Talk:Augustan literature

The term "Augustan"

Did the name really derive from King George wishing to be known as Caesar Augustus? Or did it derive solely from the comparison to the Augustan Age of Latin literature?

To the best of my knowledge it derived from the Hanoverian "Augustus" thing. However, even nailing down the first usage of the term as a critical application is difficult. We have Pope's Epistle to Augustus, which is contemporary, and it's fairly deviously clear with the royal application. Geogre 13:43, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Why I done it

1. Ok, first thing is that the history section is too danged long. I know it. It's just that the reason "no one" reads 18th c. literature is not that it's boring, but that it's incomprehensible. It is, too, unless you know who was who at every moment of every year. I.e. history turns this stuff from being impenetrable to being a ton of fun.
2. The ordering of the genres: it's arguable that poetry was more important, but it was more important for about 20 years. Since the Augustan era covers a vast stretch, I'd go for prose being most important. By 1750, the novel is clobbering poetry, and it gets worse from there. Also, the drama is wretched beyond compare after 1737. Before 1737, it's mildly interesting with a couple of whopper good plays. A couple of whoppers isn't enough, IMO, to put it on par with poetry. Geogre 14:48, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

!

IT is done. Geogre 1 July 2005 15:04 (UTC)

Bravo! PRiis 1 July 2005 22:45 (UTC)

Well done! Willmcw July 2, 2005 06:14 (UTC)

Thank you, thank you (blushing). I thought this thing would kill me. bishonen has spun off Augustan prose into a stand-alone article now, and it contains all the obsessive detail I had once had here. I'm going to spin off Augustan poetry and Augustan drama as well, and possibly 18th century English novel. The article is still a little too monomaniacal for its own good, and there are some scars from the spin offs, but that will be taken care of just as soon as I let my mind take a nap. Geogre 2 July 2005 11:49 (UTC)

nebulous?

why is the word "nebulous" linked in the summary (and hence on the wikipedia main page)?--i can't figure out how to change it...

No clue. I think that's just Wiki-itis. I'm going to wait for the article to be off the main page before I scale back the over-linking, as a great many folks want to help an article and do so by making things links that perhaps aren't necessary. I appreciate their input and don't want to revert them. So long as it's harmless, it's no big deal. Geogre 13:49, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

rephrasing in Political and religious historical context

from the current

Therefore, young people from the country often moved to London in hopes of achieving success, and this swelled the numbers of criminals, prostitutes, beggars, and malnourished poor in the city. It also increased the availability of cheap labor for city employers. The fears of property crime, rape, and starvation found in Augustan literature should be kept in the context of London's growth, as well as the depopulation of the countryside.

to (change highlighted)

Therefore, young people from the country often moved to London in hopes of achieving success, and this swelled the supply of cheap labour for city employers. It also increased the numbers of criminals, prostitutes, beggars, and the malnourished poor in the city. The fears of property crime, rape, and starvation found in Augustan literature should be kept in the context of London's growth, as well as the depopulation of the countryside.

this makes the supply of cheap labour the principal effect, and the increase in criminals ... etc, ancillary. this seems to be the more likely scenario. is there any reason to believe it was in fact the other way roun? -- Doldrums 13:44, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

I rather like your re-ordering. I do have reason to suspect that you have the pool of poor and then pool of labor, as the labor (the jobs) didn't exist prior to the supply -- a common enough situation where there is agricultural displacement and the rapid growth of a single city even today. However, logically, your reordering is far superior to my original, and I had no desire to really imply causality anyway. Geogre 13:52, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Sentimental novel

Just a note for any readers of this page that Sentimental novel needs help. For my part, I loathe the sentimental novel and fear that I would have a hard time keeping my POV out of it (and I mean my scholarly POV, not my personal one). I know that feminist students of the 18th c. novel have had kinder things to say about it, or at least found interesting features, so I hope those more kindly disposed toward the sentimental will see this note and go help. My own predelictions, as may be obvious from this article, are Marxissant (actually, Jaussian reception aesthetics, if anyone knows what those are) and, as a student of the early period, I am so steeped in political readings that my brain is too small to hold the psychological and cultural background necessary for being fair (or even polite) about the sentimental. Geogre 15:02, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Article has no footnotes

This article has severe WP:V issues due to lack of footnotes. It is difficult for the reader to determine which statements in the article are attributed to which referenced source, or further if there are portions of the article that are wholly unsourced. Footnotes should be provided to remedy this disturbing situation in a Featured Article (which currently has zero footnotes). El Señor Presidente, Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men and Kannada literature in the Vijayanagara Empire are good examples of Featured Articles that combine excellent Notes and References sections that makes verifiability and attribution of sources much more apparent. I have tagged this article with {{nofootnotes}} - Cirt (talk) 16:54, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

That's awfully dogmatic. I think you should see Augustan literature as an example of how citations should be done. If you cannot understand what the citations mean, the fault is in the reader, not a citation system employed by Modern Language Association, as well as the society for biological sciences, as well as the professional bodies for psychology and chemistry. I am sorry that you do not like what they say, but it does not amount to "verification" issues.

Citations are a requirement for statements that are likely to be challenged, which means not common knowledge, and citations by no means need to be footnotes. I regard footnotes as far less "reliable" than parenthetical citation, and so do others. :Even if this were an article with no references at all, that would not be a problem with either verification or citation. There are any number of our articles that cover common knowledge (any information that can be found in three or more general reference works) and therefore do not need citation on an academic basis, and there are many more that contain information that is entirely non-controversial, and no one will challenge its facts. Neither of those requires citations. Both might benefit from a "references" section that will show people some good sources that concur with our article, but it is extremely unlikely that someone is making up the biography of Anthony Tuckney, for example.

Footnotes require a reader to stop reading the sentence, go to a foreign section, get the information, and then come back. 99% of readers don't check the footnotes, because they're reading the article. A parenthetical citation indicates, at the end of the line, during the reading, the source, and readers who have had their eyebrows raised by the sentence know immediately (without making a note of it and going to check later) the attribution. Additionally, "notes" formats are easily broken. It takes one vandal less than a minute to make all the notes disappear. It takes, more importantly, an inexpert editor a single mistake to make all the notes disappear. I have seen this happen more than once. A parenthetical citation isn't going to go away in an "oops" moment. Therefore, parenthetical citations are more reliable because they invite instant checking. They are more reliable because the citations won't disappear.

This is why I loathe the notes system, will not use it, and will leave Wikipedia before I see it become required. Until it is required, slapping paint across a well cited article is very destructive. Do not do this again. Geogre (talk) 10:09, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I loathed the notes system also, as it can be problematic. However, I was wondering if it would be more acceptable if I added in more MLA inline citations instead of footnotes. I have a few more books, and some sections could do with a few more citations (such as the origin of the term "Augustan". Geogre, would it be acceptable if I added in about 20 or so more references in this way? I think it would stop any claims that this page needs some. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:45, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

No footnotes - tagged article has tag removed without fixing

Since the {{nofootnotes}} placed by Cirt was removed with no footnotes added, I am going to replace the tag. This is a FA and need to comply with the Featured article criteria. Please do not remove the tag without fixing the article. Thanks, —Mattisse (Talk) 18:54, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi Matisse.. I'm afraid I agree strongly with the perspective above relating to the tag. Is there any more to your concern than simple compliance with some criteria? :-) Privatemusings (talk) 19:01, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I would agree with Private musings. If you have a problem with footnotes, either attempt to put them in, or take it to FAR. Tagging articles and walking away is really unconstructive. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:13, 11 November 2008 (UTC)