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The Importance of Being Earnest

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The Importance of Being Earnest (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

As of 13 September 2024, 22:27 (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): Tim riley talk 20:32, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Importance of Being Earnest is allegedly the second most quoted play in the English language, after Hamlet, and has a lot more laughs. Many editors have contributed to the article since it was promoted to GA back in 2010, and I have attempted to incorporate all cited and relevant additions into the present text as well as expanding it quite a lot and making the text as cogent as I can, with suitable sections and headings. As ever, suggestions for improvement will be received gratefully. – Tim riley talk 20:32, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

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  • Alexander is missing alt text
Added. Can't think how I missed that one. Tim riley talk 09:43, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Don't use fixed px size
Now just thumb. Tim riley talk 09:43, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Another editor, who no doubt knows more about these things than I do, has changed it again. Perhaps you'd check it's OK now. Tim riley talk 12:08, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:Millard-importance-earnest.jpg: source link is dead
Replaced with a difference image and added a fourth to the gallery, which perhaps you'd be kind enough to check. Tim riley talk 09:43, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:Wilde-1896-Toulouse-Lautrec.jpgn needs a US tag.
I can't find a specifically US tag for "Artist died more than 100 years ago". Could you advise, please? Tim riley talk 09:43, 25 August 2024 (UTC) I think I see what's happened here: some helpful soul has taken "Do not copy this file to Wikimedia Commons" to mean "Do copy this file to Wikimedia Commons". I've replaced it with a local copy, duly (I trust) tagged. Tim riley talk 10:16, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Nikkimaria (talk) 00:03, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you as ever for the review, Nikkimaria. All attended to – I hope satisfactorily. Tim riley talk 11:17, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
All fine. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:24, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For the Heaven-knows-how-many times, thank you, Nikkimaria Tim riley talk 13:50, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ssilvers comments and support

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Synopsis

  • "The play opens with". This is "meta" information about the play. My understanding is that, on WP, plot synopses should simply "tell the story", without any reference to stagecraft, audience, etc. unless the script calls for the stage device to be pointed out to the audience ("Pseudolus says that the ensuing story will be a comedy"). So, I believe it should start "Algernon Moncrieff, a young man about town, receives his friend...."
  • ..."'Synopsis'. This heading implicitly informs the reader that the text within it describes the fiction. For conciseness, it is thus not necessary to explicitly incorporate out-of-universe language, particularly if the work is presented in a linear, direct presentation" (as you do in The Importance of Being Earnest). See MOS:PLOT, under "Plot summaries of individual works". -- Ssilvers (talk) 01:37, 27 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "As Jack gives her his address in the country" -- I think "her" means Gwendolyn, not Bracknell? We ought to specify.
  • Governess is wikilinked. Is this necessary, particularly in a plot summary?

Composition

  • "...earlier drawing room plays, Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance and An Ideal Husband". Perhaps add years, or say "earlier in the 1890s"?
  • Re: Douglas's claims in the first paragraph of this section, do scholars believe him?
  • Can you please add that Douglas's claims in the first paragraph are not believed, or doubted? Otherwise a reader might think that everyone (other than maybe Gielgud) accepted Douglas's claims. -- Ssilvers (talk) 22:05, 27 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would move into main text the statements that Ellman concluded that Douglas was untrustworthy and that Gielgud was unpersuaded. The imprisonment for criminal libel should stay in the footnote, I think.
  • ..."stage movements, using a model theatre"... Do any of the sources mention that this was also Gilbert's technique in designing stage movement for his productions?

First productions

  • "triggering a series of trials ending in Wilde's imprisonment... The Victorian public turned against Wilde" -- I think this goes by too fast. I think the following facts (at least a very brief mention of them) are relevant to an understanding of why Wilde's action backfired so disastrously, and the play's run was cut so short: 1. Wilde brought the prosecution against his friends' advice; 2. Queensbury was arrested, making it worth his while to hire private investigators. 3. Wilde's colourful private life became a daily news topic (not simply celebrity gossip), including accusations about his behavior involving underage boys, until it made his plays unpalatable to "respectable" theatregoers. 4. Wilde's flippancy on the stand served to reinforce this bad image of his character. 5. The case bankrupted Wilde.
  • That level of detail belongs, and is to be found, in the (very full and commendable) article on Wilde. What matters here are Queensberry's opening night attempt and Wilde's arrest and imprisonment. The reader here does not need to have "an understanding of why Wilde's action backfired so disastrously", but simply that it did. Tim riley talk 08:48, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • OK, but maybe just add a clause like this? "The Victorian public, who read daily, sensationalised reports of the evidence presented at the trials, including accusations about Wilde's behavior involving teenage boys, turned against him soon after his arrest..."
  • Your source for this?

Critical opinion -- no suggestions

Revivals

  • "You are tickled throughout with a feather, and is a very pleasant and comforting sensation." Is "it" missing, after "and"?
  • Are any of these notable? I have tried to cherry pick the notable productions rather than compile an exhaustive list of every one. I have, for example, omitted a fairly recent West End production that drew poor notices and did not run for long.
Now that I look at the reviews for the 1902 revival by Frohman's stock company in the US press, I see that (unlike in England) Wilde's name is prominently mentioned, and that fact is worth a mention, I think. Tim riley talk 08:48, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "An Old Vic production in February 1934"... Why include the month, when we have been rounding to years previously?

