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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Gog the Mild via FACBot (talk) 3 November 2024 [1].

Anactoria

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Nominator(s): UndercoverClassicist T·C 18:38, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about a figure mentioned in the poetry of Sappho -- though it isn't clear exactly how often, who she was, and even if she existed at all. Anactoria emerges from the fragmentary pages of Sappho with almost no biographical detail, which of course has not prevented scholars, from antiquity to the present, engaging in bold conjecture and outrageous speculation as to who she might have been. She then has an interesting (honest) Nachleben in Roman poetry and in English, where she provided a springboard for Swinburne's "frankly pornographic" "Anactoria", and for Robert Lowell to fill in many of the gaps left by Sappho's account of her. The article underwent a Good Article Review from Simongraham in April, and has recently received extremely helpful pre-FAC comments from Caeciliusinhorto. The inevitable errors and infelicities remain my own. UndercoverClassicist T·C 18:38, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

Author died 1918 (per Wikipedia and a few others) or 1903 (per Sotheby's and a few others); first exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition (which is free and public) in 1896, per Sotheby's UndercoverClassicist T·C 06:37, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

support from caeciliusinhorto

Nice to see another Sappho-related article at FAC (I'll finish up Sappho herself one day, I swear)! A few remaining textual comments from me, though you've cleared up my Sappho-related nitpicking already...

  • "Ancient Greek poet" – is "Ancient Greek" a proper noun here or should it be "ancient Greek"?
  • The lead says that Anactoria has been suggested as a pseudonym for Anagora of Miletus; the body says that Page suggested that Anagora was the pseudonym. Which? (Or has it been suggested both ways?)
  • "The digamma (Ϝ) written at the start of Anactoria's name, with a sound value similar to the English w, is unlikely to have been pronounced in Sappho's dialect." The Greek spelling given for Anactoria in the lead is without an initial digamma, and Neri's edition of Sappho 16 doesn't say anything about a digamma; it may be worth noting where the digamma comes from. (I'm not a linguist, but I presume because Anactoria is related to anax? Did Aeolic retain the digamma there after it was dropped from Ionic dialects?)

Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 11:29, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There's not much more for me to say except to offer my support. I spot-checked a couple of sources I had on hand and everything looked fine; the ancient literature part of this article is certainly pretty comprehensive and while I'm less confident on proclaiming with certainty on the post-classical receptions there's nothing missing that I would expect to see. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 11:15, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you -- for this and your advice beforehand. Looking forward to seeing Sappho (surely an FA-in-waiting if there ever was one) here in due course! UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:37, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Tim riley

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Not much from me. My few comments are all on the prose rather than the content (adolescent boys in the 1960s were not exposed to Sappho's verse in their Greek lessons).

  • "It has also been speculated…" – I am not one of those absolutists who think using the passive voice is the sin against the Holy Ghost, but the passive leaves us a bit short-changed here, I think. "X, Y and Z speculate …" or some such would have more impact.
  • "written to another of Sappho's female companions" – "companions" seems to me rather a woolly, even evasive, term. Does it mean lover? Good friend? Colleague?
  • "the tenth-century Byzantine encyclopaedia known as the Suda" – it's mentioned in the previous para, where the link and probably the description oughter be.
  • "Glenn Most points out that …" – rather a loaded term, perhaps implying Wikipedia's endorsement rather than a neutral report of his comments.
    • I think we do want to endorse this -- it's self-evidently true from looking at the poem. I'd agree if we were saying e.g. "Glen Most believes [this statement of opinion], but Most hasn't actually come up with this -- he's just read the text. However, I think it would be SYNTHy to just come in and say, in Wikivoice without giving a name, that all the aforementioned scholars are speculating wildly (on which see the article's Talk page). UndercoverClassicist T·C 16:45, 12 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Socrates and his male acolytes such as Alcibiades" – Order, order! I think "acolyte" is much too condescending a term for Alcibiades. The OED defines the word in this non-Christian context as "an attendant or assistant in some ceremony, operation, or the like; (also) a devoted follower or admirer; a novice or neophyte". A devoted admirer, I grant you (I know, or rather used to know, my Symposium) and I think "admirer" rather than "acolyte" would be the right word here.
    • Hm -- here I dissent slightly: the point is that these weren't just detached admirers, but actually his students, followers, entourage and intellectual descendants -- these are the people that the court were talking about when they executed Socrates for "corrupting the youth of Athens". I think "admirer" is a little weak for that, and implies far greater distance than we're talking about with a very close-knit (in various senses) group. Conversely, I think a devoted follower or admirer; a novice or neophyte is right on the money. UndercoverClassicist T·C 16:45, 12 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      • I still think "acolytes" is generally a pejorative word when used in this sense (as opposed to its original meaning of "altar boys", from the Greek ἀκόλουθος). If anyone referred to me as an acolyte of anyone I should feel I had been slighted. If you're talking about "students, followers, entourage and intellectual descendants" why not say so? But I shan't press the point. Tim riley talk 09:55, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
        Ah, I see -- I'm not sure I'd share that pejorative reading; you certainly hear people describe themselves as "acolytes" of distinguished professors, particularly in obituaries of the latter. But I'll keep thinking on it -- there may well be a better phrasing that gets the point across more effectively. UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:34, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That's all I can find to quibble about. It would be a work of supererogation to praise the pithy and readable prose or the admirably wide-ranging sourcing (no book cited more than three times). We expect no less from this editor. Tim riley talk 15:05, 12 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. Shall look again tomorrow. I'm not going to oppose or withhold support on any of the above points, but meanwhile I don't rule out a spirited brawl before I sign on the dotted line. Tim riley talk 17:58, 12 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My concluding comments, above, are not of such gravity as to prevent my supporting the elevation of this article to FA. The sources look admirable to my layman's eye, the text is clear and a pleasure to read, and I'm sure you have had no alternative to the ghastly Victorian paintings, which are undeniably relevant. Meets all the FA criteria in my view. Tim riley talk 09:55, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, Tim -- as ever, wise and thought-provoking. I'll keep thinking on the points you've raised above: hopefully, better solutions will present themselves. UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:36, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Jens

