Talk:Morris Bishop

Eccentrics and Exotics
I imagine that the whole of A Gallery of Eccentrics (1928) is reproduced (perhaps in revised form, and together with newer material) within The Exotics (1969). However, I haven't seen the earlier book, there's no mention of it within the later one, and Jebb and Eddy's Morris Bishop and Alison Mason Kingsbury: A Bibliography of Their Works has no comment on the relationship between the two books. Can anyone make a knowledgable comment on this? -- Hoary (talk) 22:54, 26 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I misimagined. Their contents are in the same spirit, but don't overlap. Twelve "eccentrics" in the earlier book, 21 in the later one; and nobody appears in both books. -- Hoary (talk) 22:06, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

"not without considerable ethnocentric bias"
In this edit (February 2008), an editor who hasn't contributed since May 2010 added:


 * An expository look into Bishop's perspectives on American history can be found in his frequent contribution of articles to American Heritage Magazine. While he possessed extensive knowledge on the subject, his writings, particularly those concerning the Iroquois, are not without considerable ethnocentric bias.

J. Brandon Loberg, the editor in question, added as reference:


 * Bishop, Morris (1969): The End of the Iroquois" American Heritage Magazine, October, 1969, http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1969/6/1969_6_28.shtml

Thus one of Bishop's articles was presented as evidence for the considerable ethnocentric bias of itself and others. (And it continued to be, until this edit of mine in July 2017.)

I suppose that this means "I, J. Brandon Loberg, see considerable ethnocentric bias in Bishop's historical writings; for a striking example of this, see his article 'The End of the Iroquois'." Hmm. I (Hoary) would be surprised if an article published in a mainstream US historical magazine by somebody born in 1893 did not have considerable ethnocentric bias; thus even without bothering to read the article I'm inclined to believe this. But we don't splatter our references to earlier historical works with such comments; instead, it's something that goes without saying. Are Bishop's works noteworthily ethnocentric? (Do authorities single out Bishop as a writer of such stuff?) If so, the article should say this (with one or more references); if not, it shouldn't. Comments? -- Hoary (talk) 00:48, 27 August 2017 (UTC)


 * I've removed this. -- Hoary (talk) 22:54, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

Early translations
Apropos of these two books:


 * . Teodoro the Sage. New York, Boni and Liveright, 1923. Translated by Bishop..
 * . Beatrice Cenci. Two volumes. New York: Boni and Liveright, 1925. . London: Heinemann, 1926. . Translated by Bishop and Henry Longan Stuart. About Beatrice Cenci.

ProQuest provides anonymous NYT reviews of both:


 * "Pointed essays by an Italian journalist". 18 March 1923.
 * "Beatrice Cenci rescued from prejudice and myth". 20 December 1925.

Both reviews are long and very favourable. However, the former seems to say nothing whatever about the translation, and the latter merely says "The translation, by Morris Bishop and Henry Longan Stuart, is agreeable". (The word "is" is illegible; but what we see is entirely compatible with "is", and I'd be very surprised if it were anything else.)

Nothing in either review is obviously usable for an article on Bishop; but it will be usable for an article here on either Lucatelli or Ricci. -- Hoary (talk) 00:35, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

Pre-eminentest
Bishop wrote:


 * The aim of poetry, or Heavy Verse, is to seek understanding in forms of beauty. The aim of light verse is to promote misunderstanding in beauty's cast-off clothes. But even misunderstanding is a kind of understanding; it is an analysis, an observation of truth, which sneaks around truth from the rear, which uncovers the lath and plaster of beauty's hinder parts.

This is good stuff; I don't want to truncate it.

In his NYT review of A Bowl of Bishop, Nichols quotes this, but cuts off "it is an analysis . . .". He thereupon comments: "at that kind of understood misunderstanding, Mr. Bishop is one of the pre-eminentest [sic]".

