The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was merge‎ to List of Shakespearean settings as a viable Atd. Star Mississippi 22:17, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Locations of Shakespeare's plays (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

I don't see how this is a noteworthy topic. In the cases where there is no historical basis for a locale, Shakespeare simply set his plays (I believe) in whatever place his source located them; where they are located is a trivial matter. TheLongTone (talk) 13:39, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Literature and Lists. Wikishovel (talk) 13:47, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• leaning delete As it stands, this comes off as WP:OR in that the idea for instance about the locations of the tragedies seems to be that of the author. OTOH I would not be surprised at scholarly analysis of this subject. Mangoe (talk) 13:49, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

redirect to List of Shakespearean settings per discussion below. Mangoe (talk) 15:01, 30 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Leaning towards Keep Seems to me to be something that could be reliably sourced, and upon which there is surely quite a lot of commentary. Locations are often significant. I have a lot of issues with the page as it currently is, which I'll happily have a go at listing if this discussion looks like closing as a keep. AndyJones (talk) 13:50, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Scholarly sources include [1][2][3][4]. Reywas92^Talk 14:59, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I do not find these 'scholarly' sources convincing. Place does not matter in the plays; they are simply set where Shakespear's source located them. Geography in Shakespear is shonky in the extreme, as in the Aleppo-bound Master of the Tyger. Aleppo is not a coastal city. Ther locations are simply far- away place of which we know nothing. Incidentally I worked for a long time in the theatre industry and was closely associated with the design of a number of Shakespeare plays, some for the RSC. I do not recall any of the designers with whom I worked being remotely interested in researching the locations in which the plays are set. TheLongTone (talk) 16:12, 30 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete - I don't find it encyclopaedic. Whole article is based on a trivia. Azuredivay (talk) 15:10, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep - the article is very new and extremely undercooked, but the subject is certainly notable (pace Azuredivay, notability depends on what scholars and others have written, not on the text of the Wikipedia article) with plenty of scholarly sources available. Rewriting is certainly needed, with more and better sources, but that's an editing matter, not for AfD. Bohemia is in the Czech Republic not Austria (wherever it may have been politically in the 17th century); Florence isn't in France; Pericles is wrongly linked; and the equation of Cymbeline/Cunobeline's Ancient Britain with "England" is pretty dubious to say the least (England didn't come into being until at least 500 years later). The map is pretty but the data on it are unsourced and seemingly as wobbly as the tables of data. So as I said, the sources definitely need improvement. The Settings of Shakespeare's Plays by Josip Torbarina would be a place to start (at least it distinguishes England and Britain). I think it would be best to focus on towns or cities (a column in the tables) with "Country" more of a gloss, as countries have changed many times. Even the parts of London would be well worth distinguishing: Torbarina lists the Tower [of London], Bridewell Palace, Eastcheap, Southwark, Blackfriars, Smithfield, Cannon Street, Blackheath, Dartford "etc.". He has similar lists of towns in the English counties, and quite a few cities in France too. The article's problem is its lack of detail and lack of attention to the published scholarly sources, which are a great deal more informative. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:17, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Draftify: This article has a few glaring errors, as pointed out by Chiswick Chap. On the other hand, I think it would benefit greatly from the addition of content using the scholarly sources identified by Reywas92. Once it's cleaned up and polished, it will be a great addition to Wikipedia.--DesiMoore (talk) 15:46, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep - Thank you all for your feedback, I have updated it since, with more sources, a more detailed and expanded table, an analysis section and fixed various issues. Any more feedback is welcomed, I believe that the content of this article is very interesting and has a place on Wikipedia, the map has also been updated for readability and sourcing.--Jadek8 (talk) 11:46, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge with List of Shakespearean settings. We have this topic covered on a location-by-location basis, albeit incompletely, already; this new article Locations of Shakespeare's plays covers the topic on a play-by-play basis. It would be best to include all of this information in the same article. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 00:40, 30 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Agree with this, and I'd suggest just redirecting the settings list to this locations list. That page is rather poor, being mainly bullet-pointed names with no context of which plays were at which place. Reywas92^Talk 14:39, 30 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose Merge (unless this closes "delete" in which case I'd support a redirect). In my view the list article serves a different purpose from this one - and it's formatted as a list which this isn't, and it would lose that if the material from this page were merged into it. AndyJones (talk) 13:28, 31 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Commen by nominator The merge suggestion seems sensible to me. Incidentally I am baffled by an academic article on 'The sense of place in Shakespeare's plays', since I do not think that the man ever visited Fife, let alone Illyria or Venice.TheLongTone (talk) 15:29, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Many authors have not visited the places where they set their writing - how they develop and portray a sense of place is an interesting topic of study. (One could say that authors who have been to their locations don't always have a good sense of place in their writing, too.) RebeccaGreen (talk) 10:22, 5 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Are you in any way familiar with these plays?TheLongTone (talk) 16:08, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ZyphorianNexus ^Talk 14:02, 5 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Merge to List of Shakespearean settings, keeping these two very closely related topics together would be useful. -Samoht27 (talk) 16:07, 5 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Changing my !vote to Draftify (per DesiMoore) and also removing my opposition to a merge. I see so many problems with this page that I seriously doubt its ability to become an acceptable article - but have no objection to giving it that chance, if people are willing to work on it. AndyJones (talk) 17:53, 5 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.