Wikipedia:WikiProject Shakespeare

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Welcome to the Shakespeare Wikiproject main page. This project is devoted to increasing the quality of any and all articles dealing with William Shakespeare. Anyone is invited to join in the effort by adding their name to the members list. A list of current jobs needing to be done can be found in the to do section. We call special attention to our current effort to bring Romeo and Juliet to Featured article status.

For information on assessments of articles within the scope of the project please go to Wikipedia:WikiProject Shakespeare/Assessment.

Scope

Open tasks for WikiProject Shakespeare.

Edit or discuss these tasks.

Shortcuts: Recent changes | Categories | History

This project deals with everything William Shakespeare, poet and playwright, man of theater, who has influenced English, Western and world culture for four centuries and counting. Specifically, it is intended to bring Wikipedia's Shakespearean articles to Featured Article standards, as well as to set specific standards and guidelines to future editors on the writer and his works.

To do

  1. Bring Hamlet to FA status  Done
  2. Maintain William Shakespeare article's FA status
  3. Bring Romeo and Juliet to FA status
  4. Bring The Tempest to GA status

Related Wikiprojects

Project organization

Members

To join this project, add your user name to the list below:

  1. Curtangel 02:48, 20 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  2. VanTucky 02:51, 20 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Wrad 03:15, 20 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Smatprt 03:36, 20 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  5. AndyJones 12:59, 20 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Mandel 18:15, 21 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  7. RedRabbit1983 04:49, 22 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Alabamaboy 14:17, 22 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Tiria 01:12, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  10. BeastKing89 1:24, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
  11. Drboisclair 15:41, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  12. Jlittlet 21:59, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  13. Ojevindlang 7:02, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
  14. Ladb2000 21:50, 25 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  15. Ham 09:53, 28 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  16. Tprosser 13:51, 14 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  17. The Missing Hour 11:16, 17 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  18. Meldshal42 01:39, 20 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  19. Sydneysaurus 1:36, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
  20. Romeo in love 21:11, 6 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  21. Macman202 21:29, 10 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  22. Puzzle Master 23:33, 12 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  23. Sbp 19:20, 6 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  24. Xover 17:10, 11 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  25. Brandon Christopher 18:25, 16 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  26. GuillaumeTell 21:27, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  27. Bardofcornish 22:20, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  28. Buey36 2:53, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
  29. Dionysos Proteus 22:50, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  30. User:kaylin814
  31. Nowah Balloon 00:31, 30 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  32. User:Moz1916 15:45, 15 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  33. Tanstaafl28 10:20, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  34. Trixi72 21:49, October 2, 2007 (UTC)
  35. Awadewit | talk 08:20, 19 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  36. --ROGER DAVIES talk 17:30, 21 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  37. Graybeard67 4:05, 26 Nov 2007 (UTC)
  38. guycox65 7:11, 28 Nov 2007 (UTC)
  39. Elesi (talk) 21:57, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  40. Cowardly Lion (talk) 00:55, 4 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  41. Sutherland4l (talk) 02:00, 15 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Departments

Assessment

The assessment department focuses on assessing the quality of Wikipedia's Shakespeare articles. The article ratings are used within the project to aid in recognizing excellent contributions and identifying topics in need of further work.

The ratings are done in a distributed fashion through parameters in the {{Wikiproject Shakespeare}} project banner; this causes the articles to be placed in a set of categories that serves as the basis for an automatically generated worklist.

Collaboration

The project's Collaboration department seeks to identify particular articles that would benefit from a significant collaborative effort. A single article is selected as the focus, and the project attempts to improve it, potentially to featured article standards. The current collaboration article is Romeo and Juliet.

Any Shakespeare article is eligible, and everyone is invited to nominate articles.

Templates

WikiProject iconShakespeare NA‑class
WikiProject iconThis page is within the scope of WikiProject Shakespeare, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of William Shakespeare on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ShakespeareWikipedia:WikiProject ShakespeareTemplate:WikiProject ShakespeareShakespeare articles
NAThis page does not require a rating on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.

To be placed on the talk page of all articles within the scope of the project. {{Wikiproject Shakespeare}}

Userbox

Wikiproject Membership

This user is a participant in the Shakespeare WikiProject

-{{User WikiProject Shakespeare}}


Other

This user has read one of William Shakespeare's plays.

- {{User playread}}


Proposed Items

Standardisation of play articles

At present, Shakespearean articles, particularly those on the plays, are not standardised. The following is a proposed guideline to achieve standardisation in the writing and copyediting of articles pertaining to the plays of William Shakespeare. (Note: All play articles should use British spelling. See WP:ENGVAR.)