Our article suggests that he's commenting on the full description, whereas he isn't. I could have pointed out the discrepancy, but I thought doing so would look pedantic. Other editors may disagree. -- Hoary (talk) 05:02, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

"Men Who Cultivated Their Eccentricity"
In this edit (January 2006, and before the article had any numbered references), Dpbsmith added two nuggets:


 * as well as his 1928 book, A Gallery of Eccentrics, which profiled twelve unusual individuals.


 * * Harding, Gardner (1929): "Men Who Cultivated Their Eccentricity", The New York Times, March 17, 1929, p. BR5

I've just now removed the latter. Though I looked for it via ProQuest, I can't find the NYT article. And even if I could find it, it's not necessary in order to show that Bishop did indeed have such a book published -- Worldcat will confirm this.

I would like to see the NYT article, though, because I imagine that it could be summarized (and perhaps quoted) to the benefit of this WP article on Bishop. -- Hoary (talk) 00:27, 25 October 2017 (UTC)


 * PS Yes it is at ProQuest after all. -- Hoary (talk) 22:59, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Poetry prizes
I was about to add:

The Morrison Poetry Prize, founded in 1909 by James T. Morrison and continued by Bishop and awarded annually for the best poem or set of poems by an undergraduate, and the Corson Browning Prize, founded in 1902 by Hiram Corson and awarded annually for the best student essay on Robert Browning, "were combined in 1966 into the Corson-Bishop Poetry Prize".

However, this says of the "Corson-Bishop Poetry Prize": "name change 1975"; and here is a mention of the "Corson-Morrison Poetry Prize".

Guess: The Morrison and Corson Browning prizes were merged in 1966 into the Corson-Morrison Poetry Prize, which in 1975 was renamed the Corson-Bishop Poetry Prize.

But that's only a guess. Does anyone know? -- Hoary (talk) 23:16, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Fiske Petrarch collection
I have perpetrated what follows (after markup stripping):

"Toward the end of his life, Bishop worked as the curator of the Olin Library's Fiske Petrarch Collection. Reviewing the catalogue of this collection, Joseph G. Fucilla was disappointed that the library had only half-heartedly been acquiring newer publications with which to keep up to date the collection that Willard Fiske had started so grandly."

I think it's a fair summary of what Fucilla writes. But in context, it seems to be Bishop who stands accused of halfheartedness or incompetence in acquisitions. Fucilla doesn't say this, and for all I know the problem may just have been that the money wasn't there. Comments, suggestions?

Incidentally, this Petrarch collection seems quite remarkable -- yet the last time I looked, it went unmentioned in the article on Willard Fiske. -- Hoary (talk) 07:42, 11 November 2017 (UTC)


 * It's still unmentioned. Do we have any librarians hereabouts? (Well, yes we do: the hugely overworked DGG. Anyone else?) -- Hoary (talk) 01:44, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

A university or its press (they're not the same)
Lopifalko, thank you for your recent, well-intended edit; but to say that a book is published by XYZ University Press is not at all the same as to say it's published by XYZ University. The university presses (if they're any good, and most are) tend to be more or less autonomous; and universities that have affiliated university presses do also and routinely publish rather humdrum stuff directly. To go from "Dial Press" to "Dial" may be an improvement, but to go from "Michigan University Press" (if this is correct) to "Michigan University" is most definitely not, in my opinion. -- Hoary (talk) 09:42, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
 * From memory, I am doing this precisely because it is what I have seen you do -- leaving a link to the uni press but changing the link text. Maybe I am wrong. I am only too happy to revert. -Lopifalko (talk) 10:01, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't think that I've ever done this. I follow the advice of Chicago, 15th ed (the one I happen to possess), page 557:
 * The word University in names of university presses may be shortened to Univ., so long as it is done consistently. A place-name that is part of a publisher's name, however, should always be spelled out: Univ. of South Carolina Press. The word Press should not be omitted from the name of a university press because the university itself may issue publications independently from its press. Where there is no ambiguity, the word may be omitted; for example, Pergamon as a short form of Pergamon Press.
 * I do knock "Publishing", "Publishers", "& Sons", "Inc", and the like (and initial "The") off publishers' names; however. (But really, aren't you mixing me up with somebody else? Another oddity is that I rarely provide Wikilinks for publishers' names within bibliographies. If somebody has already done much of this work, I'll continue it; but I don't instigate it.) -- Hoary (talk) 13:41, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
 * OK sorry I must have gotten you confused with someone else. -Lopifalko (talk) 13:53, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Cornell Stain kerfuffle
The article History of Cornell University currently cites
 * "Cornellians Blush as Mystery Novel Satirizes Campus; Anonymous Author Hits Faculty, Officers, Architecture". The Cornell Daily Sun. Vol. 62, no. 91. February 2, 1944.

