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John Keats

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I would like to work the article up to GA and then FA if possible.

Thanks, Span (talk) 17:50, 17 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

 Doing... Looking forward to this. Ceoil (talk) 18:57, 17 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Great. Thanks Span (talk) 18:10, 17 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comments from Truthkeeper
Lead
  • Ceoil is right, the lead needs to be rewritten per WP:Lead to reflect the article as a whole. I'm not a great lead writer and often wait until the end to write the lead. After I've been working a page for a while all the information is in my head and at that point the lead writes itself, so if you're having difficulty you might want to try that strategy.
Early life
  • Second para mentions the instability in his life, which I assume refers to his father's death, mother's remarriage, etc. I think the organization needs some tweaking here because those events aren't presented until the next paragraph leading the reader wondering about the instability.
  • Changed.
Early career
  • The two properties he received in bequest is a bit confusing. From whom? I think the entire para may need to be reworked.
  • More bequest detail added. I attempted to keep it simple.
  • Can "dresser" and "junior house surgeon" be explained? I can make sense of "junior house surgeon" (I assume it's the equivalent to a resident or a Junior doctor but not "dresser" - is it similar to an orderly?
  • This sentence: "Keats's medical career took up increasing amounts of his writing time and exacerbated an ambivalence to anything other than poety" - I understand what it means but probably better to simplify a little if possible.
  • Just curious, but what made Woodhouse certain that Keats was talented? Do we know? If possible it would be interesting to explain this in a little more detail.
  • Mentions that he was ill in 1817 - do the sources tell any more? Exhaustion - or was he already infected with TB?
  • Biographers cannot be clear when he contracted TB. They disagree on any set date. It is significant that he was nursing his sick brother Tom in small rooms from 1817 but TB was prevalent and he was a non too robust doctor who could have picked it up anywhere. As is mentioned later in the article, there was stigma often attached to the disease and it's possible Keats refused to mention/write about it. June 1818 on Mull is often given as the turning point. Span (talk) 17:29, 21 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Big jump from April 1817 to June 1818 and seems a bit choppy - that section needs a little work.
  • Is Coleridge referred to as senior because he was older, or because from an older school of Romantics?
Wentworth Place
  • I think the reception to Endymion should be shortened, summarized with relevant information that's important for future events, and then move all the detail to a "Reception" or "Reception and legacy" section.
  • I moved the full quotes down to refs. I will start a notes section for these footnotes. The (reduced) damning is a big low point in the short story of Keats life building his sense of desperation (Bryon alleges that it ultimately killed him). Is it still too long for the biog section? Span (talk) 17:29, 21 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think if you can source that it effected him greatly, which it apparently did, then it's important to have and not to stuff in the refs section. Let me think about how to do this. I put a blockquote in The Sun Also Rises (in the "Reception" section) about Hemingway's mother's reaction to the novel. You could consider using a blockquote for this material, but let's let it sit for a bit and think about it. For sure it should probably all be added to the Endymion page, if it's not already there - sorry, haven't looked yet. Truthkeeper (talk) 01:13, 21 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Fanny Brawne and Isabella Jones
  • Needs a bit of reorg here in the first few paragraphs because for me the jump from Brawne to Jones back to Brawne was a bit jarring. I also see that these are the important events of 1817
  • I swapped the details around and added more detail. Ceoil, re your Q, Gittings, Bate and Motion describe Jones as beautiful, witty, sexy etc but they give no letter references. I have given biog page refs for the description. Span (talk) 17:29, 21 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Death
  • I thought this was quite well done, very moving and sad. My only suggestion is that the section seems to be very stuffed - although I think a few of the sections are a bit long. I tend to do this too - am thinking how to suggest to you how to cut into subsections. It might not be possible because he was in Rome most of the period.
  • Split the death section and longer paras.
Poetry
  • Have you considered a "Style" section or a "Style and themes" or a "Themes" section? I think most of what is in the "Poetry" section would work for that and would simply need some reworking. Anything that doesn't fit could be moved a "Legacy / Reception" section. We have so many individual pages on Keats that it might be possible to take a bit from those as well.
