Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/The Hobbit/archive2

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

The article was not promoted by GrahamColm 17:10, 19 February 2012 [1].

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The Hobbit

The Hobbit (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

• Featured article candidates/The Hobbit/archive1
• Featured article candidates/The Hobbit/archive2

Nominator(s): De728631 (talk) 15:34, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I am nominating this for featured article because it has received a peer-review in January 2012 and has since been edited to a level that meets the FA criteria. Strebe supports this nomination.

As to the topic, The Hobbit is the first published part of J.R.R. Tolkien's famous Middle-earth legendarium. The book is still enormously successful with translations to dozens of languages, and since it triggered the publication of The Lord of the Rings as a sequel, it is even more important. De728631 (talk) 15:45, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Characters

• " Gandalf, an itinerant wizard introduces Bilbo to a company of thirteen dwarves. During the journey he disappears on side errands dimly hinted at, only to appear again at key moments in the story." "he" is ambiguous or even misleading and "During the journey the wizard disappears…." Or similar is needed.
  • Good point, I'm going to add the "wizard".
• men (humans); reads oddly to me and [[Man (Middle-earth)|humans]]; would be better I think.
  • We could as well leave the humans away and write [[Man (Middle-earth)|Men]] with a capital M to point out that it's the race, not the gender.
• Elrond the sage implies he may be of the race of sages - suggest "Elrond the elven sage"
  • I don't see a problem here but I'll add "elven" for clarification.
    • He is half-elven, as revealed in LotR. His race is not stated in The Hobbit and possibly was not intended to be elven. If he were of some race of sages the article would capitalize 'sage', presumably? —Strebe

Plot

• "and his band of twelve dwarves" twelve is mentioned immediately above and redundant.
  • Sure, going to remove that.
• the Lonely Mountain contains a duplicate link as does "dragon"
  • OK
• "Bilbo gets separated" surely "Bilbo becomes separated"
  • "To get separated" is correct in my opinion.
    • I agree 'get separated' is correct. –Strebe
• "who engages him in a game of riddles for the path out of the tunnels, or his demise" seems clumsy and needs to explain the reward/forfeit aspect.
  • Going to split that into two sentences: "who engages him in a game of riddles. As a reward for solving all riddles Gollum will show him the path out of the tunnels, but if Bilbo fails, his life will be forfeit."
• "The expedition travel to the Mountain" - why capital M?
  • Because it's called the Lonely Mountain. I'm going to add the full name.

Concept and creation

• I believe "George Allen & Unwin, Ltd." with a comma before Ltd is a US convention.
  • You're right, we should use the British convention without a comma.
    • The correct form is what is given by AU themselves: without comma. –Strebe
• "paper rationing brought on by wartime conditions and not ending until 1949" reads oddly to me. Perhaps "paper rationing brought on by wartime conditions that did not end until 1949"
  • Hmm, I think you're the first one to complain about that. Even the peer-reviewer didn't mind the sentence.
• "unavailable in this period" → unavailable during this period?
  • That's better.
• "In December 1937, The Hobbit's publisher, Stanley Unwin". Surely "In December 1937, The Hobbit's English publisher, Stanley Unwin" as he already had a US one by then too.
  • Do we really need to disambiguate that? It's clear from the name of the publishing house Allen & Unwin that Stanley Unwin was associated with the UK part.
    • Also, the US publisher was by arrangement with AU, not independently. –Strebe
• "Tolkien subsequently began work on 'The New Hobbit' " I don't think the single quote marks conform to MOS.
  • You're right, this should be a working title in italics.
• "better to its sequel" does not read well.
  • How about "attempting to adjust the tone of The Hobbit to its sequel?"
• "These small edits included, for example, changing the phrase elves that are now called Gnomes.." Why the italics?
  • Good question, those should be normal quotes per MOS.
• "published with commentary on the creation" might be better as "published including commentary on the creation"
  • No, because it refers to these two specific editions with a commentary inside. "... two editions of The Hobbit have been published including commentary on the creation" might be mistaken for an arbitrary number of standalone commentaries.
• "Micheal D. C. Drout and Hilary Wynn comment the work provides a solid foundation for further criticism" is missing "that" after "comment" although I wonder about the relevance of this sentence - it seems like faint praise.
  • The only thing to fix here in my opinion is Michael Drout's given name and in fact the "that".

Illustration and design

• "Tolkien's correspondence and publisher's records show that Tolkien" → "Tolkien's correspondence and publisher's records show that he"
  • Good.
• "Satisfied with his skills, the publishers thence asked" - typo.
  • Do you mean "thence"? That's a valid word meaning "therefore".
• "The original jacket design contained several shades of several colours" better as "The original jacket design contained several shades of various colours"
  • Good one.