Unfortunately I can't find this in the Daily Sun's website. But if it resurfaces, it might say something worth citing. -- Hoary (talk) 22:53, 15 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Also this is a student newspaper, which we generally don't cite for purposes of reliability. czar  15:50, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Book Review Digest index
Here are the BRD annual volumes in which you'll find aggregated major book reviews for the respective volume: czar 14:52, 2 September 2022 (UTC)


 * @Hoary, continuing from Wikipedia talk:The Wikipedia Library, let me know which of the above volumes you want to see and I'll do what I can to help czar  05:42, 3 September 2022 (UTC)


 * That's very generous of you, . 1942, and just for Spilt Milk. I haven't yet found any review of it, anywhere (though I haven't yet looked anywhere that I know would charge me money to read any review). ¶ I'd like to be able to work autonomously where possible; so do please tell me: when I arrive at the page BRD annual volumes, how do I proceed to the 1942 volume? A very few of the BRD volumes have their year clearly labelled by the uploader (or by IA), and a greater number have the year visible on the front cover. 1942 isn't any of these; how do I specify it, or how (other than by "brute force") do I identify it among the list? -- Hoary (talk) 07:58, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
 * The Internet Archive is like a big junk drawer: the metadata is inconsistent and there isn't always a linear way to find something. I just threw together this index to BRD and it looks like IA doesn't host the 1942 volume. So to do this autonomously, your next step would be to track down that volume in a library or find a library with access to the digitized BRD (for example, the NYPL has it on premises). E.g., in my case, because the NYPL is God's gift to mankind, I've requested a scan. For working autonomously, I'd try your local major university's research library. This is that edge of the Internet where not everything is online.  czar  15:09, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

, I'd somehow got the (wrong) impression that you had not only been able to eyeball a set of the covers of BRD as held [if that's the right word] at IA, but had somehow been able to search through the text of the entire set. Seems I was wrong; but your subsequently confected index to BRD will be very useful in the future. While promising much (to those lucky enough to be in NY), the NYPL listing of BRD says that the 1942 volume isn't available -- but perhaps that's because it's undergoing a partial scan. ¶ I'm lucky/unlucky here (in Tokyo): there are many university libraries within cycling distance and a lot of them are very patchily brilliant. But those with excellent holdings are rare indeed; and getting permission to use any of them, even only for a very specific and minor purpose, is not easy. (Incidentally, almost none make use of OCLC: most use [the much better organized] CiNii. Thus this, this, this, and this for BRD.) -- Hoary (talk) 22:59, 4 September 2022 (UTC)
 * WorldCat/OCLC's pretty good but they just redesigned the site so a little to be desired there. I'll let you know when that partial scan comes in. ;) czar  23:45, 4 September 2022 (UTC)
 * , what I meant was that most Japanese libraries don't inform WorldCat of their holdings; so no matter how good WorldCat might be, it doesn't help me locate nearby copies of particular books. But when I'm looking for bibliographical information about a particular edition of a particular book, WorldCat tends to have an array of entries, of varying informativeness and accuracy; whereas CiNii tends instead to have a single, informative and accurate entry. -- Hoary (talk) 02:42, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, that is certainly one area in which WorldCat could improve czar  02:45, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
 * @Hoary, voilà (save a copy as this will go offline). Check the front of one of the BRD volumes on Internet Archive for a guide on reading the abbreviated markings or let me know if you need a hand but otherwise pretty neat huh? czar  14:17, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Excellent, ! And excellent timing. Thank you. I'm about to remove myself from the internet for three days or so, and am now here just to check whether anything needs to be done in a hurry. There was: downloading. Done! And yes, I'll work on the material soon after I return. -- Hoary (talk) 20:32, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