Publication

  • It was sold for £650. -- Do we need to give the currency translation to today's pounds and dollars?
  • Good point. But I'm uneasy about keeping this addition. Is it really relevant to the play? I have written two thirds of the present text but there are bits of the other third, such as this, that I've inherited and am not sure about. Thoughts?

Analysis

  • No comments to add

Adaptations

  • Tim, you did not, apparently see this question above. (I thought you had answered it in the affirmative below, together with my next question, but after I did the work to add the production to the text, you reverted it. The production was the 4th in a series of the Wilde plays by the same company that ran at the Vaudeville throughout 2017 and 2018. -- Ssilvers (talk) 17:44, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Above, should we not that the 2011 Stratford and 2015 Vaudeville Theatre revivals were 1. released 2. on film?

MSinccc

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You might like to read the Oxford Style Manual which quotes Fowler: No absolute rules regulate a paragraph’s length, since its size is a function of the arrangement and flow of the text it contains. As Fowler says, 'The paragraph is essentially a unit of thought, not of length: it must be homogeneous in subject-matter and sequential in treatment'. Squashing an Indian derivative in with three Anglophone films is neither homogeneous nor sequential. You might also read The Economist's excellent style guide, which similarly quotes Fowler and adds One-sentence paragraphs should be used only occasionally. This is one such occasion. Tim riley talk 09:46, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your explanation. It's a fine article as it stands. I have nothing more for the time being. Support MSincccc (talk) 18:02, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

SC

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Comments to follow. - SchroCat (talk) 08:35, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • "flat in Half Moon Street, Mayfair[n 1]": according to MOS:NOSECTIONLINKS, there shouldn't be footnotes in headings
  • "Irene Handl, was given a German accent": why did Millar insist on buggering about with rather odd and pointless changes in nearly everything he did? Bloody infuriating and distracting it was most of the time!
I entirely concur. I once sat through most of a Midsummer Night's Dream he did at the Almeida, where the fairies all had Scouse accents (when the poor young actresses could manage them). But to be fair he did a Marriage of Figaro for ENO that was wonderful - gimmick free and enchanting. Tim riley talk 10:22, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "to the supposed gay subtext": as we've not been introduced to this theory at this stage, would linking down to the section work better?
  • "Singapore in October 2004 ... London, in April 2005": Is there any need for the months?
  • Your use of the serial comma isn't consistent
  • FN6 - U.S. could happily live as just US
Touché (but what about your full-stopped Mrs. Potts chez Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?) Tim riley talk 10:22, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • FN 14 (the French titles) could do with speech marks (as you have for FN 12): "The Importance of Being Serious", "It is Important to Be Loved", "It is Important to Be Desired" and "It is Important to Be Faithful". Either that, or have all the translated titles in italics.
Thank you, SchroCat. Excellent, helpful comments and gratefully received support. Tim riley talk 10:40, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Source review – Pass

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Will do soon. Aza24 (talk) 00:41, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Formatting
  • Agate 1976 missing a publisher location (London, I presume)
  • I'm wondering why some double references are combined into one tag (12 & 38, for example), while others are not (21/22 & 29/40). I would think it should be standardized one way or another—you can identify the un-coupled ones by doing control/command F with "][" which should find double references
  • The liner notes to ref 149 "NMC CD set NMC D197" appear to be by Paul Griffiths (writer)—seems worth including him and perhaps a date
  • Ref 92 missing a publisher/website
Reliability
  • According to my reliability checker, it seems Broadway World has been deemed "generally unreliable" (ref 151). This looks like a better source: [1] or you could cite the company itself: [2]
  • There are quite a few old news reports, but given that they are direct citations to contemporary reporting of various performances, they seem permissible. I also doubt that better, more recent sources exist in this regard. This being said, this might be worth including.
Verifiability
  • The "1930–2000" section sources: are they available online? Links would seem beneficial for readers, here and with other old news sources.
  • They are indeed available online, which is where I got them, but I accessed them from the British Library and the City of London Libraries which have their own unique access codes, which are no use to anyone else. I try to give urls to all the online pages that I can usefully do. Tim riley talk 11:02, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't think the WorldCat refs cover the cast lists in the "Commercial recordings" section for the 1st and 2nd links; the year is not included in the latter either (unless you are citing their liner notes? That should be made clearer if so). These two sources should include the sought-after information: [3] [4]. The 3rd and 4th WorldCat refs seem fine, but could do with the inclusion of WorldCat's name
  • I've found a reliable source for the date of the Webster version, and WorldCat names the two actors now remaining in the present article. While looking for that version I came across another, impressively cast, audio version, which I have added. All other details, as suggested above, added, I hope. Tim riley talk 11:02, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

All issues addressed. Pass for source review – Aza24 (talk) 00:33, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Aza24. I hate doing source reviews and am full of admiration for those who volunteer to do them. I'm most grateful. Tim riley talk 08:43, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support from UC

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Commenting by request; I also gave minor feedback on the Talk page earlier, where I confessed to having not seen or read the play. Completely unqualified commentary begins:

