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Ove Jørgensen

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Ove Jørgensen (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

As of 10 September 2024, 14:44 (UTC), this page is active and open for discussion. An FAC coordinator will be responsible for closing the nomination.
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Nominator(s): UndercoverClassicist T·C 11:45, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have an ill-disguised soft spot for Ove Jørgensen. He is (barely) remembered among Homeric scholars as the originator of Jørgensen's law, an early and astute observation about narration in the Odyssey which in many ways set the stage for the modern fascination with narratology in the Homeric poems. After throwing an almighty strop in response to being left out of an academic society, Jørgensen left classical academia with a single publication to his name, and spent the rest of his career as a cantankerous if apparently beloved Classics teacher, an acerbic commentator on ballet and an erudite editor of Dickens. From an article-writing perspective, working on Jørgensen was a rewarding opportunity to bring together a few different threads of scholarship -- he is known for the early part of his career among classicists, for the later part among ballet historians, and throughout by scholars of his lifelong friends Carl Nielsen and Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen, but I think this is probably the first biography to pull together all those different threads of interest in him into a single picture. UndercoverClassicist T·C 11:45, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

1896, in Baker's Art Gallery -- I've added the link to the Ur-source, at the NY Public Library, here to the Commons page. UndercoverClassicist T·C 20:58, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hm, that site credits Baker's as the photographer? Nikkimaria (talk) 21:01, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I can’t see it as anything other than ‘this is where we got it from’ - at the very least, it surely means that Bakers exhibited it with the photographer unknown or uncredited? Alternatively, if we say that we don't have good evidence of its first publication (so, it's unpublished by anyone who would have the right to "publish" it in a copyright sense, which doesn't include the NYPL), it's pre 1904, so pd-US-unpublished would cover it anyway. The NYPL page states that they believe it to be PD in the US. UndercoverClassicist T·C 21:12, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, but exhibition doesn't typically meet the legal definition of "published", at least in the US. (Do we know if Baker's is American or something else?) Was there any other publication that we know of prior to the digitization by NYPL? Nikkimaria (talk) 22:15, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm pretty sure that Baker's Gallery is this place, founded in Columbus in the 1860s. The NYPL's catalogue states that the photograph was published c. 1896 -- admittedly, the distinction between "produced" and "published" may well be a matter of the metadata that their system allows rather than of copyright law. Part of me wants to take a strict verifiability, not truth position and say that a reliable source (the NYPL) has said it was published in 1896, so that's enough for us -- otherwise, we could use PD-because and explain that the NYPL have identified the image as being in the public domain in the United States? UndercoverClassicist T·C 08:54, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Think that last option would be neatest. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:12, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
OK, done. UndercoverClassicist T·C 07:49, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The language field is inconsistently used for non-English sources. Would you like a photo of his grave site? --Guerillero Parlez Moi 17:10, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes please on the photograph — done on the sources,I think. UndercoverClassicist T·C 17:32, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@UndercoverClassicist: Ove Jørgensen does not currently have a grave marker in Holmens Kirkegård -- Guerillero Parlez Moi 15:03, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting: thank you. I assume it was normal practice in Denmark, as in most European countries, to disinter bodies after a while and re-use the grave, particularly if they had no living family? UndercoverClassicist T·C 17:25, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Correct. My understanding after talking with my Danish coworkers is that gravesites in Denmark are rented for a term of years and bodies are disintered if the family is not willing to renew the lease. -- Guerillero Parlez Moi 20:13, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That tracks: J. doesn't seem to have had any children or known family, so not a huge surprise, if a bit of a shame. Thank you for trekking out and looking, though! UndercoverClassicist T·C 20:45, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