No infobox, please
Please do not add an infobox. See this arbitration report, and, for a more recent discussion, the talk page for the article on Stanley Kubrick. -- Hoary (talk) 08:54, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Canadianness
Thinking that MB's early background was about as Canadian as it was American, I gradually added a total of 13 "Canadian" categories to the article ("Category:Canadian biographers", etc). But come to think of it, I haven't seen him referred to as Canadian (or as "American/Canadian" or whatever). And therefore in this edit I removed the "Canadian" categories (while preserving two specifics: "Category:People from Brantford", "Category:Writers from Ontario"). If it's later determined that he was Canadian (as well of course as American), an editor can look in that one edit of mine for 13 categories to add. -- Hoary (talk) 01:19, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

Hoary (talk) 05:09, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

If anyone's interested, this GA review led to a discussion elsewhere. -- Hoary (talk) 22:15, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Lead too short, somehow
, you're saying that "This article's lead section may be too short to adequately summarize the key points" (my emphasis). Is it too short to adequately summarize certain key points; and if so, then which key points? -- Hoary (talk) 05:09, 3 August 2023 (UTC)


 * The lead is only two sentences long, while the article is nearly 7000 words. It does not summarize the early life section and does not adequately summarize the "writings and scholarship" section. For example, it says he worked in Romance studies but which Romance country/language? What time period did he specialize in? What was his main contribution(s) to the field? What was the critical reception of his non-scholarly and scholarly writings? This type of info should be in the lead. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  05:24, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

, I don't think there much much critical reception of anyone's light verse: it was published to amuse, and either succeeded or failed in this modest aim. Decades after its publication, its only well remembered exponents seem to be Ogden Nash, Don Marquis and Dorothy Parker; but I'm not sure that even they get PhD theses and books written about their works -- certainly nothing compared with the tons of earnest publications about the heavy verse of serious poets. At the time of publication, Bishop's verse collections got a few short notices in newspapers, but that was about it. I suppose a fair summary of what little was published would be "Reviewers of his verse collections generally enjoyed them." The Widening Stain was an aberration and something he tossed off for fun; I don't think it merits a mention in the lead. Still, I've bulked up the lead. -- Hoary (talk) 22:29, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
 * As for the near-invisibility of American light verse in retrospect; Ben Yagoda's About Town is a large and well-received history of The New Yorker but hardly mentions light verse at all, instead making a very few, very short comments that dismiss it (plus "casuals") as mere filler. (The reader may notice a few appreciative mentions of "Bishop". All refer to Elizabeth Bishop.), is the lead OK now? -- Hoary (talk) 01:11, 7 August 2023 (UTC)


 * , may this article's lead section still be too short to adequately summarize the key points? -- Hoary (talk) 11:43, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

Prose style
Any comments on the emboldened sentence within the following?


 * Bishop attended Cornell University from 1910 to 1913, earning an A.B. degree, and also Cornell's Morrison Poetry Prize in 1913 (for a poem Bishop later called "hellishly serious") and an A.M. degree in 1914. He then sold textbooks for Ginn & Co, joined the US Cavalry (and unhappily served under Pershing in the "punitive expedition" in Mexico), was a first lieutenant in the US Infantry in World War I and a member of the American Relief Administration mission to Finland in 1919, and worked as a copywriter in a New York advertising agency, the Harry Porter Company, for one year. He returned to Cornell to begin teaching French and Italian in 1921 and to earn a Ph.D. in 1926; his thesis was on the plays of Jules Lemaître.