  • Drawing room play: pace our own article, MOS:HYPHEN would hyphenate, as "drawing room" is not a proper noun. Ditto, later, box office receipts.
  • Hmm. The OED doesn't hyphenate either term and Chambers' hyphenates both. As I have quoted before, "If you take hyphens seriously you will surely go mad". Hyphens added before I am certifiable. Tim riley talk 12:48, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • some critics had reservations about its lack of social messages: can we expand this with a word or two as to what they felt Wilde missed out? We've already said that it satirises Victorian manners, which says that it did have some social message (though presumably it passed over what these critics thought were more important ones).
  • This is a bit difficult, as the critics and OW's fellow authors had various differing takes on "social message". Shaw, who pushed a largely socialist agenda, insisted that all art should be didactic, and Henry Arthur Jones was equally didactic from the conservative viewpoint. Pinero was somewhere betwixt and between. Every major playwright at the time, except OW, had some social comment in his plays: even W. S. Gilbert had some fairly biting stuff in his libretti. Tim riley talk 12:48, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • After his release from prison: can we put a date on this?
  • The role of the formidable Lady Bracknell: we said that she was formidable earlier in the lead, so I wouldn't repeat it here.
  • Link "farcical comedy" in the infobox?
The same term links to farce in the lead, in the phrase it is a farcical comedy. Happy to defer to you on the solution, but we should apply the same logic in both places. UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:26, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Now just comedy in the i-box. Tim riley talk 17:00, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note 1: I know it's like saying the Pope is Catholic for those in the know, but does Jackson actually add a note to spell out referring to the London postal district of the street, running north from Piccadilly?
  • He doesn't, but Wilde's stage direction "Half Moon Street, W." needs some explanation for those who don't know London's geography or postal history. I don't think saying here that the street runs north from Piccadilly is in any need of a confirmatory citation. Tim riley talk 12:48, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Just to be on the safe side, advise a rephrase to "W. is the postal code for..." -- that avoids claiming that this is exactly/entirely what Wilde had in mind, which would require a citation. On the geography, I'd include a citation personally: it should be easy to find one, and this would be a borderline case if we were at GAN, so we should probably err on the side of strictness here. UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:25, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've blitzed the explanation and just linked to our WP article on the street. Tim riley talk 14:05, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • an invalid friend: might consider a rephrase to get around the awkward inválid/invalíd distinction here -- "a sickly friend", "an unwell friend" or similar, or "to be friends with an invalid named..."?
  • he was adopted after being discovered as a baby, in a handbag at Victoria Station in London: suggest reordering to "discovered as a baby in a handbag at London's Victoria Station and adopted" or similar -- as written, it sounds as if the adoption took place in the handbag.
  • hitherto absent dissolute brother: hyphen after hitherto (he's presumably still dissolute).
  • Consider a wiktionary link on "triviality" and "Ernest/earnest" to help make sure readers get the joke?
  • Note 2: do we have a source that definitively says "Douglas is not considered a reliable witness" (not just "Douglas is not a reliable witness")?
Unfortunately, making that leap (from "everyone I can find" to "everyone") is fairly unambiguously WP:SYNTH, but there would be nothing wrong with "numerous authorities, including Smith, Jones and Evans, consider Douglas an unreliable witness", perhaps shifting the minutiae of names to a footnote. I think that would achieve the same end but avoid the problem. UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:29, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've removed all the offending material. Now simply reporting what Douglas is reported as saying. Tim riley talk 14:10, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hm -- I don't think this works, unfortunately. If none of our sources would write "Douglas claims XYZ..." without adding "but he's a lying bastard", we're misrepresenting them if we only include the first half. I think putting a name or names on the judgement of Douglas's reliability would solve the problem while keeping the wording pretty close to what you originally had. UndercoverClassicist T·C 14:55, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
OK. Removed all mention of Douglas here. Tim riley talk 16:02, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I feel like I'm missing something here -- you seem to be taking out very good, useful work (which is probably required under WP:DUEWEIGHT and FAC "comprehensiveness" anyway, given Douglas's importance to the broader story of the play), and I don't really understand the need to do so. Have I missed something? If it would be helpful for me to put together a rough draft of what I had in mind, happy to do so. UndercoverClassicist T·C 16:06, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Please do. I'd prefer to keep the information in, but can't work out how to meet your requirements. Tim riley talk 16:09, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
User:UndercoverClassicist, I also urge you to work on this draft as soon as possible, as I am also sorry to see the deletion of the information, including the doubts about Douglas's veracity. -- Ssilvers (talk) 19:03, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Personally, would advocate a restoration of the previous material in the interim — both have their tradeoffs but I think the article is better and closer to the FA standards with than without. I’ve copied it over to my Sandbox; will look over the sources over the next few days, give it a go and make a suggestion on the Talk page. UndercoverClassicist T·C 19:21, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would also support restoring the former material unless and until UC comes up with something better. I don't think "considered" crosses the line into synth because the writers noted in Tim's (usually thorough) research considered his statements (and this is a particularly self-serving one) to be unreliable, and there is evidence that some were demonstrably untrue. -- Ssilvers (talk) 20:18, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
the writers noted in Tim's (usually thorough) research considered his statements (and this is a particularly self-serving one) to be unreliable -- indeed, and saying that those writers considered it unreliable would be perfectly fine. However, reading a number of sources that share a view, and inferring from doing so that the view is widely or generally held, is unambiguously OR -- that is, it's breaking the instruction not to combine material from multiple sources to state or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. UndercoverClassicist T·C 21:30, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Interpreting policies with extreme rigidity, so that helpful content is suppressed, is not, actually, what Wikipedia is about. See WP:What SYNTH is not#SYNTH is not a rigid rule. -- Ssilvers (talk)
