Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2013 December 8

= December 8 =

Rear Admiral Lucien Young
Can you please tell me who authored the Wikipedia article on Rear Admiral Lucien Young. Thank You Very Much, Gene Moody Strathmore, Alberta, Canada — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.130.195.243 (talk) 17:24, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
 * If you click on the article "History" tab (here for a direct link), you can see all the editors who have worked on the page. The first version was put together by Wwoods, who you can contact via User talk:Wwoods, but several other editors have made significant contributions. Tevildo (talk) 18:01, 8 December 2013 (UTC)


 * People often ask this because they want to cite an article. If that's the case then see Citing Wikipedia. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:36, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Trying to find poem
It's a classic piece, about children who wake up and are surprised by the clarity of the day since it's the first day of snow. OsmanRF34 (talk) 17:48, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I found lots of wonderful stuff like Snow Day by Billy Collins and Only Snow by Allan Ahlberg, however the only "classic" one was London Snow  by Robert Bridges, but it doesn't really seem to fit the bill. Alansplodge (talk) 19:03, 8 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Probably not it; not even a poem as such. But tales of children and seasons changing and snow remind me of Oscar Wilde's story The Selfish Giant.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  19:11, 8 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Nope, nope, but nice links. It was something more 18th - 19th century... OsmanRF34 (talk) 00:10, 9 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Got to be William Blake. Sounds like Songs of Innocence and of Experience. μηδείς (talk) 01:40, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
 * There's an awful lot of those - which one were you thinking of? Alansplodge (talk) 11:11, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
 * My collected works is in storage, unfortunately. But the imagery is perfect for Blake.  I may be wrong in the specific case, but he's a good place to look. μηδείς (talk) 18:57, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
 * A search of Blake's poems for "snow" at www.poemhunter.com returns only four results, none are really relevant to the question. Alansplodge (talk) 13:02, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I was thinking something like "Goblin Market" by Christina Rossetti, but it's somewhat too dark for the OP's description. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  22:16, 10 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I love Winter Morning by Ogden Nash but that doesn't fit your time frame. Have you tried various keyword combos in Bartleby, that's often good for Classics. You can restrict the search to "All Verse". I've tried "snow morning" and "snow woke" but am now out of time. 184.147.136.249 (talk) 02:28, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

What do you call the set of ideas and theories that question the idea that a book can be 'about' something?
I came across this, and can't find it again - it's about questioning the idea that a book can have established meaning. i.e. 'You can't say that Brokeback Mountain is 'about' gay cowboys.' Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.91.127.14 (talk) 18:34, 8 December 2013 (UTC)


 * How about "arrogance"? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:04, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Haven't you been following the conversation at Talk, Mr B Bugs? One of the main themes is about people NOT piping up with unreferenced and/or inane comments just because they can.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  19:08, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Maybe you would like "elitism" or "nose-in-the-air" or whatever. But it's all the same thing. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:28, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
 * To question the idea that a book can have established meaning is not necessarily arrogant or elitist. It may be, but that's purely a matter of opinion and therefore not the factual answer the OP was looking for.  As Rhododendrites explains below, this line of thought is a respected aspect of literary theory. --Viennese Waltz 22:27, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I told you never to talk to me again. Erase your comment, or I'll do it for you. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:08, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Are you serious Bugs? This isn't your own personal forum, and VW's comment is for everybody (specifically the OP), not just you. VW's comment is a helpful response to your useless dismissing of the issue in question. It might be a bit redundant with Jack's comment, but you didn't seem to have listened to him since you immediately responded with more of the same. Just in case you for some reason decide to delete VW: I'd like to agree that to question the idea that a book can have established meaning is not necessarily arrogant or elitist. It may be, but that's purely a matter of opinion and therefore not the factual answer the OP was looking for.  As Rhododendrites explains below, this line of thought is a respected aspect of literary theory. Staecker (talk) 00:21, 9 December 2013 (UTC)


 * It's a topic that's been tackled from a number of perspectives, but the most powerful and well-known critique of literary fixed meaning -- in my experience -- comes from post-structuralism. Two names that come to mind are Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida, the former known for his declaration that "the author is dead" and the latter for deconstruction. You could also take a quick look at structuralism, a body of work not wholly incompatible with the less well defined post-structuralism, and which would look at the meaning of a literary text as based on broader structures (e.g. cultural contexts, who is reading it, shifting common knowledge, when someone is reading it, etc.). --&mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  |  19:10, 8 December 2013 (UTC)


 * The question is too open to have an answer. Good works have lots of interpretations and perspectives. Maybe they just wanted to say that. OsmanRF34 (talk) 00:11, 9 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Though it's getting off track from the original question, a response to the rather negative opinions expressed above. To call textual criticism/literary criticism/post-structuralism/postmodernism (as these terms relate to the present discussion) "arrogant" or "[pretentious]" is to miss the point entirely -- in fact that's what they're reacting to. The rational, modernist concept of meaning and knowledge was much more singular, authoritative, and elitist: expert authors writing works which contain truth and absolute meaning, which readers only then consume and absorb. Post-structuralists took to task anybody claiming such authority -- any group of people or identifiable location of concentrated, epistemically-derived power. It was the philosophical basis for a great deal of 20th and 21st century political work done in the name of feminism, human rights, racial equality, gay rights, and all sorts of causes working to subvert established power structures by primarily linguistic means. What Sokal successfully highlighted was the extent to which the strategy/philosophy/perspective/methodology became so successful and popular that it had begun to colonize all sorts of different disciplines, including science, but still published in the same kinds of journals (meaning peer review would be problematic). Sokal's beef was primarily about social constructivists of whatever brand making claims about science and the scientific enterprise without any solid scientific knowledge themselves (see, for example Laboratory Life -- not knowing science was sort of the point). While he certainly highlighted several problems that people became quite sensitive to thereafter, it's hardly a condemnation of a still growing set of ideas. --&mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  |  04:41, 9 December 2013 (UTC)


 * For a good argument supporting "postmodernism is arrogant", see by Noam Chomsky.  --Bowlhover (talk) 05:52, 9 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Rhododendrites has the proper answer here from a literary perspective. ...  Still, arrogance works just fine. See Sokal hoax for people who hold just that opinion of post-modernist "theory". μηδείς (talk) 01:19, 9 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Thank you - thank you very much! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.189.106.4 (talk) 18:34, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Literary criticism is a huge can of worms. You'll find every kind of analysis known to man there. Artistic intent vs. the audience interpretation is one of the big divides in any creative field. &mdash;  The Hand That Feeds You :Bite 18:51, 9 December 2013 (UTC)