Genre

• "While Tolkien claimed later" - odd word order
  • Going to swap that: "While Tolkien later claimed".
• "to dislike the aspect of the narrative voice addressing the reader directly, the narrative voice contributes significantly to the success of the novel" - two "narrative voice" in one sentence
  • Going to change that to "...it contributes significantly...".
• "that is accepted into mainstream" → that has been accepted into mainstream
  • Good point.

Style

• "from the poem Völuspá from the Poetic Edda" is slightly clumsy.
  • "...of the Poetic Edda" should be better.

Critical analysis

• "The evolution and maturation of the protagonist, Bilbo Baggins, is central to the story. This journey of maturation, where Bilbo gains a clear sense of identity and confidence in the outside world, may be seen as a Bildungsroman rather than a traditional quest." This has already been referred to above and at the very least contains a duplicate link.
  • This has all been mentioned before in parts. But there is however the section where themes are analysed and thus it is vital to recall what the whole book is about. The link to "Bildungsroman" will be removed though.
• Ancrene Wisse should be italicized.
  • OK
• "...The first men to talk of 'trees and stars' saw things very differently. To them, the world was alive with mythological beings... To them the whole of creation was "myth-woven and elf-patterned".' Has a confused use of apostrophes.
  • Good catch, going to fix that.

Reception

• CS Lewis has a dup link.
  • OK

Legacy

• This tension can help introduce readers to 'readerly' and 'writerly' interpretations" & 'small folk' etc - see above re MOS
  • OK. Per MOS single words and terms may be italicized for emphasis.
• "as related by Deitch himself" what is this intended to convey?
  • That is to convey that it was Deitch who came up with this news last month and so far there has been no statement from related parties like the Tolkien Trust. I think it's important to point out that the news about his film is based on self-published claims.
• "(four total hours)" surely "(four hours in total)" or similar.
  • Going to change that.
• "Likewise, it can be seen that the game is not" is rather clumsy.
  • "Likewise, it can be seen that the game is not attempting to re-tell the story..." makes sense to me and doesn't look clumsy either.
    • Too many words to say too little. Passive. Unnecessary present progressive. Redundancies with preceding sentence. Spurious dashes. I’ll fix. Thanks. –Strebe

Please excuse these quibbles. This is good work and I think you will get there. I also have a question. I know the book itself but have not read much formal criticism of it. In my mind Bilbo was something of an autobiographical figure (a respectable, conservative hobbit) taking his children/the dwarves on a moral journey and it was mildly surprising not to see mention of the idea - but what do I know? I presume it is not mentioned (or treated as significant if mentioned) in the sources. Ben MacDui 17:46, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your input (see my comments above for details). As to Bilbo being an autobiographical part, Tolkien has once compared himself to a Hobbit, "I am in fact a hobbit in all but size", but you're right in that this hasn't been taken too serious by a lot of sources. In fact I could only find a single book on Google scholar that jumped on it. De728631 (talk) 14:25, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

The changes explained in detail above have been implemented. Some items have however been removed by other editors as the article evolves. De728631 (talk) 19:11, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Just a random look shows that some careful sifting is required to polish the prose throughout:

• Unsure why "English" and "UK" are linked, in the infobox.
  • Probably because we have articles on the English language and the United Kingdom which may be linked per the manual of Template:Infobox book ("Wikilinks can be used in any of the infobox fields").
    • We have articles on "the" and "a", too. But we do not link those items. Please remove the links from the inbofox.
      • Done.
• "Subsequent editions in English were published in 1951, 1966, 1978 and 1995. The novel has been reprinted frequently by many publishers.[21] In addition, The Hobbit has been translated into over forty languages, some of them more than once.[22]". Probably remove "In addition" as a needless additive connector. "them" backrefers to something unclear, although we can work out that the noun would be "translations". "into over" might be more stylish as "into more than" (if the next bit no longer requires "more than" ... BTW, were there more than two translations into any language?
  • While I didn't write the sentence it's clear to me that "them" refers to "languages". And see Translations of The Hobbit, there are three different German translations, four translations to Polish and even six to Russian.
    • The referent is unclear: it's a grammatical problem. Tony (talk) 15:43, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
      • I've changed that to "The Hobbit has been translated into over forty languages, with more than one published version for some languages." De728631 (talk) 17:36, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
• "a course that would not only change the context of the original story, but also lead to substantial changes to the character of Gollum." You could lose most of the alsos, including this one.
• "in order to " is almost always better as "to". And there are lots of ins hanging around: "In the second edition edits, in order to reflect the new concept of"
  • Ok, those can be trimmed.
• MoS says US, not USA.
  • I'm going to change that.
• "He abandoned the new revision at chapter three after he received criticism that it "just wasn't The Hobbit","
  • Ok, that can be left out.
• "After an unauthorized paperback edition of The Lord of the Rings appeared from Ace Books in 1965, Houghton Mifflin and Ballantine requested Tolkien to refresh the text of The Hobbit in order to renew USA copyright". So it's the old-fashioned BrEng zed? An edition appeared from a publisher ... is this right? They requested someone to refresh? Again, "in order to" is an urchin. US. Is it the US copyright"? (I'm unsure of the context.) Tony (talk) 11:22, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
  • It is of course "the US copyright" that was to be renewed, going to fix that. And yes, this article, like all Tolkien-related articles, uses British English with Oxford spelling (suffix -ize rather than -ise), see talk page template. And I'd say Tolkien was asked to refresh the text.