I don't honestly see how you can read my reply above and say that any of the helpful content needs to be suppressed, but I'll have to ask your patience until I've put together a short draft to make clearer what I'm going on about. UndercoverClassicist T·C 21:48, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Tim riley: I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask more patience. The comment on Douglas' reliability was cited to "Ellermann, p. 588". Assuming that Ellermann is Ellmann 1988, p. 588 in the edition linked on archive.org is the last page of the bibliography, which clearly isn't right. I don't suppose you could dig out the correct source/page and ping me the quotation? The other sources cited are primary, which isn't a problem as long as some secondary work has made use of them in the same way, but I can't find them in Ellmann via the very crude tools I have. UndercoverClassicist T·C 22:01, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have spent more than enough time on this. Bloody Bosie's uncorroborated assertions are of peripheral importance, and I propose to omit reference to him. If that's a sticking point for you then I suppose you may have to oppose the elevation of this article to FA. Tim riley talk 08:40, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
On the strength of the sources previously provided, I think removal is and was the right call. If there are stronger sources, that would change the picture, but I don't propose to go looking particularly hard for them and will respect your decision on the matter in either direction. UndercoverClassicist T·C 10:34, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • He told John Gielgud (who was not persuaded), that: no comma, except in German.
  • And in your granny's English. I had a darling old colleague, whom I succeeded as librarian of the Crown Estate, who always used a comma in such a construction – plainly drilled into her by her teachers in the 1930s (just as I was taught in the 1950s to put a hyphen in to-day and to-morrow, scout's honour!). But removed from here. Tim riley talk 12:48, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Removed. 16:04, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
  • before rehearsals began, he changed his plans to help a colleague in a crisis: presumably he put his mate's play on instead -- is there a concise way to say something like "he replaced Wilde's play in the billing with Such and Such by Henry SoAndSo, to assist the latter with a personal crisis/medical bills/gambling debts"?
Ah -- I hadn't twigged that Alexander was the colleague. Perhaps move his name up into the preceding sentence? My impression was that there were two people involved -- Wyndham dropped Wilde to help an unnamed friend (by staging his play instead?), but fortuitously Alexander was in need of something to put on, so an arrangement was made that Wyndham would give up his now-unused rights. Even reading again with knowledge of the intended meaning, I don't think that was a particularly silly interpretation, so I think it could be reworked for clarity. UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:33, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Redrawn. Tim riley talk 14:53, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • In early 1895 ... had failed: the tenses here mean that I'm not exactly sure when the main action happened here. Did Wyndham's waiving of rights and dropping of Wilde's play happen in early 1895 as well? A bit of reordering would clarify, I think.
  • Redrawn.
  • Valentine's Day, 1895: for the benefit of readers who live where this is not celebrated, I'd add the date as well (it's important a little bit later).
  • policemen: consider police officers as more modern language: Wilde probably didn't specifically request that they be men, even though he wouldn't have had too much choice at the time.
  • He arrived with a prize fighter!!: I like the double exclamation marks but might be tempted to sic it to avoid a future editor removing one (which MOS:CONFORM would admittedly condone).
  • That's another thing drilled into me at school: Thou shalt not use more than one exclamation mark at a time. The snag about a sic here is that it would look to most eyes, I think, that it was "prize fighter" rather than the punctuation that I was sic-ing. Tim riley talk 12:48, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough. I'd explain in a footnote, but then I have a bad habit of overusing those. UndercoverClassicist T·C13:34, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Me too. A nice colleague once told me that the footnotes were the best thing about my FACs, which struck me as a double-edged compliment. Tim riley talk 14:49, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is it worth spelling out what Queensbury would be doing with a prize fighter?
  • Good idea. He was the complete philistine and had something to do with boxing. I'll add a footnote.
  • This article suggests that Queensbury left the vegetables at the theatre to show his distaste; I think that would be worth including.
  • Any idea what Mrs George Canninge's name was?
  • Wilde's homosexual private life and ended in his imprisonment for gross indecency in May 1895: we don't actually spell out that homosexual activity was a crime, I don't think (he could theoretically have been outed as gay and then imprisoned for flashing, for example). I think it would be worth doing so.
Ah -- I hadn't realised that "gross indecency" exclusively mean sexual activity with another man. I think that would be worth explaining: it sounds like it just means "being extremely naughty". UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:35, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is leading me down long-ago autobiographical paths I can no longer retread. I'll ponder how to make the distinction you suggest, but I shall not be explaining to you the difference between "gross indecency" and "being extremely naughty". Tim riley talk 17:00, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
On relection I don't think an explanatory footnote would add anything the blue link doesn't offer. Tim riley talk 08:40, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think Ida Vernon would rate a redlink -- Googling around, she had an interesting life (including running blockades during the Civil War and coming up in the inquest into Lincoln's death!)
  • Poor old Ida! I hate it when someone has a red link that lingers on and on, signalling that no-one thinks him or her notable enough for an article. The actress I most want to get an article for is Mrs George Canninge, but I can't find a date for her death, which puts the kibosh on it. Every other member of the original cast has an article, and this lacuna grieves me. Tim riley talk 12:48, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "in subtlety of thought, brilliancy of wit and sparkling humour, it has scarcely been excelled"; "its fun is irresistible ... increasing in intensity until in the third and last act it becomes uproarious": these quotes should be attributed in the text.
  • We can't attribute them to an author as they are unsigned, and I really, with due respect to those publications, don't feel the need to mention The Otago Star etc by name in the text. All I could realistically do is say "Reviewers said...", which seems to me to be implicit in the existing text, though I have no rooted objection to adding it. Tim riley talk 12:48, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think that framing would work well, and keep the MoS happy while keeping (arguably) less-than-essential newspaper names out of the way. UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:36, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Tim riley talk 14:49, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reading the first two paragraphs of "Critical opinion" (particularly a play which raises no principle, whether of art or morals, creates its own canons and conventions, and is nothing but an absolutely wilful expression of an irrepressibly witty personality, I find myself thinking of Wilde's prefaratory note to The Picture of Dorian Gray -- is there anything to be said here that the play's alleged solipsism and lack of interest in the "real world" might have been the whole point?