FM

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  • This is well outside my area of expertise, but it's short and it's about a countryman of mine, so I'll have a look once someone more, uh, classically trained has reviewed it. Don't hesitate to ask if you need someone to look over or translate something from potential Danish sources. FunkMonk (talk) 21:06, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Hi FM -- thank you for this, very much obliged. For now, could I ask two questions/favours? Firstly, I've included here just about everything I could find that mentions J. at any length: if you can do a cursory look and find anything else written in Danish, could you point me towards it? Secondly, if you know your way around IPA or pronunciation guides, I think one would be very helpful, but I don't really have the Danish expertise to make one. UndercoverClassicist T·C 16:26, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I did a search earlier, and the most comprehensive account I could find was in Den Store Danske Encyklopædi.[1] At a glance, the Wikipedia article already seems to cover most of the ground, but I'll give it a closer look when I read the article and see if there's anything that could be added. According to some results, the 2005 text "Den (over)levende tradition / The (Sur)viving Tradition" by Karen Vedel covers Jørgensen, but I can't find it. Don't know much about IPA, unfortunately, but I know how the name is pronounced, of course. FunkMonk (talk) 16:38, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks -- I used the Den Store Danske Encyklopædi heavily, and I think it's currently the only real biography, apart from this one, in print in any language. Could you give an English approximation of the pronunciation -- I can probably work it into close-enough IPA, or use it as a respell? UndercoverClassicist T·C 17:39, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I didn't realise it was the same source. That page lists some sources in its bibliography: "Peter P. Rohde i Information 10.11.1950", an article in the Danish paper Dagbladet Information, and "Thure Hastrup i O. J.: Udv. skr., 1971 7–19", which appears to maybe be the foreword to "Udvalgte Skrifter" which you have in the bibliography, and then the last source listed. "Papirer i Kgl. bibl." are papers in the Danish Royal Library. The two first texts should be findable, perhaps with the help of WP:RX? Googling a bit, this journal has some Danish articles by Jørgensen[2], this American article seems to mention him[3], and this Danish museum article[4] states that the period where Jørgensen and other significant figures associated with Carl Nielsen has been described as a "new golden age in Danish spiritual (or intellectual) life". As for pronunciation, when I just type in "Ove Jørgensen pronunciation Danish" in Google, an accurate sound clip is playable straight from the search engine. FunkMonk (talk) 19:06, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
All wonderful -- thank you. Will work my way through it. UndercoverClassicist T·C 19:10, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
OK - got the "new golden age", the Udvalgte Skrifter forward is coming though the wonderful folks at RX (got a request there for the Dagbladet Information article too, but it requires a Danish or at least Scandinavian institutional login), and J's 1911 article is in there. The Calhoun article is used at length in Jørgensen's law (as C. was really the first to properly codify the "law" and outline its various caveats and exceptions): it might come back when I have a go at expanding the treatment of the law here. I've had a go at adding pronunciation -- please tweak if you can (I used this website to check that the IPA transcription sounded how I thought) UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:21, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Even if the IPA is correct, you should not use {{respell}} anyway, since policy forbids its use in approximating languages other than English per WP:RESPELLNOT.
@FunkMonk: Can you confirm vowel length and lack of stød? ThaesOfereode (talk) 13:35, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
UCC, I believe the 1950 Information article could be his obituary, so could definitely come in handy. TOE, that IPA reader website seems to give a distinct Anglophonic "twang" to everything, so a bit hard to judge, but it seems a syllable is needed for JØrgEnsen, now it sounds even more like the Danish name Jensen with an American pronunciation... I believe that "stød" should be where the otherwise silent g is, if I understand the term correctly. Like "Jør'ensen". Funny, they don't teach you about "stød" in regular Danish class, I guess it's just taken for granted. FunkMonk (talk) 18:08, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Added the stød, which I think gets the right sound -- I used the Icelandic "reader" on the IPA website, as they don't have a Danish one! Agreed on the obituary: I'm not sure I can currently find enough bibliographical information to meaningfully list it in Further Reading, but I'm optimistic that someone will come along in RX (I don't suppose you know anyone likely to have the right login?) UndercoverClassicist T·C 18:32, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, that explains the more "twangy" sound haha, Icelandic is the farthest you can get from Danish among the Scandinavian langues, would probably sound more correct with the German reader. I'm not sure that Icelandic website you linked at RX has Danish papers? I managed to find the correct issue on Information's archival website[5], but it seems it needs a subscriber's login... Maybe I can ask the Danish National Library, I got free copies of newspapers from them before. This site[6] run by the library also has scans, but you also need to be affiliated with specific universities to log in. FunkMonk (talk) 18:47, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Would be wonderful if you can get anything - I'll add those links to the RX request in case anyone finds it. It looks as thought this one accepts logins via the Danish National Library, which in turn looks like you can create an account using your MitID -- is that anything that makes sense to you? UndercoverClassicist T·C 19:00, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I just logged in, but unfortunately it says I can't view it anyway, I guess current university affiliation is needed. FunkMonk (talk) 19:16, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
