Talk:Sonnet 147/GA1

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

Reviewer: Xover (talk · contribs) 14:08, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Overall status
Beginning review, more to come. --Xover (talk) 14:08, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Writing articles on individual sonnets is hard, but I think here the nominator has succeeded quite well. Almost all the major points are covered, and the prose mostly flows well. The article is well cited, from reliable sources, and for the most part avoids original research.

There are however some issues, as detailed below, that will need to be addressed in order to qualify as a Good Article. I'm putting this review on hold to allow the nominator to address these. Please feel free to ping me if you have any questions or if I can be of assistance. --Xover (talk) 14:08, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Note that as I have seen no activity over the past week I will be closing this review as failed at some point in the next couple of days. --Xover (talk) 08:33, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Detailed points

 * Lede
 * (6) The title page of the quarto is an odd illustration for an article of a single sonnet. Could perhaps a cropped scan of this specific sonnet be used instead?
 * (1b) The lede does not adequately summarise the rest of the article.


 * Structure
 * (1a) "… known as 'Shakespearean sonnet form' …" The article that covers Shakespearean sonnets is Sonnet.
 * (1a) "… three cross-metrically rhyming quatrain …" Is "quatrain" plural?
 * "('pentameter' coming from the Greek root 'penta-', meaning five)." Quote marks should be used consistently, and Wikipedia's manual of style specifies that these should be double quotes.
 * "Iambic Pentameter Stress Chart" Wikipedia doesn't use initial-caps in headlines: "Iambic pentameter stress chart".
 * (1a,2b) "… transplanting the volta from its usual …" Is this generally true? Does Duncan-Jones support this general statement? Does she support its application to this sonnet (despite not being cited for that)?
 * (1a,2b) "At the end of the eighth line …" Is this supported by some source or is it your own interpretation? I've tagged it as needing a citation.


 * Context
 * (1a) "As a piece within …" I don't understand what function these words are supposed to fulfil in this sentence. What do they add to the reader's understanding?
 * (1a) "… the Dark Lady sonnets sequence …" No need to specify "sonnets" here, it's clear from context.
 * (1a) " … following …" Try "… and follows …" here.
 * (1a) "Placed after the Fair Youth sonnets …" Didn't we just cover this in the last sentence?
 * (1a) "… which "celebrate a young male love object" Direct quotes require a separate citation.
 * (1a) "…, The Dark Lady …" The "The" is not usually capitalised in this context.
 * (1a) "… the beauty and person-hood …" The "person-hood"?
 * (1a) "… neither admirably beautiful, or …" Nor.
 * (1a) "… of admirable means …" What does this mean?
 * (1a) "… simple woman …" This is either a somewhat archaic usage or an odd way to describe the Dark Lady.
 * (1a,2b) "… the questioned identity …" Not so much questioned as uncertain.
 * (1a) "… there is little academic 'proof' …" Why is proof in scare quotes here? Incidentally, is "academic" really the word you meant to use here?
 * (1a) "… femme fatales." We have not established (nor even suggested) that the Dark Lady is in any way a femme fatale, so the use of this term here is confusing.
 * (1a) "Now I’m too sick for any cure to work, and my sense of reason (i.e. my mind) is apathetic about my fate" Well, actually, as Duncan-Jones points out, tis should really be read as "now that my reason has stopped caring what happens to me, I am past the possibility of a cure" . That is, the causality is that reason's lack of care makes him past a cure; not that the fact that he's too sick to be cured has caused reason to stop caring.


 * Quatrain
 * (1a) I assume a "1" is missing in the heading here?
 * I'm not sure repeating the relevant lines for each quatrain adds much value for the reader here.
 * Quote marks should be straight double quotes and not typographic quotation marks.
 * (1a) "… by linking … intricately linked …" Redundant.
 * (1a) "There also appears a never ending cycle, within the first two lines." I don't understand what this means.
 * (1a,1b) "It is also important to note …" Says who? Is the rest of the article not "important" then?


 * Quatrain 2
 * (1a) "His reason … is the thing that offers him a way of easing its mad fever." Which is?
 * "David West contends …" Who's he then? And where does he contend that? I who is he contending with?
 * (1a) "Romans" should be wikilinked (to Epistle to the Romans).
 * What about the non-intuitive meanings of the words "approve" and "except" that Duncan-Jones notes?


 * Quatrain 3
 * (1a) "… continuing/ worsening …" The solidus suggests you are uncertain which word is meant.
 * "In the final quatrain, the poet begins to describe his downfall and continuing/ worsening sickness." On line 9, following line 8. I wonder if that point has any special significance.
 * (1a,2b) "… old proverb which is usually read “'past care, past cure' …" Surely this is "past cure, past care" (cf. Duncan-Jones)?
 * (1a) "Many scholars …" Such as?
 * (1a) "…the 'frantic-mad' and 'random 'bablings' of the poet …" The quote markes do not balance here; either one too many or one too few.
 * G. Blakemore Evans should be wikilinked here.
 * The section relies a bit heavily on quotes from its sources. And while the quotes are good and well chosen, it would be much better to rephrase this in your own words.


 * Couplet
 * If the article contends (cf. above) that this is where the volta is placed in this sonnet, that fact should be dealt with in this section.


 * References
 * Most references lack ISBNs or other identifiers.