Do we? Maybe I missed it: I can see the first paragraph of "structure and genre" as gesturing in this direction, but not really stating it. Likewise, the "triviality" section gets there very briefly at the end, but I wonder if it would be a better approach to tie those two sections together and be a little clearer about the bigger social/moral/political/artistic implications of "trivial" art? I notice that the Decadent movement doesn't currently seem to get a mention. UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:39, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's practically impossible to be ostentatiously decadent and gloriously funny at the same time. OW's decadent, sub-Baudelaire, side is to the fore in Salome rather than here. Tim riley talk 13:03, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • saying that in his other comedies – Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance and An Ideal Husband – the plot: I think clearer as the plot of his other comedies –
  • Note 7 (on Sardou) is missing a close quote, and coups de théâtre should be in a lang template (and probably linked somehow).
  • By the time of its centenary: I would add "in 1995"; I'll admit I had to look back up to check.
  • "the second most known and quoted play in English after Hamlet".: not your problem, but I would definitely have asked Lawson for his sources here.
  • Point taken, and I'm not a particular fan of Lawson, but if I hadn't thought his comment accurate I shouldn't have used it. I think probably the two Lewis Carroll Alice books are the all-round runners up to Hamlet, but so far as plays are concerned I can't think of a more plausible candidate than The Importance. Tim riley talk 14:49, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'll admit I didn't know that this was the source of "To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune ... to lose both seems like carelessness", or "the truth is rarely pure and never simple", which makes me less suspicious. I know those are on Wikiquote, but would it be worth including one or both in this article? UndercoverClassicist T·C 14:59, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's an attractive idea, but the difficulty is picking a few quotes out of the many available. Without an authoritative source to back up my personal list of lines from The Importance it would not be encyclopaedic. I'm reasonably comfortable with picking out what seem to me notable revivals and adaptations, but not about saying which of Wilde's lines are the most characteristic and celebrated. Curiously, the most famous line, I suppose, is famous not for Wilde's wit but for Edith Evans's three-octave down-and-up swoop on the words, "A handbag?". Contrariwise, when I saw the play in Paris a few years ago "Un sac de voyage?" went for comparatively little, and Lady Bracknell's "Fort heureusement, en Angleterre l’éducation ne produit jamais aucun effet" got the biggest laugh of the evening. Tim riley talk 08:40, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Very reasonable -- I had a brief look for sources willing to stick their necks out and call either "one of Wilde's most famous lines" vel sim, and came up with little. If they won't do it, we probably shouldn't. UndercoverClassicist T·C 10:39, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • one provincial critic: provincial can read as a little sneering (meaning "bumpkinish" rather than just "not in London"): "one critic in Folkestone", "in a local Kent paper"?
  • Again on attributing quotes: if we're going to give the Sporting Times a whole paragraph, we should at least credit them (is the reviewer's name known?)
  • The revival ran for 52 performances: earlier, we had it closed on 8 May after only 83 performances. I'm obviously missing something here -- why does only the first one get presented as a short run?
  • A first run of a play by a leading dramatist can reasonably be expected to run for a goodly time. In the late 19th century 100 performances or more counted as a success. A fill-in revival can play as long or short as wanted. Tim riley talk 13:59, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If you've got a source that <100 performances was considered a failure, that would be a good factoid to add -- but I don't think the article is badly off for missing it. Given your explanation here, I think the "inconsistency" is fine. UndercoverClassicist T·C 16:09, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't quite go so far as to say that plays that had under 100 performances were considered failures, but rather that those notching up 100 or more were judged worthy of listing in the theatrical reference books. Tim riley talk 08:40, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Max Beerbohm: pops up a few times, but we never actually say who he was.
  • The New York Times commented that the play "has lost nothing of its humor … no one with a sense of humor can afford to miss it".: I think MOS:SAID applies here.
I think we're in the territory of For example, to write that a person noted, observed, clarified, explained, exposed, found, pointed out, showed, or revealed something can imply objectivity or truthfulness, instead of simply conveying the fact that it was said, but I do take your point about "comment" vs "news". Happy to disagree. UndercoverClassicist T·C 15:58, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • The caption beginning "Leslie Faber" isn't a full sentence, so no full stop.
  • Jonathan Miller, who had been prevented the previous year from staging the play at the National Theatre with an all-male cast: this sounds like a story -- by whom or by what?
  • Sir Peter Hall in his diaries. The National Theatre board discussed the proposal at length, and reluctantly gave it the go-ahead. The planned production had to be cancelled for lack of funds. Tim riley talk 13:59, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Can we add the lack of funds? The vagueness of our current phrasing leaves open (in fact, I would say it leads the reader towards) the idea that the all-male cast was the reason for the play being called off. UndercoverClassicist T·C 21:40, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Tim riley talk 08:40, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wilde's two final comedies, An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest, were still on stage in London at the time of his prosecution: I'd remind the reader of the date, as we've just zoomed forward into the present day with all the revivals.
  • In 1898, when no one else would, Leonard Smithers agreed with Wilde to publish the two final plays.: do I read correctly that Wilde had previously approached other people? Any idea of who?
  • I inherited this, and now I check I have trimmed. Ellmann says "He was persuaded to have Smithers publish two of his own plays which, because of his disgrace, had never been printed". Our text was a reasonable interpretation of Ellmann, but not beyond criticism. Tim riley talk 08:40, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note 12: noting your opposition to German in a previous FAC, I would nevertheless translate the proposed titles.
  • L'importanza di essere Franco/Severo/Fedele: lang templates here.