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  • I wonder why a complete translation of Sappho 31 is provided but no quote of Sappho 16, even though much of the discussion is about the latter, and it was described as "the finest lines in all Sappho's poetry"? Having the original as reference could help with appreciating the article.
    • It's a length issue -- the problem is that she only refers to Anactoria halfway through, but you need the first half to make sense of it, and quoting the whole poem would, I thought, be a bit long. A version is here -- what do you think? I worry that it would make the infobox/illustration outsizedly big. UndercoverClassicist T·C 20:12, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      • As a reader, I personally would much prefer the Sappho 16 quote, which is the one that actually mentions Anactoria. It is slightly longer, but I don't think that is a big problem. Without it, the article feels a bit like the discussion of a painting that you can't see. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 21:19, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
        Yes, I agree. There's another issue here, however, which is finding a good PD translation -- Storer didn't do 16. The one I linked isn't PD, so we can't include it here: so far, the only ones I can find are here and here (search "Anactoria" in either case). Honestly, I don't think either of them are great, and if the translation we offer can't do at least most of the job of showing why people like Robinson admire it so much, it's not going to do a whole lot of good. Pinging @Caeciliusinhorto: do you know of a good translation of Sappho 16 that will be usable (ie, published before 1929, probably by an author died before 1954?) UndercoverClassicist T·C 06:22, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
        Most of the pre-1929 translations of Sappho 16 which I am aware of are based on John Maxwell Edmonds' edition, which I don't love. It both differs in a few key places from modern readings (in the second stanza Edmonds' Loeb, for instance, has "Helen surveyed much mortal beauty" whereas the modern Loeb has "she who far surpassed mankind in beauty, Helen,") and has some of Edmonds' characteristic reconstructions, including e.g. adding "for woman is very easy to be bent" at the beginning of the fourth stanza (not translated in the modern Loeb; Rayor 2014 has "... [un]bending ... mind".
        The papyrus was initially published in vol.X of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, and I think Grenfell and Hunt were still doing exempli gratia translations at that point so you might try checking that, but I don't have access while archive.org is still down until the next time I drag myself to a library which has it so I can't comment on that for certain. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 17:35, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
        Thanks -- I'll see if I can dig anything out when Archive.org comes back. I did wonder if there was some suitable equivalent of Template:External media that would work here, but I don't think there is for a purely text source. UndercoverClassicist T·C 19:21, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
        Pardon me for butting in. I agree that if you're going to quote a fragment of Sappho here, it should be frag. 16, not frag. 31. There is no evidence to suggest that the latter has anything at all to do with Anactoria (whether you consider her a real person or a poetic construct). The fact that Victorian readers associated frag. 31 with Anactoria is an aspect of Sappho's reception, but it has nothing to do with Sappho herself, or with the text as we have it, and it really shouldn't appear in a section headed "In Sappho". Since frag. 16 contains the only surviving instance of the name Anactoria in the wreckage of Sappho's poetry, it seems to me the only rational choice for this particular article.
        As for translation, I agree with Caecilius that Edmonds should be avoided. His Loeb editions of Greek poets (not just lyric but also elegy and bucolic) are among the worst Loebs ever published. But I don't understand why you need a PD translation at all. Quoting a translation of a single fragment of 15-20 lines, with proper attribution, out of an entire volume devoted to translations of Sappho in particular (like Barnard's or Barnstone's) or Greek lyric in general (like Lattimore's or West's), is a textbook example of fair use, at least according to US law. So pick any modern translation you like and use it. There is no copyright problem here. Choliamb (talk) 12:42, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
        If the article is going to quote a modern translation, I would be inclined to go with Rayor 2014. IIRC the 2014 discoveries improved our text of Sappho 16 very slightly, so earlier translations are now a little outdated. If we're not concerned about going with an out-of-copyright translation there's no reason not to use the most up-to-date version Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 14:49, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
        That's a good point. I don't think I knew that the text of 16 had been improved by the Obbink papyrus, or if I did I had forgotten. I just took a look at the edition in The Newest Sappho (Bierl and Lardinois 2016), and unfortunately "very slightly" is an accurate description. The gains are small and the fourth stanza (the one that contains Anactoria's name) is still terribly lacunose, so any English version that offers more than a few words in the first part of the sentence is going to be a hypothetical modern restoration rather than an actual translation. (Not saying that Rayor does this; I haven't seen her translation, so my comments are based solely on the new Greek text.) Happily, the standard interpretation of the end of the stanza (≈ "reminds me now of Anactoria in her absence") is not in any doubt, even if the subject of the verb remains unclear. Choliamb (talk) 23:43, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
        Thanks, both -- I've added Rayor's translation of 16. UndercoverClassicist T·C 14:58, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why is "In other classical literature" a subsection of "In Sappho"? It does not seem to fit there; in the section "In Sappho", I would expect content about Sapphos literature only.
    • Another one where I felt between a rock and a hard place: we could change the L2 heading to "In classical literature", but that would seem not to give Sappho her due weight: it would elide that writing about Anactoria in classical literature is, fundamentally, writing about Sappho. On the other hand, those other mentions in classical literature are direct derivatives of Sappho's portrayal, whereas the modern ones have at least a tenuous claim to be adapting (e.g.) Ovid. I had a bit of an idea here -- brought the classical subsection down into an expanded "Reception". How does that look? UndercoverClassicist T·C 20:17, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • A reference in the tenth-century Byzantine encyclopaedia known as the Suda to "Anagora" – I found this a bit difficult to read, and it is not entirely clear if "known as the Suda" refers to the encyclopaedia or the reference. Maybe "A reference in the Suda, a tenth-century Byzantine encyclopaedia, to Anagora"? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 20:07, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks as ever, Jens. Replies above. UndercoverClassicist T·C 20:12, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Matarisvan

