Talk:I syng of a mayden

I syng of a mayden has been listed as one of the Language and literature good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
December 19, 2010	Good article nominee	Listed

A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on January 11, 2010.

The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that the anonymous composer of the 15th-century carol "I syng of a mayden" used traditional imagery deriving from Old Testament texts to celebrate the Annunciation of Jesus?

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Translation question

I believe there is some question about whether "makeles" means "matchless" (as currently presented in this article) or "without blemish" (cf. German "makellos" = without flaw). The discussion around the importance of the word "stylle" might support this change of translation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Drkeithphd (talk • contribs) 15:59, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Mmm, I think you might be right. "Matchless" seems to be the translation most commonly used, but your alternative does seem rather likely. Are there any academic articles that corroborate that interpretation? They might be a good addition. Rob (talk) 18:44, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:I syng of a mayden/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Bencherlite ^Talk 22:23, 18 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No dablinks. No problems with external links. Images are fine. Some comments on the text / notes on minor changes I've made as I've gone through:

In the lead, "It is one of the most admired short vernacular English poems of the late Middle Ages" would probably work better as "It has been described as...", with the phrase reused in the body of the article (as it should be anyway) and attributed to Laura Saetveit Miles.

Done.

"The work is one of the most anthologised of Middle English lyrics" - is there a source for this?

Not really! I think I was going off the fact I've seen it in lots of books such as (Oxford Book of English Verse, etc), plus lots of musical settings. Removed, anyway.

"a wide variety of academic criticism is available on the text" - source? I know the article goes on to give some flavour of the academic commentary, but can it really be said that there is a wide variety of criticism?

Probably not, again.

When you say "According to X" or "X says", a few words of context as to who these people are would be good, so that we know why what they say matters.

I've added a little mention of their universities/specialisms.

I've widened the text box because one of the lines of translation was wrapping unnecessarily.
Any particular reason why only Breeden gets "Dr"? I would have thought best to exclude all academic titles in references (that seems to be the general convention)

No, that probably just slipped in. Removed.

First sentence under "origin" is very long, and might be better split - how about mentioning the other poems in the same manuscript after you've used the Glaser comment about them?

Yes, that might be good. Adam lay ybounden is mentioned later, but there's also I saw a fair maiden, A Babe is Born all of a May and a few others that I can't remember at the moment.

I don't think you need to give the title of the books etc from which you're taking people comments about dates etc, because you give the title in the reference.

Removed.

A date range for Henry V would be good, to save people navigating away.

Done.

The Thomas Wright quotation doesn't really work for me at the moment, because you end up having to say "earlier" twice in quick succession; maybe paraphrase the first bit and use only the last bit?

This has been trimmed and revised now, not sure if it works or not really.

Does "Notes and Queries" have a publisher or any other information to go with it?

Yes, it's OUP. Actually, it's a good job you pointed this out, as I appear to have got the title of the article wrong as well.

The article can't say that the settings of two composers are often featured at 9L&C services based on one order of service using one of those settings from one chapel in one year (even if it is King's Cambridge). It's probably right, but without a source saying so, it can't be stated in such terms.

Haha, yes, I think I was just looking for a way to suggest that those two are better known than, say, the Warlock or Shaw versions.

I shuffled the W.W. Greg sentence into the preceding paragraph, not only because he was first in time, but also to avoid a one-sentence paragraph; as I didn't think "Notably, even as early as" was the best phrase (why is it notable? why should we be surprised that this was suggested 100 years ago, when the poem was written about 600 years ago?), I didn't keep that bit in.

Not sure why it was notable. It was a year ago I wrote this, but I suspect it was because I had just found an earlier mention.

Not a GA requirement, but ISBNs for the books would be good.

Added these where possible, although it seems that Wright is a bit too early for one.

Several minor points, really, and I don't really think that there should be a problem in giving this GA status. I'll put this on hold to allow you time to address these comments or tell me why I'm wrong! Bencherlite ^Talk 23:34, 18 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review. Hopefully I've managed to sort out a few of these issues, and to make up for removing the 9 Lessons reference, I've put individual refs to confirm that each setting exists - that's a fairly discriminatory list, there seem to be many, many more ones by less well-known composers. (Have you tried the Quilter setting "An Old Carol"? That's rather nice. Let me know if there's anything else. Rob (talk) 01:35, 19 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

All looks fine now, and I'm happy to pass it (just in time for Christmas as well!) Well done. Bencherlite ^Talk 01:42, 19 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

translation question makeless

I agree with the comment that Makeless is probably not Matchless. It appears to me to be a compound word based on the latin macula - spot. So this is spotless again, referring probably to her virginity and perhaps to the old testament requirement for a sacrificial lamb to be spotless. --Danman502000 (talk) 16:55, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Again, this is a valid interpretation, but requires a reliable citation to be changed/amended in the article. Rob (talk) 23:09, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]