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)

I know that there is a review of all FA articles being completed This one will fail for lack of citations. There is no rule that the tagger has to fix the article. Rather, in the past it has been considered vandalism to remove such tags without fixing. I am unable to fix the tags myself as I do not have the references.

An editor's view of citations is irrelevant to the FA criteria. As far as the suggestion to take it to FAR, I have an article there already, Robert A. Heinlein, and an editor is allowed only one at a time. I did list Augustan drama for the same reasons that I tagged this article and it failed with no one opposing it; it was delisted and its featured article status removed.

I image the discussion for this article would go pretty much like that one. Wikipedia:Featured article review/Augustan drama/archive1. Lots of opinions but no one willing to do the work. I guess it depends if anyone who is knowledgeable about the subject matter can add the needed citations, and is willing to do it on the current article before it is delisted as an FA.

Awadewit said about Augustan drama, a very similar article: "Currently, the references in the bibliography cannot possibly cover the claims made in the article - most of the references are primary sources. Sadly, the bibliography does not even reference the most important scholarly works on Augustan drama. I see that Ottava has agreed to do some referencing for this article - that is excellent and I look forward to its improvement."

So, does anyone cares enough to do it? As you can see in the archived discussion on Augustan drama, there were plenty of opinions, much like this page, but in the end no one cared enough to fix the article.

However, as Ottava Rima suggests, I will take it to FAR next. —Mattisse (Talk) 19:50, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

If you'd like to understand what is certainly my perspective, and may be that of others - my opinion is that the way any particular badge for this article is determined speaks more to the badge discussion process than it does to the quality of this article which will remain a little gem :-) - It will be a shame if some people decide that this article isn't up to some par or other, but the article will remain, and hopefully over 3,000 people a month will continue to learn from it :-) cheers, Privatemusings (talk) 20:00, 11 November 2008 (UTC)perhaps a better approach than 'you must do this or the badge gets it' might be to talk about the benefits of making the changes you think would help too? - either ways, I feel your main motivation in this is to try and maintain this article's featured status, and that's laudable - so thanks :-)

Tt would be a waste of time on my part. The atmosphere is clearly similar to Wikipedia:Featured article review/Augustan drama/archive1 and the talk page attacks that proceeded it. As was Augustan drama, this article is WP:OWNed to its own detriment. Regards, —Mattisse (Talk) 20:14, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

• Also, you are misreading the stats. That is a little over 3,000 in an entire month of October 2008, which is not a high number, as articles go. One article I wrote, that is not FA, received 17,854 hits in October. Plus, I bet those readers do not care about the FA star. That is what we are talking about here. Perhaps you do not either. —Mattisse (Talk) 20:22, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

This article fails FA criteria referencing (1c)

I see you removed the tag. We will see if the people on the talk page are just "talking" or whether they are willing to put some work where their mouth is. Hope it is that latter, and the knowledgeable people who know the material will fix. My last tag, before User:Privatemusings removed the current tag, was removed with the edit summary "Idiotic challenge; do some READING". This was the attitude of the Augustan drama supporters which led to the downfall of the article. Additionally I was personally attacked. Is that going to be the atmosphere here or are the commenting editors actually interested in the article remaining FA? Regards, —Mattisse (Talk) 20:01, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

You might have a problem, since this article has been accepted under Wiki 0.5 print edition and will not be overturned. So even if people now remove the star, it is already fixed as being a Featured Article. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:24, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

That has nothing to do with this discussion. This discussion is about whether Augustan literature currently meets the Featured article criteria. That CD was a while ago and standards have risen since. Currently they are working on the 0.7 edition and article choice is not based on FA status. Recently they had a drive to get GA articles included on the DVD list at least up to GA standards. Selection is based on subject matter befitting an encyclopedia. —Mattisse (Talk) 20:50, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm referring to the sentiments of contributors and reviewers. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:00, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