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Hi UndercoverClassicist, my comments:

  • Link to Glenn Most in the body and biblio?
  • Why have we not linked to Denys Page in the biblio when we have done so in the body?
  • Link to Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer in note 1 and the biblio?
  • Link to Richard Aldington in the biblio, if he was indeed the translator along with Storer?
  • Link to Patrick J. Finglass in Purves 2021?
  • Link to William Smith (lexicographer) in the biblio?
  • Link to Garry Wills in the body and biblio?

I could also do the source review if needed. That's all from me, cheers Matarisvan (talk) 11:07, 17 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Choliamb

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I'm traveling right now and I'm terrible at typing with one finger on a tiny mobile keyboard, so I'll confine myself to two quick comments about the authenticity of the Ep. Sapph. (Her. 15):

  • It's fine to cite Rosati and Rimell (neither of whom I have read), but you really should give credit to Tarrant's article in Harvard Studies for 1981 (this one) , which single-handedly turned the ship of critical opinion around and tilted the consensus against authenticity. If a majority of scholars now believes that the poem is not Ovid's (and I think that is probably true), it's largely due to Tarrant.
  • I think the note as it stands slightly misrepresents Murgia's view of the probable date of the poem. On the page cited (p. 472) he says "a poet of the next generation", which is not quite the same thing as "a poet around a generation later", which is what the article now says. What Murgia actually means by that phrase is explained on p. 466, note 24. It could have been written any time after the Epistulae ex Ponto and before Seneca's tragedies, but Murgia thinks the most likely time was shortly after Ovid's death, not a generation later.