Comment Oppose

• I've only taken a quick look here and would like to do a full review, but not sure I'll have time. I'm a little worried about the sources - I'm happy to see Carpenter, Zipes, Anderson, and St. Clair, less happy to see various links to lesson plans and such, so will be taking a closer look. Do you by chance have access to any scholarly sources that are available behind paywalls? If not, let me know. I can check a few places. Thanks. Truthkeeper (talk) 20:45, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

• Sorry, but I've run into a problem. I have Jack Zipes at hand. This sentence from the article is word-for-word the same as the source, right down to the dash: However, Bilbo "Baggins is not the usual fairy tale protagonist—not the handsome eldest son or beautiful youngest daughter—but a plump, middle-aged, well-to-do Hobbit." (I've removed this from the text, by the way).
• This sentence: "Also printed here are a number of hard-to-find texts such as the 1923 version of Tolkien's poem "Iumonna Gold Galdre Bewunden" in the article is written in the source [2] as "Anderson also provides "a number of difficult-to-find texts (such as the 1923 version of Tolkiens poem Iumonna Gold Galdre Bewunden" -- which is quite close paraphrasing.
  • I have changed that to "The edition also presents a number of little-known texts such as the 1923 version of Tolkien's poem 'Iumonna Gold Galdre Bewunden". De728631 (talk) 13:39, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

• I'm sorry, but it's still too close. Truthkeeper (talk) 14:52, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

• This is enough for me to have to oppose. Truthkeeper (talk) 21:58, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
  • All those points above can be addressed and fixed so I don't see any reason to oppose the nomination, even more since you have already copyedited the article yourself. And what irks me in particular is that there has been a peer-review last month where such objections should have been raised much earlier. De728631 (talk) 13:39, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
• This book by Zipes: Zipes, Jack David (1979). Breaking the Magic Spell: Radical Theories of Folk and Fairy Tales. University Press of Kentucky. p. 173. ISBN 0813190304, is not a teaching guide but a scholarly work and probably shouldn't be characterized as a teaching guide. Truthkeeper (talk) 21:20, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
  • That source is nowhere directly characterized as a teaching guide. Teaching guides "and books of study" are treated in the paragraph above. Zipe's Breaking the Magic Spell is mentioned in connection with classroom literature though which is a valid argument when it comes to scholarly literature. De728631 (talk) 13:39, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

• In the article it mentions it as a teaching guide in this sentence: "Another approach to critique taken in the classroom has been to propose" which is cited to the book and placed in the education section. As a reader, it seems to me that we're suggesting this is how The Hobbit is taught in classroom, ie. teaching guide. Truthkeeper (talk) 14:52, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

• One more point: generally The Hobbit is considered by all children's literature scholars to be in the genre of fantasy. In my view this article isn't quite clear enough on that point. Truthkeeper (talk) 21:26, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Quote from the article: "The book is popularly called (and often marketed as) a fantasy novel, but like Peter Pan and Wendy by J. M. Barrie and The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald, both of which influenced Tolkien and contain fantasy elements, it is primarily identified as being children's literature. The two genres are not mutually exclusive, so some definitions of high fantasy include works for children by authors such as L. Frank Baum and Lloyd Alexander alongside the works of Gene Wolfe and Jonathan Swift, which are more often considered adult literature. Sullivan credits the first publication of The Hobbit as an important step in the development of high fantasy, and further credits the 1960s paperback debuts of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings as essential to the creation of a mass market for fiction of this kind as well the fantasy genre's current status.[58]" De728631 (talk) 13:39, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

