This review is transcluded from Talk:St. Alban's Abbey, A Metrical Tale/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: LEvalyn (talk · contribs) 03:55, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer: Kusma (talk · contribs) 14:05, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Aiming to review this week. —Kusma (talk) 14:05, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your thorough comments! I will start working my way through them, leaving comments below if I have questions/clarifications, and will let you know when I think it's ready for you to take another look. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 20:25, 10 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@LEvalyn, just checking: are you done responding to my comments? It would be good if you could explicitly say where you disagree or where you think something I ask for is not covered by WP:GA?. —Kusma (talk) 16:15, 24 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Kusma, my apologies for the delay! I still haven’t worked through all the notes here to improve the article to my satisfaction. I think you’re right that the article is sometimes freer with the sources than it ought to be (revisiting the sources & my writing I’ve concluded that I was more impaired with Covid than I realised at the time.) I don’t want to conclude the GA until I’m confident in source-text accuracy but I acknowledge I’ve been working on it slowly and getting distracted! Based on some other things on my plate, if I’m not able to finish it today, I’ll finish this Thursday and ping you to take another look. My apologies again for moving slowly! ~ L 🌸 (talk) 19:47, 24 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Kusma, I think the article is ready for your second look. There are still things I would want to improve, but I think they may be getting beyond what's needed for a GA and I don't want this to keep lingering. Thanks again for your thorough comments, which inspired me to make a lot of revisions. Let me know if you think there is anything else that should be a priority to address now. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 20:15, 30 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I will comment on anything I notice, but not all of my comments will be strictly related to the GA criteria, so not everything needs to be actioned. Feel free to push back if you think I am asking too much, and please tell me when I am wrong.

• Lead: Maybe a little more about publication, length and reception?
  • I made some additions here. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 22:58, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Synopsis: Might be better to start with the frame story again?
  • Done. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 06:16, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Style: How long is the poem?
  • Done. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 06:16, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• 61 pages of endnotes: that is a lot, unless the poem is extremely long. What are these like? Are they all historically accurate?
  • I added a bit more from what I can see in the sources about these notes, which alas doesn't include an assessment of whether they're actually accurate. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 22:58, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Influences: I tripped over "feature similarly central castles" do you mean they feature castles that are of a similar, central importance in the narrative? Maybe "that feature a similar setting with a central castle" or something like that would make that clearer
  • I went for "feature important ancient structures", and I've also revisited this whole section which hopefully helps with clarity. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 22:58, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• St. Alban's Abbey has been read as Radcliffe's private response by whom?
  • Attributed this directly to Bobbitt. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 22:58, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• fraudulent "medieval" poem: is this an Ossian type fraud or even more obvious?
  • Ossian-style; Thomas Chatterton passed off his poems as medieval discoveries and famously committed suicide when he was found out. So Radcliffe would have known it was fake at the time of writing, but I'm not sure it's warranted to go into that much detail. I haven't made a change here (since Chatterton is wikilinked and the lead there will make his fraud very clear) but let me know if you think something should be added. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 06:16, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Composition and publication: do we know who edited and published her posthumous works?
  • Published, yes, but oddly I am not seeing anyone in the sources who really says who did the editing. I added the publisher and some info on Talfour's biography here. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 06:16, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• The "Castle ruins" section is sourced almost exclusively to Bobbitt 2020; that is acceptable for GA, but I do wonder whether there are not some better more general sources (not just from a Radcliffe specialist) about the ruin motif in English Gothic literature.
• "Radcliffe school" who are these people?
  • I added a little bit to try to contextualize this -- the answer is basically, "most other authors who wrote Gothic novels at the time, none of whom are currently famous". Saying a novel was "of the Radcliffe school" was at the time the typical way of saying it was a Gothic novel. Let me know if you think it needs more clarification to convey that. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 22:58, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Do we know why Radcliffe chose poetry?
  • Hm, I think this is a bit of a rabbit hole. Broadly, Radcliffe is known for using poetry in pursuit of a 'serious' artistic reputation, because poetry was more respected and respectable than novel-writing (including poems within her novels was a big technique for claiming artistic legitimacy for the novels), but I don't know if anyone has said that in relation to St. Albans Abbey specifically. For now I'm not inclined to try going hunting in this area. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 22:58, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Reception: Make it clearer that Gaston is a novel?
  • Done. ~ L 🌸 (talk)
• Radcliffe's previous poetry I am confused: what poetry was published before this one?
  • All her novels famously had poems "interspersed" -- I tried to clarify this here and in "style". There was also a pirated edition of her poems, extracted from the novels, but since she didn't publish that (and they are the same poems) it feels too 'in the weeds' to mention it here; let me know if you disagree. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 06:16, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Is the 1834 review also anonymous?
  • Yes. All the reviews are anonymous, which was the norm in the period, so I'd rather not re-state it every time. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 06:16, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Is Ruth Facer's the only modern review of the poem?
  • Good question. I wouldn't say Facer "reviews" the poem -- she mentions it as part of a biography, which touches on all of Radcliffe's works. I did check Norton's biography and got one line from him (very negative). Rogers doesn't give any opinion about the poem. Since the poem has never been republished I don't think there has been any other occasion for reviews. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 06:16, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Link the various journals publishing the reviews. At least The Scots Magazine and The New Monthly Magazine have articles.
  • Done. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 06:16, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not much bad to say about the article prose. Do you think you could include an excerpt or two of the actual poem? It is PD so we can freely cite from it without any copyright concerns. I will continue the review led by sources and the GA criteria. —Kusma (talk) 12:58, 10 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• • This hadn't occurred to me, but it's a good way to give people a 'feel' for the poem, which surely the article will not inspire them to read in full. I picked a brief-ish representative moment, but I'd appreciate your feedback / amendments about how best to situate it within the article. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 06:16, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Looks good where it is. Is the header "Fitzharding searching the abbey for his father" from the poem or is it your title? I agree that the snippet makes me want to avoid reading the whole thing. —Kusma (talk) 10:23, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    • It's my title; I felt like the passage needed some context, but I also don't want to mis-represent what's me versus what's Radcliffe. I could also move the context to the "citation" bit at the bottom? ~ L 🌸 (talk) 22:58, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Also, a bit more context about the author would be great. (Like at the bottom of Bobbitt 2020, p. 176).
  • Good idea; I added some of this in "composition and publication". ~ L 🌸 (talk) 22:58, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Numbering from Special:PermanentLink/1285122456