When I first learned about the stød, I asked a Danish friend to explain it to me. She expressed a similar attitude, so it's neat to see you say the same. I found it quite difficult to differentiate hun from hund. On the topic of Danish pronunciation, can you confirm that the pronunciation of Jørgensen contains an /ŋ/ (as in English "sing") before the /s/ and not an /n/ (as in English "sin")? It seems unlikely that the /n/ would not be alveolar, though the rest of the transliteration corresponds to my (limited) understanding of Danish phonology. ThaesOfereode (talk) 01:00, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It would actually just be "n", hard to find a good demonstration, but you can hear it pretty clearly in this video 30 seconds in ("Bodil Jørgensen"):[7] FunkMonk (talk) 01:37, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Carl Nielsen mentions him sixty-three times in his diary" considering the scarcity of sources, I wonder if this is something that has been published and could be used somehow?
    • It has, though the very limited access I have to it (Google Books preview) doesn't really pull up much of use -- I think I've mentioned this briefly in some of the other reviews. If you've got better access to it, would be grateful for anything you can find. UndercoverClassicist T·C 07:57, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What is it called? FunkMonk (talk) 15:06, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Here it is via Google Books: part of an edited volume of diaries and letters, from what I can see. UndercoverClassicist T·C 17:30, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "written in German, in the journal Hermes" I wonder if you could just say "in the German journal Hermes": it's less wordy, and it also specifies the journal itself was from Germany, without having to repeat the word "German".
    • True, but that would elide the fact that J. wrote in his second language -- after all, academic journals routinely take submissions in many languages. I'm not sure it's particularly important that the journal was German as opposed to that the article was. UndercoverClassicist T·C 07:57, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, to me it would be pretty clear from "German journal" and the German title listed right before? German fluency was common for the Danish elite, so it isn't that unusual either way (most Danes still learn it in elementary school). FunkMonk (talk) 15:06, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Hermes" is a Greek title, and in their last edition, most of the articles were in English -- it really isn't the case that (e.g.) a French journal will only (or even mostly) have articles written in French. I do see your point, but I think the current framing is the right balance between making the important facts explicit and not being too repetitious. Interesting on German fluency -- I suppose that explains the many academic connections between Copenhagen and Berlin in the period -- and, slightly earlier, the outsized number of Danish intellectuals in the Bavarian-run Kingdom of Greece in the decades after independence. UndercoverClassicist T·C 17:29, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the intro, you present: "with the composer Carl Nielsen and his wife, the sculptor Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen" but in the article it's: "where Jørgensen met the composer Carl Nielsen and his wife Anne Marie". I wonder if her occupation should also be mentioned when she is introduced in the article body? And now she is just presented as a sort of "appendix" to her husband since you don't give her full name there. While I realise it's a repetitive name, since it's the same as her husband's, you do give her full name in the intro after all.
  • "promoting what he saw as authentic, masculine Danish aesthetics – represented by the ballet master August Bournonville" Kind of funny, since he was French/Swedish...
    • Go figure -- plus, of course, ballet is an odd choice for a definingly Danish art form! I suspect that J. was more concerned with the aesthetics and perceived conservatism than the nationality, given that he was happy enough to side with Fokine (who was very classicising and, I think, had similar ideas to J. about aesthetics). UndercoverClassicist T·C 07:57, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's all from me, any success in getting those extra sources? Otherwise I'll write the National Library one of these days about the possible obituary.
    • Some success, but none with the obituary -- if you've got an "in" with the National Library, that would be wonderful. Otherwise, do you know if Danish Wiki has an equivalent of RX? Honestly, given that it was consulted for the Hartmann article, I would hope that it won't radically change what we know, but it may well have some useful details and I think has value as further reading anyway. Still nothing on his experience/actions under occupation, and the more cynical part of me wonders if that silence itself answers some questions... UndercoverClassicist T·C 07:57, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
They answered that one has to physically go to the library to access the archive from their computers, so I'm not sure one can even save the info if they aren't a researcher... FunkMonk (talk) 15:06, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A shame -- I think we shall probably have to draw a blank here for now, then. UndercoverClassicist T·C 17:25, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