• The genre section mentions fantasy in the third paragraph. Of course it depends entirely on the sources, which is why we need to be comprehensive in our sourcing, but the sources regarding children's literature I have at hand, places it in the genre of fantasy. At the least I think more sources should be surveyed and the section restructured a bit. Regarding the passage that was verbatim from the source and the close-paraphrasing: my policy is to oppose if I find such issues, and clearly to remove a verbatim section. As I had the source at hand it was easier than usual. Here's the problem - I surveyed, at random, about 5 sources. I found one that used a verbatim sentence, one that used a very close paraphrase, one that didn't quite adequately present what was in the source and for two I was unable to verify the cited material (though those were google book snippet views, always problematic.) Given these results, I think the page needs a top to bottom source check, which is time consuming. That's what my oppose is based on. Truthkeeper (talk) 13:48, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

If you have sources that classify The Hobbit as fantasy please add them to the article. De728631 (talk) 13:57, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

• I'm really not editing much these days, which is the reason I'm reviewing. The Riverside Anthology of Children's Literature places it in fantasy, and that's a fairly important text. Aside from that though, I'm not entirely convinced this page is comprehensive. A topic such as this, an important book about which much has been written, presents difficulties regarding comprehensiveness. Some works are repetitive and others derivative, but it's important that all points-of-view have been presented. To be honest, I haven't read the entire page because of the spot-check results, but I will see what I can find regarding sources and post to the article talk page. Won't happen immediately though. Truthkeeper (talk) 14:34, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

• I have edited the "Genre" section by adding more, recent sources for the "children's literature" claim, some of which also stress out that there is sometimes no disctinction between either genre ("the most popular of all twentieth-century fantasies written for children"). And for the opposite view there's now Jane Chance who says that the book is only theoretically a children's novel. The Riverside Anthology of Children's Literature is just one source though and fairly old at that (1985) so I wouldn't be too confident in that book alone. And even if they place The Hobbit into the fantasy bin, it is an anthology of children's literature first of all, judging from the title. It seems to me that the Anthology is just another case for the "ambiguous genre" sources. De728631 (talk) 15:29, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

• In this edit the following was added: "although [Tolkien] said later that the book was not specifically written for children but had rather been created out of his passion for epic legends and mythologies." The source says: "In his letters he writes that he did not know why he wrote it bu that the story was derived from his passion for epic, heroic legend, mythology and fairy stories"'. Unfortunately it's another case of close paraphrasing.

• I disagree. While it may look like paraphrasing the sentences are clearly different and it's in the nature of the terms that the phrases look similar. I chose to write it that way to avoid yet another quote in that section. However, I've now changed it to "created out of his interest in mythologies and epic legends." De728631 (talk) 16:01, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

• Post edit conflict - re genre it's important to follow what the sources say. The editors of the Riverside Anthology are respectable and well-known scholars of children's literature so a source like that is worthy of consideration and shouldn't be summarily dismissed until fully inspected, imo. As editors we can't decide; we need to let the sources lead us. Truthkeeper (talk) 15:37, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

• The question is though, why does the Anthology say that The Hobbit is a work of Fantasy if it is meant to be a collection of children's literature? I don't dismiss the source but I find it ambiguous to derive a final statement "TH is Fantasy" from it. As I said above, even they write that The Hobbit is a work of Fantasy that doesn't dismiss the fact that it was adopted into an anthology of children's literature. De728631 (talk) 16:01, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

• In the same way that Alice in Wonderland and many other works in children's lit are fantasy. Children's lit and fantasy are not mutually exclusive; what concerns me is that doesn't seem to be clear. Anyway, this discussion needs to move to the talk page. I'd be happy to help with this page when I have time, but first it needs a top to bottom source check. Truthkeeper (talk) 16:12, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
• Discussion moved to article talk page. Truthkeeper (talk) 23:25, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

• One more comment on possibly close paraphrasing: per WP:PARAPHRASE it is acceptable to closely paraphrase original text "when there are only a limited number of ways to say the same thing." This seems to apply here for some sources because those texts are already on a professional level where you can't condense the information any further, and using only quotings from any source text is also bad writing style. But I'm going to try and edit those case where something can actually be done. De728631 (talk) 18:43, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Closing comment - I think this nomination would benefit from being archived at this stage and brought back to FAC when all issues have been resolved. After 15 days, there is no consensus to promote. And there has been little activity on the article this week. Graham Colm (talk) 17:08, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.