  1. Intro paragraph with graphic to the right (as recommended in the MOS). — The title of the play should be given in full, bold, modernized spelling, in its most commonly used form. Follow WP:LEAD.
  3. Sources — What works influenced the play or poem?
  5. Date and Text — The play as it survives to us. Are there Quarto versions? What is its relationship with the Folio text? What other titles (if any) were attached to the play, and under what circumstances?
  7. Characters — Very brief, NPOV description. Should not attempt to analyze characters in this section but give, briefly, who they are and their relationship with a protagonist. No spoiler details should be added here just the character as described at the start of the play or in the first scene. Characters in need of a more in-depth analysis should have their own article.
  9. Synopsis — Accuracy and a lucid style.
    Wikipedia asks for plot synopses to stay within 500-700 words, with a ceiling of 900 words in special circumstances only. The summary is not to be subdivided in further Acts and scenes. Acts and scene divisions do not exist in the earliest Shakespeare texts and were probably added by later editors. Furthermore, sub-dividing synopses into acts and scenes could make this section too long.
    Key idea here: synopsis means to summarize the vital plot points of the play, not to re-tell the entire plot in your own words.
  11. Analysis and criticism
    1. Critical History - How have scholars' views about the play changed over time?
    2. Structure - What have scholars said about the plot structure?
    3. Language - ...about language and style?
    4. Themes and motifs — ...about themes and motifs in the play?
    5. Other interpretations - Add a bit about Feminist, Psychoanalytic, Homosexual, and other readings.
  13. Performance history — What is the first known recorded performance?
  15. Influences — Literary and cultural
  17. Adaptations and cultural references — What the world has done with it...
    1. Musical adaptations — and music, including opera and musicals
    2. Screen versions:
      Where there are numerous versions, there should be a separate article, eg. Macbeth on screen, which will allow fuller coverage. That should have a {main article} tag and a brief prose summary on the play's article, and a {main article} tag and a brief list summary at Shakespeare on screen.
      Where there are only a handful of versions, these should be covered in a prose section on the page, and in list form at Shakespeare on screen.
  19. References
  21. External links

Character article expansion

Because of Shakespeare's prominence, nearly all of his characters have enough scholarly information on them to qualify under wikipedia's notability guidelines (with a few exceptions). Several of his characters have been represented in later works of fiction. The below is not intended as a standard as much as a guideline for character article expansion. Look here for ideas on how to expand a character-stub article to a B-or-higher class article:

  1. Intro - Of course, summarize the rest of the article as per WP:LEAD, as with any other article. Add a picture of the character to the right (see King Hamlet), or, if you can't find one, consider adding a quotebox with one of the character's more famous quotes or descriptions (See Sycorax (Shakespeare)).
  2. Origins - Where does the character's name come from and what does it mean? Did Shakespeare borrow this character from another story? What was his source?
  3. Role in the play - Describe the character's role in the play. Avoid providing analysis or interpretations of the text in this section. Leave that to later sections.
  4. Analysis - Summarize the scholarly opinion surrounding this character. Use sources from academic books and journals only.
  5. Performance history - Outline the development of the role by different actors or actresses over time.

Using one Standardized Complete Shakespeare for quotes

The complete Shakespeare used:

  • must be modern enough (at least 19th century)
  • preferably in public domain
  • easily accessible and verifiable
  • critical

The template {{Shakecite}} has been proposed as a solution. It is still under construction, but usable, and includes the ability to link to quartos, folios, and in some cases, modern versions of all the plays.

Research help

To be acquainted with the latest scholarship on the Bard, we strongly advise frequent editors to read at least one modern critical edition of Shakespeare's works. Recommended are the "Big 3": Arden (2 or 3), Oxford and New Cambridge. These have copious notes, lengthy introductions, helpful appendices, and full critical apparatus. Also recommended are the Penguin Shakespeare and New Variorum editions. Other editions usually do not give as detailed an analysis or footnotes, or offer the variant readings.

For journals, one could consult Shakespearean Surveys. Or, if you have access to a college library, consult their databases for several excellent references.

For books, college libraries are also excellent. If you don't have access to one, though, an option is to use http://books.google.com/ and search for your subject. This search engine provides facsimiles of books, although sometimes it cuts out portions of them. In using this site, be sure that you are only using scholarly books as sources for your article.

For biographies, take a look at the references used in the William Shakespeare article.

Portals

Portal:Shakespeare

Accomplishments/Notoriety

There are 493 articles within the scope of the Shakespeare project. Currently the project has five Featured articles, or 1 out of every 99 articles in the project. It also has seven Good articles: 1 out of every 70 articles. Thus, one in 41 articles in the project is rated GA or higher.

Featured Articles

Good Articles

GA Nominees

Former/Failed GAs

Did you knows

Total = 15

Articles in Wikipedia's top 500 most visited pages

Top 500

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