ThaesOfereode

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Feels like a topic I can throw my hat in on. Plus, a named law? Count me in. I hope the below is helpful, though it is a hair nitpicky, admittedly (maybe... this is my first FAR). Pretty much everything below can be challenged; I know the difficulty of trying to write about someone notable with glaring gaps in their life's story.

  • Thank you for the review -- I am hardly in a position to complain about nit-picking, and the more careful eyes that the article can have over it, the better. Replies below: all very wise and pertinent comments, though I think some of the infelicities you've identified are artefacts of the subject matter as much as of its presentation here. UndercoverClassicist T·C 17:37, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm glad I've been helpful so far. Below, I've responded to what I think needed comment or further revision (assume anything not addressed is good to go, addressed elsewhere, or awaiting other action). You'll note that I ask "Can we get a quote from XYZ?" quite a lot; don't feel like each instance needs to be fulfilled. I think just one or two from the suggestions will add something positive to the overall quality of the article, help to contextualize and/or explain critical elements of the piece. I might place slight primacy on contextualizing the Nielsen–Jørgensen relationship better with an appropriate quote from Nielsen's diary, but I will leave it up to you to decide if there is anything worth taking from it. Again, nothing in here is show stopping and if the below are not actionable, I'm still happy to support in its current condition. ThaesOfereode (talk) 01:20, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      I managed to get a little quote in on his ballet views, which has some distinctive turns of phrase -- it's quoted at slightly greater length in the source, but I think doing it as a quote box would be repetitious and would maybe crowd the article a little. I think we've got the most important and distinctive bits. UndercoverClassicist T·C 21:20, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      This article is in great shape; I'm glad you were able to find good additions to the article after bringing it here. Happy to support. Great work. Hope I was half as helpful in this article as you were in mine! ThaesOfereode (talk) 01:14, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      Thank you -- for your judicious and thoughtful comments, of course, but particularly for your help with the pronunciation. I am always grateful to have someone come along who actually knows what they are talking about! UndercoverClassicist T·C 10:47, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      Happy to help. Feel free to ping me whenever for IPA/linguistics concerns: I have more papers on the topic than I can count and I'd hate for them to just gather dust! ThaesOfereode (talk) 13:52, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Came back to check how this article was doing. Given that it's changed quite a bit, I hope you won't mind me plunging in for a second volley.
  • You want to consider trimming down the lede since it's about twice as long as MOS:LEADLENGTH recommends.
    • MOS:LEADLENGTH has come up at FAC a few times: I don't think I'm speaking out of turn to say that few writers or reviewers have set much in store, at least recently, by the lengths proposed in the table. There's also often a contradiction with MOS:LEAD, which is to me the more important guideline -- that the lead should summarise the key points of the article well enough that readers can use it as a concise summary of the whole. 300 or so words in three and a bit medium-length paragraphs is very much down the line for an FA biography, and by my count it's about 15% of the length of the body. Happy to take suggestions if it's verbose or if there are unimportant details in there -- I know I'm probably too close to the text to see it dispassionately -- but would resist cutting it purely for the sake of meeting the suggested numbers (and they are only that) in LEADLENGTH. UndercoverClassicist T·C 20:15, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think linking Fear and Trembling in a sacred shudder is incorrect; I think it's probably an Easter egg in any case, but if not, linking Kierkegaard's work seems like the least likely quotation. I think linking Philippians 2 is more appropriate, if the context suggests it is from Scripture, but broadly speaking, I think "a sacred shudder" is likely a metaphor, not a reference, especially given that the Pauline line has a totally different connotation (Jørgensen's "goosebumps in the presence of greatness" vs. Paul's exhortation to persist in obedience to the Divine).
    • Personally, I think it's almost certain that he is referencing "fear and trembling" in the biblical sense of trembling before the Lord (found in Psalm 55 and elsewhere, not just in Philippians) -- I would have linked to an article on the phrase, but there isn't one, and the phrase itself redirects to Kirkegaard (then explains the biblical reference early in the article). Honestly, the linking in that quote is a bit Easter-egg-ish, but it needs to be -- a large part of the point of including that quotation is to get across the sheer density of allusions, flourishes and languages in J.'s writing (he slips into English a paragraph or so later). If you think there's a real doubt as to whether there is a biblical allusion intended (the letter is transmitted in translation, unfortunately, which makes the question a little harder), I will unlink under only very mild protest. UndercoverClassicist T·C 20:15, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    First, I'm floored that Philippians 2 doesn't have any reference to "fear and trembling"; I guess it's another thing to put on my never-ending to-do list. Regardless, let's say for the sake of argument that the letter does have a clear reference to the biblical phrase. I think the casual reader will interpret that link there as Jørgensen referencing Kierkegaard, not Jørgensen referencing the same source as Kierkegaard. Jørgensen was a learned man and I would be surprised if he had never read the work of his fellow countryman with whom his father's life overlapped; I don't think it would be unreasonable to make that jump, for the reader to assume from the link that Kierkegaard is being referenced. And that's assuming it is a biblical reference. I think the big "if" as to whether that is the precise reference (which I'm willing to concede, given the time/person), the Easter egginess (no fault of the nominator, simply a problem of linking in quotations), and the possible confusion this renders to the reader all conspire to have us remove the link from the article, unfortunately. ThaesOfereode (talk) 12:35, 27 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Would it be a workable compromise to direct the link to Fear and trembling (biblical phrase)? From a quick Google Books search, it would pass GNG and there's enough material for a stub/start. UndercoverClassicist T·C 12:51, 27 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Absolutely. I can't believe there isn't already a page on it. ThaesOfereode (talk) 14:06, 27 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Good news -- there now is. Link changed to fit. UndercoverClassicist T·C 23:02, 27 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Wow, this page is really good for having just been set up. Kudos! ThaesOfereode (talk) 02:38, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I believe a citation is needed after In Berlin, he began the process of writing what became his 1904 article on the invocation of the gods in the Odyssey.
  • Purely a cosmetic suggestion, so feel free to refute, but there's a sort of staccato in reading when you place footnote markers after commas, semi-colons, etc. Consider using {{multiref}} (or {{multiref2}} for lengthy quotations/explanations) at the end of sentences and just explaining which source states which cause. The sentences Jørgensen began work on a book-length treatment [...] and He became a lifelong friend [...], for example, would benefit greatly.
  • I think there's advantages and trade-offs to both approaches -- I don't necessarily disagree with your view of the aesthetics, but there is also an advantage to keeping citations as close as possible to the material they support, especially when (as often here) we are having to stitch together multiple sources to form a coherent narrative even at the sentence level. WP:CITE has citation markers are normally placed after adjacent punctuation such as periods (full stops) and commas ... The citation should be added close to the material it supports, offering text–source integrity. -- that at least gives licence to the current approach, I think. Purely subjectively, I'm not a fan of how the multiref templates format the references section, especially when it's a long one. UndercoverClassicist T·C 20:15, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not a problem. Like I said, it's more of a cosmetic change than a necessity. ThaesOfereode (talk) 12:12, 27 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough; withdrawn. It can be difficult to tell which MOS standards have wiggle room and which ones must be strictly followed as a newcomer to FAC. ThaesOfereode (talk) 12:18, 27 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Other than that, I have nothing else to say; this is still an excellent article. ThaesOfereode (talk) 18:43, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for these -- I believe I've fixed and/or responded as needed. @Nikkimaria, Tim riley, SchroCat, FunkMonk, and Generalissima: in the interests of transparency, I have made a few additions from Hastrup 1971, so you may (or may not) wish to take another look to see if your view of the article remains the same. UndercoverClassicist T·C 20:15, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at these additions, my support still stands - indeed, is strengthened by the new edits. - SchroCat (talk) 20:27, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Good to see you got that source, looks fine to me. FunkMonk (talk) 20:29, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Very scrupulous of you UC. No, I see not the smallest need to revise my opinion and I continue to support. Tim riley talk 20:30, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I concur that it looks good! Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 20:36, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A few notes on prose to start.