It mystified the GA reviewer, who singled it out as exemplifying a convoluted and confusing style, and asks "(i) Was he selling textbooks while in the cavalry? (ii) A member of the ARA and the infantry at the same time? (iii) Was he cavalry or infantry?" (my numbering). To which my responses are respectively, "(i) of course not; (ii) unclear, but probably yes; (iii) first the cavalry, then the infantry". Chopping up this sentence into little sentences would belabour the narrative; and we don't need to know years, let alone months, as each of these ventures seems to have been a false start, unrelated to anything in our subject's later career for which he is (weakly) remembered. (A single minor exception: advertising copy was a minor theme in his later verse.)

Arguably the "readability" of articles for younger readers (those about, say, "boy bands") should be at USA Today level. And certainly no article should have wilfully obscure prose. But to me, the prose above seems OK for its purpose. However, I'm very open to being persuaded otherwise, and to having obscurities pointed out (I've zapped a few in the last day). -- Hoary (talk) 07:04, 4 August 2023 (UTC) "in the last day" &rarr; "in the last few days". Hoary (talk) 01:26, 7 August 2023 (UTC)


 * So how about the prose? (Vaticidalprophet, perhaps?) -- Hoary (talk) 01:26, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
 * hmm. I have no qualms with that sentence on length/clauses and any way I can try cut it up sounds worse, I agree. If anything does stand out to me as potentially confusing some readers, it's the "He then..." opening as opposed to something like "In the following years..." -- if I try put myself in the mindset of "mistaking these for concurrent rather than consecutive" that's the element that could cause such confusion. I agree with not putting especially much stock in 'readability'-per-se and share a tendency to 1. write long and 2. not consider long sentences a problem. I once realized after the fact I wrote a 153-word sentence -- not in mainspace, thank god. Vaticidalprophet 01:34, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Vaticidalprophet, I hadn't thought of that. Thank you for the tip. I've now changed "He then" to "After that he", so that's one potential ambiguity zapped. I've looked through the article for every other instance of the string "then", quite prepared to rewrite all -- but they were few and I think none was problematic, so I left them all as they were. Feel free to disagree, or to point out other sentences that are execrable in one way or another. ¶ A 153-word sentence can be lucid and stylish. (I've no idea of my own relevant stats.) -- Hoary (talk) 04:49, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Ah, I know a man for the job (if he's in the mood). Tonk – tonk – tonk,, your sterling work on "Azure-thighed tree frog" (among others) somehow triggers pleasant memories of the warm disagreements you and I had some years ago on stylistic matters. If you'd care to point out one or more horrid traits in the prose (or of course other aspect) of this article, please do so.

And a humdrum question about over/underlinking. A representative example:


 * The New York Times' regular book reviewer Orville Prescott described the book as "scholarly and yet lively", with "many smoothly flowing translations", yet suggested that it might be found too long to be read cover to cover.

Currently "Orville Prescott" is unlinked in the reference, my reason being that it's anyway linked in the body text. (And The New York Times isn't linked in either reference or this part of the body text, because it's linked elsewhere.) Would more linking be helpful? -- Hoary (talk) 22:45, 7 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Long time no type, Hoary. I wouldn't link it again. Tony (talk)  03:11, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the touch-up, . A touch-up that exterminated also and however so ruthlessly that I almost felt sorry for these unappreciated lexical items. And me for my lack of skillz. (Oh well, at least I hadn't perpetrated albeit, located, or featuring.) -- Hoary (talk) 08:05, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
 * By order of Noetica. He applies what feels like electric-shock therapy to my writing. Tony (talk)  08:53, 8 August 2023 (UTC)