research, unless that sentence and the sentence before it are rephrased as "Though her work all addresses issues of faith, critics and reviewers have noted that her work is more about raising questions of belief and faith than about promoting dogma. Citation". I'll delete it, and someone can restore it if they feel like finding a supporting source. Deborah-jl Talk 00:28, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
 * My initial impression is that the sentence is what used to be called a "throwaway sentence." In this case a sentence that can generally be said about most decent writing. Without making a connection either to some outside source or being better woven into the thread, it doesn't really have much meaning and does not add to the information in the article.  Sort of like saying in a Shakespeare entry, "His plays are interesting for those who watch them."  That may be true, but what does it add to the article?  Not much.  Deletion is the best route until it can be re-thought. Oswald Glinkmeyer 02:57, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

biography source
That's some good bio information that's been added. Is there a reference we can cite for it? Deborah-jl Talk 13:17, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

That's in the bibliography and external links. Do you want individual citations? I checked my facts in A Circle of Quiet, Suncatcher, a web page about Wrinkle (last citation in the external links) and First Words (but ended up finding the same facts in A Circle of Quiet). A few of the recent facts (e.g. Bion's death) I checked in my own L'Engle site, but these in turn came from the official site, the 2004 New Yorker article, a few emails from people in contact with L'Engle, and the Bonastra discussion archive. I can probably backtrack these if necessary.

On the Meg's doctorate issue - I've been meaning to look into this, but off the top of my head I think that remark about not bothering with the degree is in The Arm of the Starfish, while the reference to having the PhD is in one of the later Polly O'Keefe books. Meg could well have gone back to school in the interrim. In fact, Meg's midlife crisis was to be the subject of the novel L'Engle was working on in the late 1990s, The Eye Begins to See. I wish she could finish that.

Karen 16:17, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

"Christian beliefs" reference
I note with some concern a recent edit to the intro, removing a reference to Christian beliefs in L'Engle's work. Is there a good reason not to revert on this? Although L'Engle has disputed the label "Christian writer," it seems disingenuous to ignore this aspect of both her fiction and nonfiction. On the other hand, the fiction isn't all that obvious about this--well, maybe. Has anybody a good argument one way or the other?

Karen 08:57, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Heritage?
Anyone know? Mike 7 08:04, 22 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The name L'Engle comes from a maternal great-grandmother, who was born Madeleine Saunders in Charleston, S.C., and spent part of her childhood in Spain while her father was ambassador there. She married "a young army surgeon," William Johnson L'Engle.  The surname is French, but ML'E's maternal forbears seem to all be old Southern families. (This is all from her book The Summer of the Great-Grandmother, ISBN 0-06-254506-X.)  I don't recall reading anything about the Camp side of the family.  Most of L'Engle's work reflects her years in New York, Europe, South Carolina, Connecticut and Florida, and stories of ancestors in those same places. Karen | Talk | contribs 00:15, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, I made the French assumption by the last name, though it appears that portion of her ancestry is not very large. Mike 7 02:18, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I would assume her French ancestry is Huguenot? There are several Huguenot/Southern characters in her books.

Spin off article on characters
The long section about her characters is important, but should be its own article. They are distinct from her, and if we are going to go on about them to this degree, they need their own page so as to stop dominating an article that is supposed to be about L'Engle herself.

I'd do it myself if I were sure of the appropriate way to title it. We need to find a parallel case, perhaps discussing it under the rubric of WikiProject Novels. J. K. Rowling came to mind, and it's true that there is no parallel section on her page discussing all the HP characters ... on the other hand, they all appear in a single book series, which makes for a clear title. The same is true for the case of C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia. Anne McCaffrey is probably the closest case I can think of, and no one has done this yet for her characters, either ... Lawikitejana 06:32, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I think this is probably a good idea. I haven't seen this in authors' pages, but there are certainly parallels for tv series articles.  I anticipate that many of these characters will eventually have articles of their own, but not necessarily all of them. Yes, by all means, bring it up in WP Novels  and we'lltake it from there. Karen | Talk | contribs 09:24, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Someone started them... &#39;&#39;&#91;&#91;User:Kitia&#124;Kitia]] 01:21, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, so far the four Murry children and Polly O'Keefe are covered - I did much of the work on them. There should be articles about at least four more - Vicky Austin, Canon Tallis, Zachary Gray and Adam Eddington. I think the question, though, is whether the short descriptions of each character currently on this author's article need to be spun off into an overview article called Major Characters in Books by Madeleine L'Engle or somesuch, to shorten the portion of the main article that isn't directly about the author herself. Alternatively, there could be a simple list here, e.g.