  • and of Jørgensen's wife – Seems like a WP:POSA thing to add; if he had been born out of wedlock in 1870s Denmark, that would be worth mentioning. Still, if you think this should stand, I think his wife is better than simply "Jørgensen's wife".
    • Yes, I think you're right -- think it's now better formulated as his wife, Louise née Wellmann.
  • an accompanied them to Constantinople – Why? Were they doing something of note there? I'm not sure traveling with someone of note necessarily needs to make it into the details of his life.
    • Sightseeing, particularly ancient monuments -- one assumes J. acted as guide. I've added a link to N's diary on the latter point. I'm struggling to find the duration of the trip (from memory, it was about a month). I'd agree that it's not the most exciting detail, but I think it helps to establish J's relationship with the Carl Nielsens as developing quickly and as more than simple acquaintance (in the original of the infobox image, N. is sitting immediately to J's right). I think he went to Athens with him as well, but couldn't get enough of the diary to be sure (User:FunkMonk may have more luck?) See the point below too. UndercoverClassicist T·C 17:37, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      • I agree that it's important to establish the origins of their relationship. Consider adding a crop of the image from the infobox with Nielsen; it might be nice to have a photo of them together given Nielsen's overall importance in the article. ThaesOfereode (talk) 01:20, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Carl Nielsen mentions him sixty-three times in his diary. – I think this needs more context. Is this a lot? How long were they in Constantinople? I would strongly consider the precise dates, if the information exists. If they were in Constantinople together for an appreciable amount of time, it makes sense that Nielsen would reference Jørgensen a lot. Sixty-three mentions on a week's trip is a lot, but sixty-three mentions in a year is hardly noteworthy.
    • It's throughout the whole diary: I don't have context as to how often he mentions other people, but the point is that they were more than passing acquaintances. See above -- Nielsen is really the only true constant across the two halves of J's life, and is indeed the relationship between N. and J. is a not insubstantial part of what makes J. "notable", in the sense of being of interest to scholars -- on a rough count, somewhere not far south of half of the sources that write about him do so as a friend and correspondent of Nielsen. UndercoverClassicist T·C 17:37, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      • Is there any chance that you (or FM) can add an excerpt from the diary? I know you've called it a pretty terse document, but something from Nielsen's diary that contextualizes Jørgensen's (certainly) vast knowledge about the area would be excellent. Equally as good – if not better – would be a quote that explains how they met, why/how they decided to take this trip in particular, etc., which would really help to set their relationship more comfortably in the article.
        No worries. I suspected this would be the case, but I had to at least advocate for it. ThaesOfereode (talk) 13:37, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • In this article, Jørgensen observed that Homeric characters typically use generic terms, particularly θεός (theos, 'a god'), δαίμων (a daimon) and Ζεύς (Zeus), to refer to the action of gods, whereas the narrator and the gods themselves always name the specific gods responsible.
    • to refer to the action of gods → to refer to the actions of the gods, right?
    • I'm not a classicist, but it's not clear at all why or how Zeus (a specific god) is used to refer to the actions of the gods in general. Is there a way Homer differentiates between the actions of "zeus" vs the actions of "Zeus"?
      • It's the characters, not the narrators -- the idea is that a character might say e.g. "Zeus gave me good fortune, and I won the fight", but mean that as a general idea that they had divine assistance, rather than specifically singling out Zeus as opposed to e.g. Athena, Hera, etc. There are one or two specific cases where this is broken (some discussed in the relevant article) -- in the Iliad, for example, Achilles sounds as though he's about to do it in Book 1, where he complains to his goddess mother Thetis that Zeus doesn't give him the respect that he deserves, but then goes on to make absolutely clear that he is talking specifically about the king of the gods (perhaps underlining his self-importance and perhaps arrogance?) In the Odyssey, Odysseus describes how Zeus sent a thunderbolt to sink his ship, after he angered the god of the sun -- again, here he's very obviously talking about Zeus specifically, but he does then explain himself by saying that he heard this account from the goddess Calypso later on. UndercoverClassicist T·C 17:37, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
        • Neat as hell. I think we might consider a way of conveying that to the audience. Can we splice in a quote from Jørgensen's work on it? Might add some nice detail into Jørgensen's writing style and his contemporary insight. ThaesOfereode (talk) 01:20, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
          If you have a look at the Jørgensen's law article, you'll see the best I could do on this -- unfortunately, it has to end up pretty chunky, as Jørgensen doesn't seem to have been interested in formulating it as a "law", rather than making observations on a specific part of the Odyssey. Honestly, I think that would be an undue use of space in this biographical article, though there might well be room to expand our coverage of the law in this one, and I think it has value where it is in the law's article. UndercoverClassicist T·C 09:32, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Although most members were qualified as doctors of philosophy, others, including Nielsen, were invited. – Comma bomb here. Consider Although most members were qualified as doctors of philosophy, others – including Nielsen – were invited.
  • In 1916, working alongside the chemist S. P. L. Sørensen, Jørgensen completed and published Sophus's unfinished manuscript of Development History of the Chemical Concept of Acid until 1830. – Did Jørgensen only work on the manuscript in 1916 or was it just published in 1916 but had been worked on in previous years?
  • Jørgensen became an authority on ballet – How? Did he have background? Did he just write a bunch of stuff that others liked?
    • It seems to have come out of nowhere! This is admittedly the biggest problem in writing this article -- with (exactly) one exception, all of the biographical accounts of J. are either by classicists, in which case they stop just before he gets into ballet, or by ballet scholars, in which case they start just afterwards -- nobody has really attempted to write the story of how he got into it. He seems to have been a generally cultured and erudite man, given his multiple expertise in classical poetry, English novels and ballet, but I don't think we have the sources to specifically say where his interest came from. He doesn't seem to have had a formal job, but did write a couple of articles in Tilskueren, which seems to have been a reasonably prominent magazine.
      • Bizarre! Do you have any dates for articles he wrote in that magazine? It would be worth noting that he was writing ballet articles while he was still a professor, for example. As with his law, it would be cool to get insight on his view of ballet in his own words if the articles are accessible. ThaesOfereode (talk) 01:20, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • He never was a professor (or "even" a PhD, which became a problem for him). His ballet articles, as far as I can tell, begin in 1905, the year he withdrew from academia (though he did write at least one review article of a classical work later, in 1911), but it would be WP:SYNTH to explicitly say that he only started his interest in ballet after/because of his falling-out with the classical establishment. It might be possible to pull a germane quote from one of those articles: I'll have a look. UndercoverClassicist T·C 09:31, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • He condemned the Art Nouveau– – Not sure what this endash is doing here.
  • calling it "quasi-philosophical experiments". → calling them "quasi-philosophical experiments"., right?
  • "standard analysis of ... the rules that govern human speech about the gods" – Probably non-actionable, but is there anything in the MOS about the use of [...] with the brackets vs. without?

