Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of works titled as "cycles"


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. If the list's creator (or anyone else) wants the thing userfied or draftified, a request on my talk page will get it done. Deor (talk) 14:25, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

List of works titled as "cycles"

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Vague definition of what the subject is. What a "cycle" is in the first place isn't exactly clear, and our article Literary cycle doesn't help much, and neither does the related List of literary cycles. I do not believe that scholarship uses "cycle" as a technical term, and "titled as 'cycles'" makes it even worse. In other words, what is or isn't called a cycle (and by whom?) is arbitrary. Drmies (talk) 01:56, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  Everymorning   talk  02:00, 12 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Userfy or Draftify until the article creator (or someone else) gets more of a clue where such information really belongs, how to present it, what articles to include in it, and, if it merits an article of its own, what to title it. The article creator may require mentorship. -- Softlavender (talk) 02:17, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 03:07, 12 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep/merge There are scholarly papers on the topic of cycles such as The Structure of a Literary Cycle, Transnarrative Characters and Literary Cycles and Cycles of Influence: Fiction, Folktale, Theory. The page in question looks like it should be merged with the list of literary cycles and that's not done by deletion.  See also Epic Cycle and category:Epic Cycle, which the OED gives as the starting point for this concept: "cycle, n. A series of poems or prose romances, collected round or relating to a central event or epoch of mythic history and forming a continuous narrative; as the Arthurian cycle. Originally used in the Epic cycle  [Greek ὁ (ἐπικὸς) κύκλος], the series of epic poems written by later poets (Cyclic poets) to complete Homer, and presenting (with the Iliad and Odyssey) a continuous history of the Trojan war and of all the heroes engaged in it."Andrew D. (talk) 11:49, 13 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Any suggestions for renaming? "titled as cycles" is a bit...unencyclopedic. Drmies (talk) 19:32, 13 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Seriously, Colonel, I don't get it. Inheritance Cycle is a cycle because...who calls it that? The publisher, I suppose, and the fan club. But why isn't Lord of the Rings a cycle? Or Known Space? I know that the Epic Cycle is called Epic Cycle, but that has a couple of thousand years of history behind it, and really it's just a name. Drmies (talk) 19:38, 13 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Lord of the Rings is a particular story. The cycle in that case is the more general body of work, including The Hobbit and Silmarillion, which some refer to as the "Middle Earth cycle".  In science fiction, it's more fitting to talk of a universe but some do talk of the "Stars Wars cycle".  Modern comics seem to take these concepts to the limit, with their parallel universes in which they endlessly recycle the archetypal stories of Batman, Superman, &c. Andrew D. (talk) 07:16, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
 * List of literary cycles is difficult enough already, if only because, for instance "Cycle of Rome" has only one single hit in JSTOR--it's simply not a very happening term, Matter of Rome is. Those terms aren't easily interchangeable, since "Epic Cycle" means a group of works in Classical literature related to the Trojan War, but "Matter of Troy" is medieval material. That's precisely the problem here: "cycle" is really just a word, not a very well-defined technical term--never mind that in our article under discussion it really doesn't mean anything at all. Drmies (talk) 22:38, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete- though a "cycle" has a specific meaning in literary academia, it's pretty clear that many fictional works just use the word as an affectation with little or no actual sense behind it. That means this list is probably no more sensible than List of works titled as "stories". Reyk  YO!  13:15, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete - while cycle may have a specific meaning, a list that is simply works that someone has chosen to title using the term is pointless. Lady  of  Shalott  16:28, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Userfy/Drafity to give the article creator more time to work on the article. Zeke Essiestudy (talk) 23:47, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete - Per above deletes. Article creator is free to get a copy of the deleted article to work on it, or make a copy now.  Not that there is much there. Epeefleche (talk) 01:36, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.