Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Quintain (poetry)


 * 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   keep. The confusion with cinquain can be resolved editorially (merge, redirect, disambiguate) as per any consensus that may emerge among editors.  Sandstein  05:29, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Quintain (poetry)

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Article is simply a dictionary definition in contravention of WP:NOT, and without scope for expansion gråb whåt you cån (talk) 16:26, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment User:LespasBot (not a bot!) created this page (identical but for the title) after Quintain(5lines) was AfD'd with same rationale. --gråb whåt you cån (talk) 16:31, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Poetry-related deletion discussions.  — • Gene93k (talk) 18:44, 8 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment So I won't bother creating Octotain (poetry), then ... - DavidWBrooks (talk) 19:58, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * see Octave (poetry)  Th e S te ve   05:13, 10 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete per nom. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 19:58, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep as clearly a notable topic in poetry. "Quintain poetry" gives me 2100 hits on Google Books and 762 on Google Scholar.  Is it really likely that it is "without scope for expansion"?  Sergeant Cribb (talk) 20:07, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep clear potential for expansion. ˉˉanetode╦╩ 22:35, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep For some expansion possibilities, see Quatrain  Th e S te ve   05:12, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment There is already an article Cinquain which is the more generally known term encompassing all 5-line poetry forms. In what sense would any expansion of Quintain (poetry) not simply duplicate that article? --gråb whåt you cån (talk) 11:06, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Possibly because cinquain is the general term for a class of poems of five lines, namely the class of forms invented by Adelaide Crapsey in 19 2 13. The class of all poems of five lines is more general.  It is possible that cinquain should be merged into quintain at some stage.  Sergeant Cribb (talk) 16:25, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * You're referring to the Crapsey cinquain. The term 'cinquain' is indeed the general term for the class of 5-liners, long predating Crapsey. See Brittanica, Dictionary.com, our own Cinquain article. --gråb whåt you cån (talk) 18:20, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm quoting the article Cinquain which states, as I did above, Cinquain is the general term for a class of poetic forms that employ a 5-line pattern. Unfortunately that article appears to have no reliable sources, so I also refer to: Crapsey created the verse form of the cinquain ; Miss Crapsey was distinguished for the invention of the cinquain ; The cinquain, created by Crapsey, is the only serious poetic form to emerge from the United States ; cinquain is a poetic form developed by the American poet Adelaide Crapsey. ; " Quintain: A stanza or verse group of five lines." That seems to be the only definition given by anyone. A special form as a complete poem is the cinquain. ; the cinquains of Adelaide Crapsey, her invention, and, so far as I know, not duplicated by any other writer  ...  Sergeant Cribb (talk) 19:16, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * There appears to be some confusion here. None of the sources you cite contradicts my assertion, and no-one is arguing with your assertion that Crapsey invented a specific form which she called cinquain. Put simply, the term cinquain refers to the class of all 5-line verse forms as well as the subset of that class which is Crapsey cinquains. That is precisely what Brittanica and dictionary.com assert, and there is no reason to doubt them. Additionally, the Douglas Harper Etymology Dictionary informs us that the term dates from 1882, i.e. pre-Crapsey. Yes, quintain also means "a stanza or verse group of five lines", but the solution hardly lies in keeping separate articles for two synonyms. --gråb whåt you cån (talk) 19:44, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * There certainly is. For example, John Drury, author of "The Poetry Dictionary", ISBN 1582973296, must be confused when he writes CINQUAIN a poetic form invented by Adela Crapsey.  The term is also used for any five-line stanza along with quintain and QUINTAIN a five-line stanza, sometimes called a cinquain (although the term is now usually applied to a stanza developed bu Adelaide Crapsey); so is Philip Hobsbaum, in "Metre, rhythm and verse form" ISBN 041508797X who also thinks they are different things; as are Jack Elliott Myers and Don C. Wukasch in their "Dictionary of poetic terms", who believe that QUINTAIN a poem or stanza in five lines, specific forms are CINQUAIN ... and CINQUAIN a five-line form composed of lines of two, four, six, eight and teo syllables ... in this sense first used by Adelaide Crapsey; Ottone Riccio, "The intimate art of writing poetry" ISBN 0134768469 who thinks that CINQUAIN A syllabic five-line poem not to be confused with the five-line stanza called quintain.  How lucky all these people are that they have Wikipedia to correct them.  Sergeant Cribb (talk) 20:09, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

(outdent) My point exactly, Cribb. Do we really want to add to the confusion by creating a new article for a synonym? --gråb whåt you cån (talk) 20:25, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh dear, I really must try and get the hang of this humour thing. My point is that when six reliable sources explicitly assert that quintains and cinquains are not the same thing, and when six reliable sources state that cinquain now refers to the form invented by Ms Crapsey, then we are not in any position to declare that quintain is a synonym for cinquain.  Sergeant Cribb (talk) 20:34, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Your sarcasm is entirely out of place. This is not a chat forum. The quotes you provide are not as clear-cut as you are putting forward. You quote Drury, for example, to say, The term [cinquain] is also used for any five-line stanza along with quintain. The fact remains that the term generally understood to refer to any five-line form is cinquain, hence the fact that neither Britannica.com nor dictionary.com have any entry for quintain, as neither did Wikipedia until a few days ago. This would seem to argue for keeping cinquain in this sense in recognition of the needs of Recognizability and Naturalness as supported by WP:TITLE. --gråb whåt you cån (talk) 22:54, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * You are asserting (1) cinquain is the generally understood term for any five-line form (2) cinquain and quintain are synonyms. I have provided six reliable sources that contradict (1) and six that contradict (2).  They are all secondary sources, in peer-reviewed journals or books by experts.  You rely on two tertiary sources, an encyclopaedia and a dictionary, and even the dictionary case only supports (1) as a historical usage.  It is perfectly true that usage is not completely clear-cut, as one would expect in such a wide-ranging field: it is also true that the pre-1900 usages of cinquain was broader.  But the proposition that this article should be deleted because it can only be a duplicate of another clearly does not hold.  Sergeant Cribb (talk) 06:36, 11 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Weak keep I raised the deletion discussion notice, but am now persuaded that the confusion and overlap highlighted by the above discussion can be better addressed within the context of keeping rather than deleting the article in question. Thanks for the clear elucidation of your position, SC. --gråb whåt you cån (talk) 15:08, 11 June 2011 (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.