A few notes on content.

  • I think, given that Jørgensen's main claim to fame is the eponymous law, I think maybe it deserves an expansion from its current (body) size of one short paragraph. In particular, I think it would be good to describe how Jørgensen originally formulated/supported his thesis and compare his work with modern scholarship (as in, Jørgensen's original formulation has stood the test of time or modern scholarship has departed from the original formulation in XYZ ways). Although, I suspect scholarship on how Jørgensen formulated the law may be scant.
    • It is -- I might come back to this. The basic thrust is that J. had the basic insight, but didn't really attempt to codify it into a solid "law" or to attempt to phrase it in rigorous terms, so later scholars have done that work and applied the "Jørgensen's law" label to it. UndercoverClassicist T·C 17:37, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      • Added a bit here -- from what I can tell, the real mover and shaker is Calhoun; there's some nice later work on the few cases where Jørgensen's law is straightforwardly broken, which usually makes a convincing argument that this would be noticed by the audience and tells us something interesting about what the poet is trying to do, but I think that's really out of scope for this particular article, as most of it happened decades after J's death. UndercoverClassicist T·C 18:41, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Jørgensen's relationship with Carl Nielsen seems... out of place. I can tell that there is something that called you to repeatedly mention this friendship (and I imagine it is worth adding), but I find it difficult to connect it to the content. In "Later career" it's a little clear that Jørgensen had some impact on his marriage, but is there anything that says that they influenced each other's professional work? They traveled to Constantinople together; are there any episodes from that trip (or any other) that show a working relationship? Even a brief vignette would help to make the mention of the friendship feel more at home in the article.
  • A similar thing can be said about the jump from classicist to ballet expert, but I admit there have been weirder jumps with less in the way of information about how A got to B. If any information exists on the topic – acknowledging that that may be a big "if" – it would be undeniably helpful to the reader.