  • I would spell out in note 14, as you have in 13, that Désiré and Fidèle are also given names.
  • Wilde himself evidently took sandwiches with due seriousness.: part of me wants to cry WP:V, WP:TSI and so on, but this is such a lovely line that I can hardly bring myself to do so.
Not on my account. UndercoverClassicist T·C 15:00, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Algernon says in Act II, "one must be serious about something if one is to have any amusement in life", but goes on to reproach Jack for being serious about everything and thus revealing a trivial nature: we cite this to a text of the play -- just checking that this interpretative point is made there too?
  • it spread to the middle and upper classes during the century.: being very picky, the Victorian period didn't start until 1837 and carried on (just!) into the C20th, so "the century" isn't a good substitute for it: can we say "the mid-nineteenth century" or something more specific?
  • which continues in the discussion, "Yes, but you must be serious about it. I hate people who are not serious about meals. It is so shallow of them: who says this?
  • Algernon, having manoeuvred Jack into treating him to dinner at Willis's, a fashionable restaurant in King Street, near the St James's Theatre.
  • The men follow traditional matrimonial rites, whereby suitors admit their weaknesses to their prospective brides, but the foibles they excuse are ridiculous: traditional on stage rather than in reality?
Do you have the source to hand? UndercoverClassicist T·C 15:00, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Later: I am in your debt for challenging this. I wrote two thirds of the current draft and have striven to streamline and improve the remaining third. But I missed this bit: the cited source makes no mention of "traditional matrimonial rites", and I have replaced the offending words with something much more representative of the source. Tim riley talk 15:40, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • When Jack apologises to Gwendolen it is for not being wicked: use the em template for emphasis, not italics (renders the same), so that screen readers can process it.
  • The Jack/Gwendoline dialogue seems to be jerry-rigged into a table -- I haven't seen that before, and can imagine it doesn't play well with screen readers. This would seem very much what WP:NO-TABLES is warning against. Is there a suitable template here, or would it be possible simply to render Jack's line into prose?
  • I inherited this and don't like it much. The lines don't align properly. Happy to turn it into prose.
  • I notice that almost all of the "Conjectural homosexual subtext" section is concerned with Wilde's intent around the word "earnest". This particular author being more than usually dead, I'd be surprised if that's the shape of the field -- we gesture briefly at the idea that the subtext might have come about at least semi-unconsciously, and modern literary theory would have absolutely no problem suggesting that an author's suppressed desires, fears, traits and so on would "leak" into their work, or indeed that nobody cares, because meaning is only formed when the text hits the reader, and might change as audiences and society do. I think we have done Craft poorly in relegating his article (and bibliography) to a single unattributed pull quote. Some more bibliography:
    • Quite a lot in the intro to this edition/
    • This article has quite an idiosyncratic style, but also seems to have a lot to say about the tension in the play between what is spoken and unspoken, and to generally have an interesting and possibly useful reading.
    • This one isn't specifically about Earnest, but does have some good things to say (especially near the end) about how to approach Wilde's work as queer literature.
    • This article makes a few comments about different ways in which queerness has been read into Earnest, though frustratingly doesn't go into huge detail on them (it's more concerned with establishing methodology).
    • This one makes quite a few comments, but also mentions "Tales of the Avunculate: Queer Tutelage in The Importance of Being Earnest, an article by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, which is quite widely cited and seems to be particularly important here. It's in her collection Tendencies, and after some digging I found it here via TWL. She seems to have some useful bibliography too.
I didn't write this section, and I'm not excessively impressed at the annexation of the play by queer theorists, but will have a good look at the sources you suggest to see if there is anything that calls out to be added to this section. Tim riley talk 08:40, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I couldn't open the third and sixth of these, and can't find much usable from the first, but I have drawn on the Eaton and Snider articles. Thank you. Tim riley talk 10:41, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If you send me a Wikimail, I can ping you a copy. I'm not sure the third was vital but I think the sixth probably is. UndercoverClassicist T·C 10:49, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Just checking my Wikimail reached you. Sent yesterday. Tim riley talk 08:04, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes -- I'm planning to have a look through the article beforehand so that I have something sensible to say about what from it might be worth including, but I agree with your assessment that it's somewhat tough going. UndercoverClassicist T·C 12:44, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've sent the article by reply -- I think some key points from it are:
  • The play has a fascination with undercutting the idea that there is a "natural" correspondence between what things/people are called or considered and what they are (particularly the importance of fathers and fathers' names), and K-S follows Craft (and another important article by Joel Fineman here) in arguing that this points towards the conclusion that there is a "natural" path for a story and a man's life that ends in heterosexual family life (pp. 53–54).
  • Relatedly (again following Craft), the poem's obsession with punning and destabilising language -- making the default, "obvious" or dominant interpretation of words no longer so -- reflects the destabilisation of the social world, in which it is no longer "obvious" or dominant that heterosexuality and conventional masculinity should be default (pp. 54–55, Craft p. 38).
  • "Aunt" and "uncle" were slang terms for gay men in different roles in gay relationships (p. 59), and the play's focus on these also sets up resistance to a heterosexual norm by creating indispensible "family" structure that don't quite fit with the heterosexual logic (since you can't "pair up" an aunt and an uncle) (pp. 59–61).
  • Similarly, playing the role of aunt or uncle was and is a niche by which family members who weren't heterosexual could fit into a "conventional" family, and therefore their prominence is another way of showing a way in which gay people work (perhaps even work better than the rest) within a "normal" world. (pp. 62–64)
  • The intimacy between Jack and Algernon gestures in a very veiled fashion towards a possible gay subtext (pp. 68-70), particularly in the implication that they have lost something in their relationship by discovering that they are brothers (p. 68).
  • The the fact that Jack can't marry into the family until he proves that he is already in the family makes the marriage somewhat incestual, which hacks away at the idea of the conventional heterosexual family as natural/essential -- if the sexual rules can be stretched in this way, they might be stretchable in others (esp. p. 70) A good quote: a different angle – perhaps an avuncular angle – onto the family of the present can show this heterosexist structure always already awash with homosexual energies and potentials, even with lesbian and gay persons, whose making-visible might then require only an adjustment of the interrogatory optic. (p. 71)