"Risen" since? Oh, yes. They have "risen." Matisse, I understand that you wish to target all of my FA's. That's ok. I don't believe in the FA system, so long as FAR exists the way that it does. Would it help you in your quest if I simply made a list of every FA I've worked on? You might want to go after Ormulum next, or Peterborough Chronicle. It's obvious that citation is not important and that the standards of FA (citation of any statement likely to be challenged) are still operative at FAC, but not at FAR. Rather than having FAR conform to FAC, let's just remove everything that has FA status, abolish the entire ratings system (which was always misbegotten and susceptible to petty revenge, as you are demonstrating, and parasitism, as others demonstrate) and assess one another on the quality of what they write, not the numbers they unwrite. Geogre (talk) 11:21, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Melodrama in "Augustan literature"

The first sentence of the section "Drama" reads:

Main article: Augustan drama

The "Augustan era" is difficult to define chronologically in prose and poetry, but it is very easy to date its end in drama. The Augustan era's drama ended definitively in 1737, with the Licensing Act. Prior to 1737, however, the English stage was changing rapidly from the Restoration comedy and Restoration drama and their noble subjects to the quickly developing melodrama (Munns 97-100).

The main article Augustan drama has the same sentence, but without the citation to Munns. The article Melodrama (linked at the end of the sentence) states that the earliest examples of melodrama are Sigismundus (1753) and Pygmalion (1762). Is there an explanation for this difference? The citation (Munns, 97-100) is not helpful, as it does not mention melodrama. --Robert.Allen (talk) 05:00, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I also searched all of Zwicker (1998) at Google Books for the word "melodrama" and got no hits. --Robert.Allen (talk) 05:08, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Augustan literature in ancient Rome

"like that of Augustus, when poetry became more mannered, political and satirical than in the era of Julius Caesar."

Not true. Augustan-era Latin literature is characterized by stylistic classicism; "mannered" is a better description of so-called Silver Age literature. As for "political," quite the opposite is true. One of the main questions of Augustan literature is to what extent writers felt it necessary to tamp down free speech as it would've been practiced during the Roman Republic; narrowing of political liberty is exactly what living under Augustus, the first emperor, meant. As for "satirical," satire is one of the genres, perhaps the only genre, that is distinctively Roman; it is characteristic of all periods of Latin literature in antiquity. My understanding was that the English Augustans emulated the perceivedclassicism of their Roman predecessors. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:04, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

DAB Solver Is Destroying This Page

You may notice strange strings of the form link:1 through link:5 on this page. Every time someone clicks a DAB Solver button to disambiguate a term, and tries to fix it, the term is replaced by link:n. The original text is not merely obscured but destroyed from the article source text. So, someone must identify all of these and if necessary go through the article history to recover the missing terms.

Well, you must have experienced some temporary malfunction. It worked now. --Saddhiyama (talk) 10:08, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Multiple issues

The lead doesn't reflect the article: it contains material not found in the article, and does not summarise the sections below.

There appears to be a significant amount of original research. Far more citation is required. Much of the existing citation is inadequately edited.

The general standard of copy-editing is low, e.g. citation, capitalisation, inappropriate American spelling.

The overall reading experience is at the level of an undergraduate essay: disjointed, opinionated and lacking authority. There is a lot of prolixity and irrelevance.

There is no treatment of the foundational topic of the evolution of the styles of thinking and expression in English literature that led to Augustanism, nor any treatment of the Classical models which were taken up. Spicemix (talk) 00:04, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Works published after the 1740s

The lede states that "Augustan literature (sometimes referred to misleadingly as Georgian literature) is a style of British literature produced during the reigns of Queen Anne, King George I, and George II in the first half of the 18th century and ending in the 1740s, with the deaths of Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift, in 1744 and 1745". However, the article quite often discusses works from the second half of the 18th century, including, amongst others, Johnson's Dictionary (1755), Fielding's Tom Jones (1749), and Tristram Shandy (1759-67). Perhaps the article needs to be re-titled 18th century English literature? Rwood128 (talk) 21:39, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Can anyone explain the inclusion of novels published in the second half of the 18th century here, especially examples of the novel of sentiment? There are also works of philosophy and economics whose inclusion surely needs to be explained. Rwood128 (talk) 13:08, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

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