 * Charles Wallace Murry
 * Meg Murry
 * Canon Tallis
 * Minor Characters in the Books of Madeleine L'Engle
 * ...in which the catch-all article would cover one-off and two-book protagonists such as Phillipa Hunter and Katherine Forrester Vigneras.


 * Or we could just leave it alone, perhaps shortening descriptions of characters who have articles. Karen | Talk | contribs 03:41, 28 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I'll try to start those articles, once I read the "Austin's" and "Polly O'Keefe" books. Anyway, I'd have to read the L'Engle books that I haven't read and re-read the ones I did for me to come up with a complete list. However, judging that you read the books, you and others could be of assistance. &#39;&#39;&#91;&#91;User:Kitia&#124;Kitia]] 23:58, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Madeleine L'Engle.jpg
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BetacommandBot (talk) 14:54, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Bibliographic Overview
There is an incorrect statement in this section:

often implied and occasionally explicit in L'Engle's works is that the phenomena that people call religion, science and magic are simply different aspects of a single seamless reality; a similar theme may arguably be discerned in the fiction works of C. S. Lewis...

I am certain the C. S. Lewis did not believe this. I don't see how anyone could make this mistake about him! I feel that this should be corrected but I have never edited an article before. This may be the first.

Poor Scholarship
The queries raised in this discussion upon the author Madeleine L'Engle all question her scholarship. This is most certainly a worthy question as included in this book is a verse which she claims the author was Sir Thomas Browne. It is not ! So readers beware of this author's dubious claims of her sources. The verse beginning- 'If thou could'st empty all thyself' etc. etc. is most definitely NOT by Sir Thomas Browne (1605-82) perhaps L'Engle has conflated him or muddled him up by cryptoamnesia with another Browne who was a poet.

Scholarship of James Eason

As ever the devoted scholarship of James Eason comes to the rescue identifying the true author of the verse 'If thou couldst empty thyself' etc. etc. Thank you James ! James Eason identifies the true source of verse attributed erroneously to Sir Thomas Browne here !

Proposed merge with The Summer of the Great-grandmother
Is the book notable enough for a stand alone article? Jcmiller1215 (talk) 20:44, 3 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Since that article has stood at only a single sentence for over a year, I've merged it. But if it's notable enough for its own article, it's fine for someone to recreate the article later. --Delirium (talk) 11:35, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Pluto and the Crab Nebula
I think someone should find a place for L'Engle's notorious demand during the sale of the film rights to A Wrinkle in Time" where she keeps the rights for Pluto and the Crab Nebula, which almost crashed the whole dealEricl (talk) 15:15, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Expanding of lede
Your tag says the lede needs expanding to cover all the main points of the article. I see it the other way round. I think the article is over-long and rambling, and that the present lede provides an adequate summary. Valetude (talk) 23:53, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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External links modified (January 2018)
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Wrong link
In the "Awards, honors, and organizations" section (as on 2018Apr09), the "Margaret A. Edwards Award from the American Association" is linked to the American Association baseball league and the Margaret A. Edwards Award is linked to the Margaret A. Edwards Award that is given by the American Library Association. I suspect that this is an error. - 198.103.161.1 (talk) 14:56, 9 April 2018 (UTC) a passing reader


 * ✅. Thanks for the note! Binksternet (talk) 16:36, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Classification as young adult author in lead
While L’Engle did write a large body of young adult fiction, the lead should also include reference to her adult fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. The popularity of the Wrinkle series does warrant mention in the lead, but she wrote prolifically across genres, as the bibliographic overview and selected works sections show. ScoutHarris (talk) 03:10, 7 July 2019 (UTC)


 * I made this update. Thanks! ScoutHarris (talk) 23:06, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Reorganization
I reorganized a few of the sections in a way that (I believe) improves the flow of the article.ScoutHarris (talk) 23:17, 31 August 2019 (UTC)