  • There are other leitmotifs within the play that would register with gay culture/stereotypes of the time -- the mysterious and fictitious "brother" that Jack goes away to visit (p. 64–67, though K-S doesn't quite state the idea of this as an alibi for seeing a male lover); the focus on German and, in particular, Wagner (p. 66), "Bunbury" as related to the idea of "burying in the bun" (pp. 67-68, with quotation on 68).
We don't necessarily have to endorse all of these these arguments, but I do think we need to report at least the most important of them (I'd suggest the first two as shared in other scholarship, the third and last rolled in with the "Earnest" discussion, and the others as K-S's own contributions to the conversation) -- they are shared and cited in other academic work, including quite a few of the items listed above. UndercoverClassicist T·C 06:46, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It was kind of you to send the article and kinder still to wade through endless literary sludge on my behalf. Your summary is so wonderfully clear that I have been able to add another 100 words to the article which, me judice, is more than ample for this sort of fringe conjecture. Tim riley talk 09:02, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Respectfully, I don't think this is "fringe" conjecture -- whatever we may think about it, this kind of deconstructive reading, where the author's intent is seen as something of very little importance, has been the dominant paradigm in academic English studies for at least thirty years. I may have a go at some tentative edits, having now got my head around some of the literature. UndercoverClassicist T·C 09:07, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
By all means, but please don't overinflate the word-count. This subsection is already as long as the following three put together. It is important to confine it to the play rather than to Wilde's oeuvre in general. It may be current orthodoxy that an author's intent is seen as something of very little importance, but that is pretty much the opposite of what the queer theorists are saying so far as The Importance is concerned. Tim riley talk 09:27, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'll give it a rough go later on -- we can always hack whatever I write to bits afterwards. UndercoverClassicist T·C 09:36, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Have we come to a halt on this? Fine with me if so. Tim riley talk 19:07, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A pause -- I still need to get this done, but the delay is on my end. UndercoverClassicist T·C 19:32, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Any more to add? Otherwise I think it may be time to invite the FA coordinators to consider the article and review as a whole. Tim riley talk 17:45, 11 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Much belated -- changes made. I've done my best to fall in line with the Riley MoS -- substance of edits as follows:
  • We had quite an important misreading of Snider -- he does say that it's hard to find a homosexual subtext, but then he spends the rest of the article saying that he has found it -- it was just difficult to do so. Admittedly, his is a particularly treacle-like article to work through, and I've not tried to convey the main line of argument, which runs through Jungian archetypes of the Trickster, largely because I'm not sure I fully understand it.
  • The linguistic debate around "Earnest" needed to be put into context: it isn't the only potentially loaded term; the play is full of them, at least according to the critics.
  • Similarly, among the many Bunbury theses, I think we need to include the one that it's got something to do with gay men.
I didn't go into massive detail on Sedgwick's uncles, since I think your text could already be read as encompassing those, or on Wagner, though more detail there could make the case more convincing. Let me know what you think -- it's expanded the section a little, and I've played a bit with the layout to reflect that, but overall I think we're still on the conservative side when it comes to WP:DUEWEIGHT, bearing in mind how much ink our sources have spent on these topics. UndercoverClassicist T·C 19:52, 11 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
OK. Tim riley talk 08:18, 12 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • The sonnet 'Of Boys' Names': double quotes around the title.
  • Although the earlier comedies suffer from an unevenness resulting from the thematic clash between the trivial and the serious,: this is a statement of opinion, and should be presented as such.
  • The formidable pronouncements of Lady Bracknell: perhaps a synonym for formidable would be wise -- I find "the formidable Lady Bracknell" is becoming something of a leitmotif.
  • Is Raby really the only person with anything to say about Wilde's use of language?
  • Wilde presents not stereotypical stage "dudes": whose word is dudes -- and would it really apply in the 1890s?
  • The Importance of Being Earnest has been adapted for the English-language cinema at least three times, first in 1952 by Anthony Asquith who adapted the screenplay and directed it: do we need the last clause? It seems repetitious, but I can also see its value.
who adapted the screenplay and directed it: without further context, I'd take that as the most likely meaning of The Importance of Being Earnest has been adapted ... by Anthony Asquith. However, "adapted" could in theory mean either or both of writing it and directing it, so perhaps it's good to be specific. UndercoverClassicist T·C 10:41, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • an all black cast: hyphenate all-black. I am now imagining a production acted by New Zealand rugby players.
  • a production of The Importance of Being Earnest produced by James Joyce in Zurich in 1917: this seems like a story. Can you dig up anything more about this production? Joyce is hardly an understudied figure...
  • The facts are not in doubt. Details are given in Carr's article. But I don't want to go on about Travesties, which I love as much as if not more than Wilde's play, but is only of tangential importance to The Importance. I've added a ref to a biography of Joyce (not Ellmann's: we've had bags from him already). Tim riley talk 08:40, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Mein Freund Bunbury: lang tags.
  • continually mirrors that in Wilde's original: that of, surely?
  • We've generally abbreviated the play's title as Earnest, I think, though it becomes The Importance at one point. Suggest picking one.
  • There have been many radio versions of the play.: we haven't said anything introductory like this for the other media. Have there been notably more radio version than stage, film and musical ones?
  • Details of numerous BBC productions (in additions to the ones I have mentioned here) are available online, but it is much harder to find details of American radio productions. Even so, I think "many" is amply justified by comparison with the handful of films, operas, musicals. Tim riley talk 08:40, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • A 1951 broadcast of the complete play: I'd suggest making absolutely clear that we mean the three-act version here.
  • Radio 4 broadcast a new adaptation on 13 February 1995 ... In December 2000 BBC Radio 3 broadcast a new adaptation: advise amending repetition (do we need to spell out that each one is new?)