• Random numbers 3 5 8 9 13 18 19 24 31 33.
• General comment: MOS:PAGERANGE advises against things like "pp. 188–9", an issue throughout.
• 3: Does this meet the test at WP:SCHOLARSHIP?
  • I would make the case for it, yes: the thesis is at the doctoral level and it's been peer-reviewed by a committee. Durham University is known for very high standards of scrutiny here, and this dissertation was supervised by Pamela Clemit, a major name in the field. I'd also say that the poem itself has been so rejected that it's very... "dissertation material"; the "better" sources don't go in-depth at all. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 06:16, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• 3b: I don't see this fully supported by the source, which is about Radcliffe only at this point, not the common discourse.
  • I added another source which describes the common discourse in detail. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 22:58, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• 3c: can't see this in the source.
  • I see lines recalling contemporary controversies over the congruity or otherwise of church "improvements" (discussing the opening lines) as supporting the idea that Radcliffe's poem evokes this debate with its opening, and then I followed that with a paraphrase of the overall opening. Should I cite the opening too, maybe quoting the relevant lines in a note? Or revisit this section? ~ L 🌸 (talk) 22:58, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• 5a: not clear from the source that he is the hero; that is on p. 181
  • Amended. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 06:16, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• 8a: ok
• 8c: ok, but are these abbeys "castles"?
• 8f: ok, but might be worth looking at Norton's biography?
  • Good call. He clearly hates this poem and has almost nothing to say about it, haha, but I added what he has. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 06:16, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• 9: ok
• 13: sure
• 18: I don't really see these in the source, could you elaborate and say how these are supported?
  • Ah, I think I meant to cite Bobbitt p 11 for the idea that this was a major departure in style for her: Her post-1797 works, did, however, effect a major shift in creative trajectory from her 1790s’ Gothic romances, and we can perhaps assign the marginalisation of these texts to their sudden and unexplained swing away from the famous Radcliffean ‘formula’ of the 1790s. For the other parts, I think I was trying to fill in context 'between the lines'... I am refactoring the section in general with some new sourcing, which I think will give all that 'background literary context' stuff more solid footing. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 20:56, 13 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• 19: not sure if this isn't overselling the influence of Warton
  • Revised; I wrapped him in with a longer accounting of specific antiquarian influences. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 20:56, 13 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• 24a: not really clear this is the strongest praise; a bit WP:SYNTH to say that
  • Revised. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 20:56, 13 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• 24b: the source seems quite certain that it was written by Talfourd; it would make sense to talk more about him and his participation in publishing (at the very least he wrote something for the work) in the Publication section.
  • I hesitate to be too firm identifying him as the author since the Rogers bibliography doesn't even suggest he was involved, whereas it does identify other more-obscure anonymous authors. I did add a note about him in Publications. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 20:56, 13 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• 31: could not access (but it seems I could get it from the library if needed)]
  • Turns out the original review is in Google Books now! I amended the article to cite that instead. (Rogers was just reproducing the review itself.) ~ L 🌸 (talk) 06:16, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• 33: fine.

There are a few places where the sources are interpreted a bit more freely than I think is advisable. —Kusma (talk) 15:58, 10 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Prose: No major issues, some comments above.
• MOS: Mostly fine, perhaps the lead is a bit too short, see above.
• References are ok (see comments above about formatting and potentially reliability of thesis).
• Sometimes not as close to the sources as I would like.
• On the plus side, that means no close paraphrasing!
• A little more background on Radcliffe and a bit of content of the poem would help with broadness.
• No issues with focus/neutrality/stability.
• Images look free.
• The second image is a bit oversized; |upright= would be enough instead of |upright=1.2
  • Done. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 06:16, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• ALT text would be nice (but optional)
• I think it is slightly overkill to have so many images of the abbey, but they are all free, so why not.
• Captions are sufficient although I would prefer to see creator information.
  • Added some where known. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 06:16, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

First pass done! There are a few things to do but I think it should not take too long to address my comments. Over to you LEvalyn. —Kusma (talk) 16:08, 10 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry I have been super busy at work and with family. I am trying to catch up with things today. —Kusma (talk) 10:33, 8 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I have had another look. I do not think the remaining issues (like MOS:PAGERANGE) are showstoppers for GA, and everything looks much improved. I am not a fan of your heading "Fitzharding searching the abbey for his father" but I do not have a better suggestion right now, so I will pass this now. Apologies again for the long wait. —Kusma (talk) 13:56, 8 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Good Article review progress box Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed