User:Priceeli/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Twelfth Night

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I am interested in Shakespeare generally and I have read, performed, and directed Twelfth Night in the past. Therefore, I felt as if it I had enough baseline knowledge on the topic to learn how to evaluate it well.

Evaluate the article
(Compose a detailed evaluation of the article here, considering each of the key aspects listed above. Consider the guiding questions, and check out the examples of what a useful Wikipedia article evaluation looks like.)

Overall this was an informative and well written article on Shakespeare's beloved comedy: Twelfth Night. However, I believe there are areas both small and large in which this article can improve. Any feedback or commentary is welcome.

Lead section
This was generally good, however I do think there are meaningful areas for improvement.

First, I think that the plot summary could be briefly expanded to include why Viola disguises herself as Cesario, and that she is in fact disguising herself as a man. Right now it is almost too concise, and the parenthetical aside that Viola is disguised as Cesario is confusing and does not convey important perceived gender information. Perhaps this could be altered as such:

"The play centres on the twins Viola and Sebastian, who are separated in a shipwreck. Upon washing up on the shores of Illyria, Viola, fearing her brother dead, disguises herself as a man to protect her virtue. Viola, now disguised as Cesario finds work as a page with the Duke Orsino. She then falls in love with Duke Orsino, who in turn is in love with Countess Olivia. Upon meeting Viola, Countess Olivia falls in love with her thinking she is a man."

Furthermore, the leading section is almost completely devoid of the comedic elements and impact of the play, only mentioning it is a comedy by genre, and not detailing the comedic subplot, which is given more space in the Synopsis than the love triangle. Considering Twelfth Night's wide success and influence as a comedy (which is later discussed in the Synopsis, Metatheatre, and Influence sections), I believe that the leading section fails to fully provide an overview of this topic. This could be remedied with a simple sentence or two, indicating the play's comedic nature, or popularity among Shakespeare's comedies.

Additionally, this article is very long and provides a wealth of information. However, I imagine because of this, the leading section fails to provide a brief description of the article's major sections, specifically: Date and Text, Themes, Adaptations, and Influence.

Other Sections
A general comment about the content: in the Synopsis and other sections which discuss specific, key moments of the play, it may be beneficial for the reader if the play were cited. For example, the Synopsis could be broken down by act number. This would require a complete change in structure of the section, which as of now is organized by subplot, not chronology. A better way this could be implemented, perhaps, is simply adding parenthetical citations after important moments, with the act and scene number. With regard to citations generally, when quoting the text directly, I believe the line numbers should be included in the citation. It may also be helpful to indicate which folio the citation corresponds to, as there can be some variation. Finally, this article at times quotes "famous" lines from the text, but in my opinion, fails to quote some more well known lines from the play such as: "some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em." (Act II, Scene V). This could be remedied by adding a "famous lines" section like that which can be found on the Malvolio character page.

I was pleasantly surprised to see how extensive the citations were for this article. However, I do think that the scholarly research on key themes is somewhat dated, with the majority of the research being from the early 2000s, and could be updated to reflect current scholarly sources.

Now discussing specific sections:

Synopsis: This section became a bit wordy at times, with many long, convoluted sentences. This section could benefit from general style editing

Setting: Perhaps a map would be informative here, as this section is discussing the location of a geographical place. Additionally, the interlude on English versus Italian allusions at the end of the section is interesting but feels out of place.

Sources: This section is well annotated. Finally I wonder whether the discussion of the Twelfth Night festival would better fit in the Setting section, as the play is not explicitly about these festivities, but rather, as the leading section explains, is thought to have been written as a festivity for the Twelfth Night festival. I would welcome input on this.

Date and text: Considering the heavy conjecture on the dating of Shakespeare's plays, I believe this section would benefit from additional sources when claiming it was likely completed between 1600 and 1601.

Themes, Gender: This section is organized unfavorably, in my opinion, as it begins by extrapolating a key theme of Twelfth Night to Shakespeare's plays generally. I believe this section would be better structured if it were to first explore the significance of gender within the play, before expanding the discussion to Shakespeare in general and providing additional examples. Also, definitionally, gender identity and sexual orientation are two separate entities too often conflated. This section discusses both. I think it is important that the section is either renamed as: Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation. Or a new section is created for Sexual Orientation.

Themes, Metatheatre: This section is confusing and does not agree style-wise with the rest of the article. First, Metatheatre is never defined, which leaves the reader unclear on the topic of discussion. I believe Metatheatre should be briefly defined at the beginning, or should be hyperlinked to a wiki article on the topic. Furthermore, this section is almost entirely direct quotations. Although I enjoyed this, it is at odds with the majority of the article, which does not quote the play. I believe there should be more direct quotations throughout the article.

Performance history: As far as I am aware, this section was complete, well written, and well annotated.

Adaptations: Small comment, but if you are to claim that a major theme in the play is "young women seeking independence," then this should be indicated in the themes section, which it is not. Otherwise, this section is impressively detailed.

Influence: As mentioned above, I think this article generally lacks in expanding on Twelfth Night's influence and impact as a comedy specifically, and within the Shakespeare canon. I think this section should be relabeled pop culture references, for cases where characters or settings pay homage to the play. I also believe that "loose adaptations" such as She’s the Man could be moved to the end of the Adaptations section. Finally, I believe an entirely new section should be created to expand on the play's cultural and theatrical influences on a higher level.

Examples of good feedback
A good article evaluation can take a number of forms. The most essential things are to clearly identify the biggest shortcomings, and provide specific guidance on how the article can be improved.


 * Peer review of this article about a famous painting