Wikipedia:Peer review/Swedish literature/archive1

Swedish literature

Hi. I still have a lot of work to do about contents, language, and the lead section, but I'd like to ask Wikipedia's experienced contributors a few questions before I continue.

I am worried about the references being to specific and plenty and distorting the view of the article as a whole. Is this an issue, and if so, what can I do about it?
I realized that the article is very lengthy in its history section. Would it make sense to put part of the article under a title such as history of Swedish literature?
Suggestions about what image to put by the lead section will be appreciated!

Thank you. Fred-Chess 12:55, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't consider myself an experienced contributor, but I'll give my opinion anyhow. The references are fine (in my opinion). I do not see the point of history of Swedish literature since this article in a sense is exactly that. But there is a possibility. You can split the article basically into History and Modern literature and give a very large emphasis on the modern section. Therefore it would look reasonable to cut down and fork past history to allow this article to concentrate on modern literature. Regarding the image, I would put a template up similar to the one at Norwegian literature and add the Swedish flag or something of that sort. Anyway thats about it, I wont critique the text itself since you still working on it. - Tutmosis 20:14, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Thank you. / Fred-Chess 21:30, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What immediately strikes me is that the name "Finland" doesn't occur even once on the page, and Runeberg is mentioned only in passing. With the definition given in the beginning, the Swedish-language literature of Finland belongs together with that of Sweden, including that after 1809. I don't know exactly which authors are canonical enough to mention, but at least Runeberg should be given more space, and Zacharias Topelius, Edith Södergran and Tove Jansson (who was mentioned by someone on the talkpage) should be included. Perhaps more general sections on the Swedish literature of Finland (according to whatever periodization is used in standard handbooks) should be included for the post-1809 period. up+land 13:29, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Those authors are actually mentioned on Finnish literature, but okey dokey.

I'm going to rewrite the article anyways, because it focuses too much on the history and too little on literary periods and styles.

Fred-Chess 14:53, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please see automated peer review suggestions here. Ruhrfisch 03:49, 21 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The more references, the better. If article is approaching 100kb, consider splitting some subsections, otherwise don't worry (others may be more stricter on that, but I like large articles). Image for lead: what's the best known Swedish book worldwide? I'd vote for Pippi Longstocking.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk} 03:52, 21 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have now incorporated all your suggestions, so there are fewer sub-headers, Finland based authors are mentioned, a lot of history has been removed, etc. FYI the article currently has about 40 Kb of prose, 50 Kb total text, 25 images and 87 inline references. It mainly uses three standard references -- two in English and one in Swedish .

I have more or less finished with adding prose now. Some parts might need better coverage but... I am still confused about whether the article has too much history. I have for example added birth and death year of all authors. It is possible that the article should mention the works more than the authors. Unfortunately I don't have anything to compare with since English literature, British literature, French literature, German literature, etc, are so differently written.

The prose is also flawed in parts, partly because of my confusion what I should mention and partly because I can't write brilliant prose anyways.

Well, if you have any other suggestions....

Fred-Chess 18:01, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

History is good, and I really can't see how the article could be written without it; all authors worked in a specific historical context. Birth and death years are good, for the same reason. Don't worry too much about size just yet. At some later point it may be possible to cut back on this article and move some stuff to period-specific sub-articles ("Swedish Romantic literature" etc). The article could probably be improved in details by looking at some other general histories of Swedish literature to get alternative views, and some more specialized studies of individual periods or the most important writers. In the end, you may need somebody who is an actual historian of Swedish literature to look it through and check for any obvious omissions or mistakes. I have noticed that Nostalgia swe (talk · contribs) has made some very good contributions on Swedish theatre. You may ask her to take a look. I have pointed Bish at this PR, but she is busy burning down London at the moment. Once she is finished with that, you could perhaps ask her to take a look. up+land 06:56, 26 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've now restructured into sub-articles. So it would be nice if you again went back to review it.... / Fred-Chess 10:11, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I also got another book, Tigerstedt's Svensk litteraturhistori, 1971 (fourth edition). Thorough and factual, imo. I've also skimmed through Göran Hägg's Den svenska litteraturhistorian but this is mostly treated as a curiosity in academical circles so I won't use it as a reference.

Also, I think that it is now time for comments about the language of the article (I said at first I didn't want that). So any comments about language, structure, references, images, copyediting, lead section, possible omissions, etc are appreciated. / Fred-Chess 13:05, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]