Thank you for your comments. I fear we shall have to agree to differ about the mentions of Alfred Douglas, but otherwise I have found your suggestions invaluable. Tim riley talk 08:40, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't leave a comment when supporting, so let me do so now -- this is one of those articles where the author's love of its subject shines through, but never trips over to make the discussion less than unimpeachably scholarly. I am reminded of the blockquoted description of John Gielgud as someone whose knowledge of theatrical lore was encyclopaedic. The prose is sparkling even by the nominator's usual standards, and the care over presentation is impressive indeed. UndercoverClassicist T·C 20:35, 12 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm touched and gratified by such kind words. Thank you so much. Tim riley talk 22:11, 12 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Graham Beards

[edit]

Clearly of FA standard, the article is a joy to read. I found one typo, which I took the liberty of fixing. Support. Graham Beards (talk) 08:46, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Graham Beards, what a nice thing to read! Thank you so much. Tim riley talk 09:29, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Airship

[edit]

Just a couple of nitpicks:

  • The first paragraph of "Act I" was slightly uncomfortable to parse at first read, probably due to all the alter egos. I think it would be simpler if "John Worthing" was removed from the first sentence (i.e. "is visited by a friend he knows as "Ernest Worthing", who has come...") which reflects what Algernon/the audience actually knows at the start.
  • Is the shortening to The Importance (used twice) common?
  • The sources vary between that and just "Earnest". At UC's suggestion I've standardised on the one, which by an astounding coincidence is the one I grew up with and have been using for more than fifty years. I am reassured by the fact that Peter Hall and Shaw did the same. Tim riley talk 12:34, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's not for me to question 1902 prose, but "You are tickled throughout with a feather, and is a very pleasant and comforting sensation" seems to be grammatically incorrect?
  • It wasn't correct: there was a missing "it", which in fact I inserted after an earlier suggestion from Ssilvers above, and then presumably managed to delete by mistake (which I'm rather too good at doing). It's there now, at all events. Tim riley talk 12:34, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "the theme, which continues in the discussion," unless I'm missing something obvious, which discussion is being referred to here?

~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 11:36, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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