  • I think to be comprehensive and to establish his notability it should have either a style or theme or combined style/theme section. Have a look at the biographies of Yeats, Mary Shelley and Ernest Hemingway to see variations of how this is done. I had to write the Hemingway style/themes section in a sandbox because it was the hardest part of the entire article. Feel free to rummage around to see how it was done, and I'd be happy to help build these sections. Truthkeeper (talk) 02:07, 21 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Letters
  • Have only skimmed. Do you think some of this information could be grouped in a "Themes" section? I'm not familiar enough with his poetry off the top of my head to know, but am thinking that might work.
Biographical controversy
  • I haven't read this yet - but again, have you thought about making this a subsection of a "Reception" or "Reception and legacy" section?
  • Moved this up to reception
MoS
  • Remove wikilinks in quotes
  • I think this is done.
  • Remove brackets from ellipses
  • I think this is done.
  • Watch for overlinking - try to link only on the first occurrence
  • Does this apply to instances three or more paras below the first link?
  • I usually link in the lead and again on first occurrence in the body. I think a little flexibility exists - if I feel a term or title is really important that was linked in the first section but recurs again late in the article, sometimes I'll link a second time, but sparingly. Truthkeeper (talk) 20:04, 21 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Watch for consistency - titles of poems should be in quotation marks, not italics (but check MoS to be certain)
  • Some of Keats poems such as Endymion, Lamia and Hyperion are long poems that I think can be written in Italics.
  • Will return with more - or make some fixes as I'm reading
Images
References
  • I haven't looked at the sourcing and formatting yet. The sourcing is important for FAC - needs to be comprehensive (though with literature pages I find the compilations usually are fairly comprehensive and a good starting point). Comprehensiveness is less important for GA, fwiw. I'll have a look at the sources tomorrow or during the week.
  • I originally used eg <ref>Motion (1997) p57</ref> style citations. Ceoil has removed the Ps. Is there a preference? Is the first wrong?
  • He doesn't use the p. or pp. for pages, but there isn't a preferred style, just needs to be consistent. The only thing is, if you use p. or pp. then they should be formatted so that it's p. & pp. with a space before the page number/s which need to be separated by a hyphen (technically it's an endash, but I'll run a script for that). The two of you can sort out how to do it. Truthkeeper (talk) 00:26, 21 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Looking at the references, it seems that much of the article is cited to the ODNB, and two or three biographies. I haven't read the biography section, on my way now, but I'm wondering if more up-to-date scholarship exists. Maybe not - Hemingway, for instance really only has a handful of biographies that are worth using, and presumably you've used the best here. Usually to check modern scholarship, I have a look at The Cambridge Companion series to see who the up-to-date scholars are and if any are worth adding. The Keats Cambridge Companion is here at google books. The table of contents are always useful and if you think there are more scholarly points of view to be added this is a good starting point. Truthkeeper (talk) 20:04, 21 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Motion's was the last major biography in 1997, 650 pages, pretty exhaustive. Gittings and Bate are the other two that are generally held as main biographers to my knowledge. Do you have access to the online ODNB? If not I can send details. Span (talk) 20:46, 21 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Funny how that happens that some writers have tons of biographers and others not so many. I always like finding someone with fewer main biographers - less to read and synthesize. I don't have access to the ODNB - my email is enabled, if it can sent that would be nice, but it's a good source and reliable. Truthkeeper (talk) 21:29, 21 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Prose
  • Generally looks good and I see that Ceoil has started copyediting, so that will help. I'll make more specific comments as I read more closely.
Overall
  • Most of the substance is here - and well presented. I think you might want to consider more paragraph breaks to ease the reader along, and maybe slightly less long sections, expansion in a few places for clarity, and maybe a little stitching together in a few places to avoid having a bunch of factoids - a mistake I tend to make in literature pages until I really work the prose and the sections to make it flow.
  • The death section is so moving and he was such a wonderful poet. I think it would be fine to add a bit more emotion along the way until the death section - it was such a short life after all.

Otherwise really nice job. Truthkeeper (talk) 01:10, 18 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Truthkeeper. This is a good basis for work. Ceoil (talk) 08:02, 18 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks a lot. Span (talk) 16:22, 18 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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