Overall, this is an article in good condition, with hardly any issues in the way of prose. My main concern now is that there are parts which feel disjointed and do not convey importance to the reader well, but I suspect they can be easily remedied or the scholarship is simply non-existent/inaccessible. I suspect Danish-language skill may be a reasonable bottleneck here, but hopefully FunkMonk can assist should you find anything. ThaesOfereode (talk) 00:25, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

SC

  • "of Jørgensen's wife, Louise Wellmann" jars a little bit. Maybe "of Louise (nee Wellmann)" would suffice?
  • "the philologist Anders Bjørn Drachmann": worth linking philologist, as it's an uncommon term?
  • "Carl Nielsen mentions him sixty-three times in his diary": This is a potentially useful fact, but with no frame of reference it's a bit lost. Is that a lot? Were the mentions positive? Over how long were these spread, etc. Maybe only half a sentence is all that's needed to give it a bit more relevance, but it just looks like a bit of trivia as it stands.
    • See ThaesOfereode's review above -- the point is well made, but we don't have the sources to do any of that, at least as far as I can find. I do think it's got some relevance, and it's not as if we're overloaded with biographical detail: when we've got comparatively little information about someone, I think we do need to drop our standards slightly and include things we might drop out of a fuller account of their life. UndercoverClassicist T·C 17:45, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Was his love of ballet a lifelong thing? It sort of appears part way through the Later career section with no indication of an origin
  • Was the Wanscher lecture connected to ballet at all? It doesn't seem to fit here, being sandwiched between two parts of Duncan

It's relatively short, but I guess if his notability is limited to the eponymous law and his writing on ballet, then that's to be expected, although I was surprised reading of his 1950 death and realising that he lived, presumably in Copenhagen, under Nazi occupation. Was 1930 (the publication of Dickens) the last notable thing about his life until his death? either way, this is, as always, beautifully written and something that made me genuinely interested in someone I've never heard of before, so thank you for that. Cheers – SchroCat (talk) 12:35, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thank you, as ever -- you have the nail on the head, and I'm sure there are some very interesting stories to tell about the last two decades of his life. Unfortunately, the sources are truly scanty indeed -- almost none of them are interested in him for his own sake, and only really discuss him in relation to his classical scholarship, his ballet writings or his relationship with the Carl Nielsens. It might be that we can come up with some more, but at the moment I've not been able to, and none of it features in the one real biography of him that I believe exists outside Wikipedia. UndercoverClassicist T·C 17:45, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. - SchroCat (talk) 19:12, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Generalissima Looks like you just need a source review.

  • I assume the "Search 'Ove Jørgensen' stuff refers to Google Books usage (since they have yet to perfect ctrl-f technology for physical books)? If so, might be good to provide the Google Books links in the bibliography.
  • Refs are generally laid out and formatted consistently. Good use of columns, and good job navigating a Danish-language source corpus.
  • Burke's Peerage is missing a location.
    Oh, fair point then. - G Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 17:50, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Locations are not needed for publishers who have the name of the location in their title (See WP:CS1); so you don't need them for Oxford UP, Leuven UP, or Stockholm University.
  • Only source that seemed potentially suspicious were Burke's Peerage and Weltzer, but they're used appropriately and sparingly.
  • Looking through academic databases for Ove Jørgensen seems to reveal the exact set of sources you used, so it's safe to say you've done your due dilligence squeezing out whatever you can here.

@UndercoverClassicist: Beyond the minor scruples on formatting, seems like we're pretty much good to go here. Let me know when you've fixed up that stuff. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 17:42, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Support from Tim riley

[edit]

Precious little from me. The article is in fine shape. A few minor suggestions:

  • "an article in which he outlined the distinctions between how the gods are referred to by mortal characters and by the narrator and gods in the Odyssey" – for precision I'd move "in the Odyssey" to follow "distinctions".
  • "He subsequently travelled to Athens in 1903" – don't think we need "subsequently" as well as the year.
  • I'm having a little difficulty with the calendar: if he spent the 1902–1903 academic year in Berlin it seems odd that he moved to Athens in time to meet the Nielsens and go to Constantinople with them in May 1903. Or was the German academic year quite different from ours?
    • Two possible explanations, I think, though neither is spelt out in the sources -- most likely, the academic year had ended (the week after the end of the Cambridge year is known as "May Week", though in recent times it happens in June), at least for these particular students (who weren't following a particularly formal course of study). Less likely, they could have considered the trip part of their studies, or simply bunked off. He didn't really move to Athens; that was very much a holiday/study trip. UndercoverClassicist T·C 10:24, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Jørgensen … forgotten them" – a 57-word sentence that could do with breaking up, I think, probably after "way of life". And is "expected few to have forgotten" quite right here? "Expected to" sounds like an order – "He expected them to polish his shoes" – rather than expecting that few would have forgotten.
  • "she had reconciled with Carl" – unexpected verb: I'd expect "was" rather than "had", but I may be wrong. Either way, would it not be more neutral to say "she and Carl were reconciled, and she was..." – rather than appearing to put the onus on Anne Marie?
  • "criticising the innovations introduced into European ballet by the dancer Isadora Duncan" – is it correct to say that Duncan introduced innovations into European ballet? She pranced about on European stages and opened a dance school but I'm not sure she dabbled in ballet, or would claim to have done. Perhaps safer to say "introduced innovations to European dance" rather than "introduced innovations to European ballet"?
  • "Personal life and assessment" – a perfectly reasonable header, but the following text deals with assessment and then personal life rather than vice versa.