- Choliamb (talk) 01:48, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Choliamb -- all done. I've added Tarrant to the relevant footnote (has anyone put it like that in print, to give him a bit more credit?) and expanded the Murgia note. It's now a bit closer to what Murgia actually wrote, but I think here the close paraphrasing is justified by the need for precision: Murgia wrote something that's difficult to express in other words without (as I did previously) changing the meaning. UndercoverClassicist T·C 06:14, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
SC

A marker for now - SchroCat (talk) 06:10, 19 October 2024 (UTC) Just two comments from me:[reply]

  • You begin with "Anactoria is named by Sappho, who wrote in the late seventh and early sixth centuries BCE": maybe just a few words to explain Sappho was a poet – and one who wrote mostly about love? Not every reader will have heard of them and will need a little help there. And maybe a link for Sappho, as it's the first reference in the body?
  • "in fragment 16". Some may think this is an odd name for a poem, or just be confused by it. Maybe something (even if a footnote) to explain that nearly all her work only survives in fragments which have subsequently been numbered?

That's my lot - the rest is a delight to read. - SchroCat (talk) 13:00, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Both very wise and done. UndercoverClassicist T·C 17:31, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Was it a conscious decision to have "See Gordon 2002, pp. v–vii, and Goff & Harloe 2021, p. 396." inline, rather than as a citation? - SchroCat (talk) 17:42, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It was, as they're discussing the topic in general: you'll get all of that information from reading them, and a lot more besides, but you won't find it phrased as such a neat sentence. However, it's not a decision I'm particularly wedded to. UndercoverClassicist T·C 19:34, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's fine: I thought it may have been, but felt I needed to check. Some other reviewer may disagree, but I think it's a good way to show what you're trying to - particularly in a footnote. - SchroCat (talk) 19:55, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Passing comment

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  • The first image. What is the relevance of the second sentence of the caption to the image? And what is the connection of the image to the article, if any? Gog the Mild (talk) 14:40, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Hi Gog -- the point (of both) is that this is a painting of Sappho's disciples, and Anactoria (if we believe Sappho, anyway) was one of those. They're not labelled or individually identifiable in the painting, but this is essentially a visualisation of who Anactoria would have been, and it's reasonably likely that Spence would have identified one of the figures in white as Anactoria. Compare the Alma-Tadema painting further down, which has a seat labelled as Anactoria's, and again is almost certainly a depiction of how LA-T imagined her or people like her, even if we can't point at an individual figure as her. UndercoverClassicist T·C 16:42, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So how's about "Disciples of Sappho (1896) by Thomas Ralph Spence is [a 19th-century?] reconstruction of Sappho delivering some of her verse, with Anactoria in the audience" or similar. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:50, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Would be a great caption, but unless we can somehow find a published source who cares equally about a) Spence and b) Anactoria (and there aren't a great many who care all that much about either, as far as I can tell), would need a CN tag. I think the second sentence of the caption gestures readers that way without actually having to say "Spence intended to paint Anactoria here", which is going to be a tricky one to get past WP:V. UndercoverClassicist T·C 17:00, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
UC, the current second sentence is truly naff. Why not just say what you can cite? "Disciples of Sappho (1896) by Thomas Ralph Spence is [a 19th-century?] reconstruction of Sappho [publicly?] delivering some of her verse" would be fine. Gog the Mild (talk) 17:09, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Very well: changed more-or-less as you suggest -- I wouldn't want to be accused of spreading naffness around here! UndercoverClassicist T·C 17:35, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Source review: pass

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Will pick this one up shortly - SchroCat (talk) 18:49, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • Formatting. Just the one comment on this, and it’s minor and petty: you could use the ISBN Converter to ensure you use a consistent format. Aside from that, all good on this point.
  • Coverage. A review of the available sources (from the point of view of a non-specialist) shows no obvious gaps or missing works that I can see.
  • Sources used are all high quality and reliable, with no concerns. - SchroCat (talk) 21:11, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks, Schro. Unless I've missed something, we do have a consistent format: ISBNs are hyphenated and written as displayed on the book (essentially, this means ISBN-10 pre 2007, ISBN-13 thereafter, or OCLC where no ISBN exists). Per WP:ISBN: if an older work only lists an ISBN-10, use that in citations instead of calculating an ISBN-13 for it. UndercoverClassicist T·C 09:26, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Hmmm... interesting: I think that goes entirely against all the practice I've seen on WP! I've been nagged for years by several source reviewers to have them all in either one format or another, as long as they are consistent. Anyway, given your version is in line with the guidelines, pass for the source review. - SchroCat (talk) 11:25, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]


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