Talk:Tolkien's poetry/GA1

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Nominator: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 09:38, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: Kusma (talk · contribs) 17:34, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

Many thanks! Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:53, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

Content and prose review

I will comment on anything I notice, but not all of my comments will be strictly related to the GA criteria, so not everything needs to be actioned. Feel free to push back if you think I am asking too much, and please tell me when I am wrong.

• Lead: will comment later
  • Noted.

• Quote box at top: would be nice to add context on where this comes from
  • Added.

• Context: strictly speaking, for the people living under rocks, it would be good to mention when and where Tolkien lived.
  • Key earthling data added for readers of Vulcan descent.
    • 🖖.

• The Lord of the Rings: we have a lot of people and their opinions here, and only a few of them are introduced (e.g. as "Tolkien scholar"). Is there some way to clarify that we have a lot of Tolkien scholars commenting in this section?
  • Good idea, added.

• Shippey is quoted before he is mentioned, and should probably be mentioned with his full name.
  • Fixed.

• Long poems on medieval subjects: the subsections are quite short, most of them shorter than the respective article's lead section. Is it worth expanding them a little? For example, by writing a little about the originals like The Battle of Maldon for those who have never heard of them?
  • Merged short subsections; I think we have as much as we should have for this overview article.
    • That also works.

• Songs for the Philologists: what is meant by unauthorised collection? Who collected these poems and who did not authorise it?
  • Glossed.

• the only poem ever written in Gothic that does not seem to be correct, see Gothic language#Others.
  • Fixed. This is one of those cases where the RS are wrong.

• Collected poems: This could do with a {{main}} similar to the other subsections.
  • It would, if there were one. It's still too soon for the necessary academic book reviews to appear, so it'd actually be risky to create the article without proof of notability for the collection, however much a book of T.'s work might seem a shoo-in.
    • Somebody did create The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien six weeks ago, so I thought it would be appropriate to link also with the template and not just in the body. That article mentions a 1910 poem addressed to Edith; is that before Middle-Earth?
      • Added link, and yes.

More later! —Kusma (talk) 21:34, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

• A mixed reception: perhaps it would be good to explain whether "reflects and supports Tolkien's notion of Secondary Creation" is part of the positive or the negative reception; it is not very clear (it looks positive but the sentence structure contrasts it with other praise).
  • No contrast is intended. Added a gloss.

• Settings: Are there no other notable ones? There is a version of "Far Over the Misty Mountains Cold" (a Tolkien poem I have liked since childhood) in Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and I would expect that is not the only one.
  • In an overview of all his poetry, it makes sense to confine coverage to major settings, those of groups or cycles of songs. The Tolkien Ensemble's setting of all the LOTR poems is unlikely to be matched any time soon; the Swann song-cycle is unique in having Tolkien's involvement. You are surely right that a few other individual poem settings must exist but I don't see that as significant in this context, unless there is major critical response to them.

• A general remark: Is it worth talking about Tolkien's fictional poets? The Song of Eärendil is said to be composed by Bilbo, and from the First Age we have Daeron and Maglor (although I am not sure what works he attributes to them).
  • It's a possible theme, but I'd want a scholarly overview for them and haven't seen one.

More plus responses soon! —Kusma (talk) 20:07, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

• The Hobbit: section is also very short. A little more would be nice.
  • They've been little analysed; not surprisingly more attention has been paid to LOTR and his separately-published poems.

• Lead: no link to Tolkien or to The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien?
  • Linked.

• The mixed reception (including that many people skip or generally dislike the poems) could be mentioned more clearly
  • Added.

• Perhaps half a sentence on musical adaptations?
  • Added.

Done with this bit for the moment. Happy with responses up to this point where I did not re-respond (and some where I did just to have the last word). —Kusma (talk) 20:49, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Source spotchecks

Numbering from Special:PermanentLink/1267719626. Ignoring the primary sources, assuming you got those OK.

• 10: broken link. I have found it archived, but don't really know what you are citing here: that it is a charm?
  • Archived. Yes, Lacnunga is a book of magical remedies, matching the label in the table row.

• 13: ok
• 16: ok
• 19: ok. While we're here, is it "The Wanderer" or The Wanderer? You use both.
  • WP seems to use italics for it, implying we think it a book not a poem for some reason.

• 21: ok
• 29: ok-ish, but I guess there is more detail in CJRT's commentary

• 37: technically a "blog", but a reasonable WP:SPS by the relevant experts
• 38: the secondary source doesn't give the name for Tolkien's Jabberwocky, but otherwise OK
  • Yes it does!
    • Indeed, sorry!

No copyvio concerns from spot checks. Most sources are scholarly Tolkien experts, with a few book reviews and publisher announcements thrown in, which is OK at this level. Some of the access dates are quite a while ago; it might be a good idea to check whether all links are still live.

General comments and GA criteria

• No major prose issues.
  • Noted.

• Happy with layout (it is possibly slightly overlinked with some unnecessary duplicates but not excessively so); minor lead section comments above.
  • Noted.

• Reference formatting is slightly inconsistent between <ref> and {{sfn}} but generally works. The only exception is number 11 to Beowulf, where it is not completely clear what the numbering scheme means and the link goes to a wiki page.
  • Clarified. I wouldn't normally link a specific translation (there are hundreds) but have picked one that makes the target clear.

• Sources are fine, no original research.
  • Noted.

• There are a lot of quotations from scholars, but I think we're fine copyright wise ("fair use").
  • Noted.

• Broadness/focus: The article touches all major aspects, but does not go very much into depth, which is acceptable because there are many more detailed articles on individual poems or collections.
  • Noted.

• Yes to neutrality and stability
  • Noted.

• There are no pictures, but instead we have poetry excerpts. These are perhaps a little excessive but all seem to have some connection to the main text, even if it is sometimes weak. I would be happier with a stronger reason to include some of these but can ignore my concerns for the moment.
  • Yes, poetry is what is pictured, and each snippet is carefully selected.

Happy with changes and responses, will promote. —Kusma (talk) 16:56, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

Good Article review progress box

Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.