I am indebted to you for the information that in Danish Great Expectations is Store forventninger. In exchange I offer you some Shakespeare: in Dutch, De vrolijke vrouwtjes van Windsor and in Welsh, Bid Wrth Eich Bodd.

That's my lot. What an interesting man – such a range of expertise! – Tim riley talk 08:29, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support. The article seems to me to meet all the FAC criteria. I much enjoyed reading and reviewing it. Tim riley talk 10:50, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comment from Choliamb

[edit]

Somehow I missed this when it first went up, probably because Jørgensen was a complete cipher to me and the name rang no bells when saw it in the list of nominated articles. It's a fine article, almost everything was new to me, and I loved the peek into Wilamowitz's classroom. It is much shorter than your other FAs, but I have no idea how that affects its eligibility. My comment is limited to a couple of little quibbles about the quote from Tyrtaeus:

  • Consider revising the second part of explanatory note c to read simply "a line from a poem by the ancient Spartan poet Tyrtaeus", for two reasons: (1) "Fragment 10" is not the title of the poem, it is simply the number of this fragment in West's edition. It should not be in quotation marks. (2) This particular fragment is not universally known as fragment 10. It was fragment 10 in Bergk's Poetae lyrici graeci, but fragment 7 in Diehl's Anthologia lyrica graeca, which was the standard text for most of the 20th century. It became fragment 10 again in West's Oxford edition (followed by Gerber's Loeb), but it is still fragment 7 in the new Teubner edition by Gentili and Prato. Opinions differ about the merits of West vs. Gentili, but both numbers are still in use, and it is not uncommon to see citations like "Tyrt. 7D = 10W". Expanding this for Wikipedia audiences, you might write "Tyrtaeus, fragment 7 Diehl = 10 West; Gerber 1999, pp. 52–53" in the citation at the end of the explanatory note. This would allow readers in the know to find the poem in whatever edition they are using, and still provides the Loeb reference with its English translation for those who don't care.
    • All quite right -- I have done this with a slightly different phrasing, which I think is more layman-friendly; do let me know if I've mangled it.
  • In the quotation itself, a space is needed between γ' and ὀφθαλμοῖς.
  • Finally, not a quibble but a question: is the quotation itself correctly reproduced from J.'s letter? It ends νεμεσητὰ ἰδεῖν, which caught my eye because the hiatus would be intolerable unless Tyrtaeus observed the digamma in ἰδεῖν. The transmitted text (quoted by Lycurgus) has νεμεσητὸν here, and that is what all modern editions print (Bergk, Diehl, West, Gentili, Gerber). So if Jørgensen actually wrote νεμεσητὰ, he must have been using Peppmüller's revised edition of Buchholz's Anthologie aus den Lyrikern der Griechen, which appears to be the only edition that prints that form. The digamma was pronounced in Archaic Sparta, but it is not regularly observed in what survives of Tyrtaeus's poetry, a fact that has occasioned some discussion (see Dover, "The Poetry of Archilochus", Entretiens Hardt 10 (1964), at pp. 190–193). Nothing for you to do here, but interesting, at least for classicists.
    • As transcribed in the source, yes, it's an alpha with a grave accent. Not impossible that it's Mejer's error rather than J.'s choice, but given what you say about the different versions, I'd suggest that the most likely explanation is as you suggest, that he did indeed write νεμεσητὰ. If anything, we'd expect a modern editor's error to go the other way, and "correct" it to the modern text. I've been slightly bold and made it plural in the translation as well, though I doubt anyone would have noticed. UndercoverClassicist T·C 15:33, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

— Choliamb (talk) 14:30, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thank you, Choliamb -- all wise and most welcome. You may enjoy some other bits of J's letters, quoted in that Mejer article, which are a great pen-portrait of v. W. and his lessons -- he describes with some humour the scene of the German undergraduates flailing over giving torturously long line numbers in their shaky Latin, and eventually managing to say so little that Wilamowitz declares he may as well have settled the lesson's debate by drawing lots. I imagine you'll have access to a copy, but if you don't and would like it, will send one to you. UndercoverClassicist T·C 15:33, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    It's always the numbers that trip you up, as I learned in high school French. One minute you can be rolling along like a native Parisien, and then all of a sudden things screech to a halt as you try to do the math to come up with dix-neuf cent quatre-vingt-dix-huit. I will have a look at Mejer. Support. Choliamb (talk) 20:11, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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