Talk:Miscellany

Lead section
How does the quotation from "Laura Mandell and Rita Raley argue that:" get to be so prominent within the lead? "argue" is a very ambiguous word: who are they arguing with? have they written a treatise which tends to prove a particular argument?--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 08:55, 11 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Hi Felix. The quote you mention is placed in the lead because it is important to distinguish miscellanies from anthologies, at least until the difference is more widely understood. In fact, the very first version of this article - only a few weeks ago - was declined because of the ongoing confusion: it was considered that miscellanies and anthologies were more or less the same (a notion not helped by the fact that 'miscellany', 'miscellanies' and 'miscellanist' all redirected to the Anthology article). I sought out a quotation for the lead which would help to distinguish between two commonly mistaken terms, and following this the article was accepted. I provide the archived discussion from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Literature below. Perhaps 'argue' is too strong for the article lead - however it is the case that people working on miscellanies have had to argue repeatedly for their difference from anthologies - maybe 'state' would be better? BridgenAJ (talk) 10:19, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your interesting explanation. It was only when I saw this featured on the Main Page as a DYK that I knew of its existence. I have tried to stay out of the field of History of Literature since the way it is studied and written about has developed greatly since my own study of Eng. Lang. & Lit. I would expect most encyclopaedias of literature to regard them as separate forms and that the fullest dictionary definitions would explain how they differ. Anthologies generally have contents selected from some much larger quantity in some organized way and their compilers often have to explain at length how they have made their choice. The miscellany as a form does not have to consist of literary writngs at all. You are right to say the difference is not widely understood and needs to be described as clearly as possible for the users of this encyclopaedia. The quotation has to be attributed to its authors; and this article must have a comprehensive "lead" of no more than four paragraphs, preferably without citations. Using "argue" with that meaning seemed odd and perhaps uncommon in British English. It is obvious that the article is needed and well written.--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 15:26, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

[archived discussion] Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Miscellanies
"Dear literature enthusiasts:

There is an interesting article awaiting review at Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Miscellanies. Right now Miscellanies is redirected to Anthology. Are these terms interchangeable? Should the articles be merged? That would be quite a job. &mdash;Anne Delong (talk) 03:14, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Dear Anne et al.,

I am pleased to say that the article you mention has been reviewed and now has its own page at 'Miscellany'. Though the anthology and miscellany share a similar basic definition, in describing a collection of works by different authors, there are important formal, aesthetic, and historical differences between them. I have since drawn attention to such differences in the Miscellany article lead, and also the section (Miscellany). Michael Suarez sums up the difference nicely:


 * The miscellany, then, typically celebrates – and indeed constructs – taste, novelty and contemporaneity in assembling a synchronous body of material. It should be distinguished from the anthology, which honours – and perpetuates – the value of historicity and the perdurance of established canons of artistic discrimination in gathering texts recognized for their aesthetic legitimacy.

I believe what Suarez means, more simply, is that miscellanies emphasise variety, collectiveness, and popularity (in being produced for a contemporary audience), while anthologies prioritise selectivity and canonicity (a determination of what are "the best" literary productions from a set period/movement). However, there are examples of some miscellanies verging on being anthologies, and vice versa. Nevertheless, the two terms 'miscellany' and 'anthology' are useful in discriminating what are two different forms of publication; though their history is related, the more formalised anthology in fact supplanted the miscellany by the end of the 18th century. Perhaps this is why the confusion exists, because we only really encounter anthologies these days?

In answer to your other question therefore, I think the anthology article ought to remain separate. There are other ways in which it might be positively developed. It seems quite general currently, and would benefit from a more detailed description of the historical development of anthologies (predominantly in the 18th century) - and more specifically the literary anthology. Then it would nicely tie in with the miscellany article.

BridgenAJ (talk) 14:26, 24 April 2013 (UTC)"

Different authors?
Is the definition of a miscellany limited to collections of works by different authors? Does it not also encompass works by a single author which contain several writings on disparate topics or in disparate formats? My first exposure to the word was Neil Gaiman's work Angels and Visitations: A Miscellany, which falls into the latter category, being a collection of odds and ends ranging from unrelated short stories to poems to lyrics. I note that neither the Wiktionary definition nor the Merriam-Webster definition limits the term to works by different authors. But I am not an expert, so I thought I should pose the question here. -- GentlemanGhost  (converse)  19:42, 28 October 2016 (UTC)