Talk:The Cock and the Jewel

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Expansion of article[edit]

The article is now of a length and detail that would justify reassessment by an administrator of the templates intruded above.

In developing the "Literary tradition" section, I have concentrated on the variety of solutions that English and French-language authors have given to Aesop's 'riddle'. The former article relied on interpretations of authors in works of criticism. There are now enough sources available on the net to point readers to the actual texts (or translations of them) so that they can check these and perhaps come to conclusions of their own. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 20:12, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Reverted revisions[edit]

My apologies to those of you who cleaned up after Jimp Jougler. To my mind his/her good faith changes were more appropriate to academic book editing than to this online encyclopaedia, especially in the matter of footnoted references. In addition these (and the text of the main article) were being used to import personal points of view, which is against the spirit of WP. I have therefore reverted to the previous version with its particular focus on the varying interpretations of the fable over time.Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 22:55, 5 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Explanation of reversion by User:Stitchill[edit]

The tone of the last edit, date: 18:41, 3 August 2010, was appropriate for an encyclopedia. It also incorporated edits which had managed to retain some of the more expansive essay-like opinion of the edit, date: 08:10, 22 June 2010, by User talk:Mzilikazi1939, which had moved this to the notes, thus retaining purely descriptive material for the articles. (Even this retention was not strictly necessary, but I did not want to delete the material.) I have therefore restored my last version, but I have also made amendments and further tidied up the layout (especially cleaning up the reference links) to make for greater clarity for other users. Please do not simply revert wholesale to an older version without considering the reasons. Thanks. Stitchill (talk) 10:05, 6 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

copied from Mzilikazi1939 talk page: I thought the compression of the article made the article cogent. This time have just made some fixes to stuff that was lost that I think tidies the page up in terms of layout and have restored one or two (hopefully) non-controversial things. However, I am about to do one more edit which you might want to discuss and will call it picture caption so you can see it. Hope okay Stitchill (talk) 19:14, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

PS. done. Reason for citation tag is not because I disagree, but because I don't understand the reference to John Ogilby or how he is relevant (not knowing anything about him). I don't feel the art-interpretation opinion about the picture really works though, either as evidence or explanation. I moved it to the picture caption, so it's not lost. Stitchill (talk) 19:34, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Stitchill. For my part, I've also done some rewriting to edit the essayistic feel and keep the article factual. I should point out, though, that articles in the Encyclopaedia Britannica 1911 edition, many of which were copied to WP earlier on, are intensely essayistic and that is one of the reasons why it has become the collectors' edition.

I have fairly strong opinions on what should be in a WP article and how that differs from a specialist encyclopaedic article.

1. It should avoid specialist vocabulary where possible and the preponderance of abstract vocabulary towards which your rewriting was tending. 2. Allied to this, it should be inclusive rather than elitist. In one of the earlier rewrites (not yours, I think) the mediaeval thorn (þ) was used, which shuts the meaning to all but specialists or Icelanders. I'm even a bit doubtful about leaving Caxton untranslated. 3. It should be factual but avoid triviality. 4. It should be focused and remain on-subject.

I wasn't happy about the use of footnotes (as opposed to references) either. They're too bookish and are rare on WP. I seem to remember seeing some in an article of yours elsewhere on WP.

The other point is mention of John Ogilby. He is only just being taken up by scholars after a very long occultation. I'd assumed there was something about his version of Aesop in the WP article on him. I was wrong and will try and remedy that. Briefly, he was - according to Dryden and Pope - boring and incompetent. But he is noted for reintroducing Aesop's fables to English literature in magnificent editions from 1651 on. He also politicised them, and it is sheer ingratitude in Dryden and Pope not to credit his pioneering the fashion from which their own writing benefited so much. Depite scholarly attention, it is still difficult to find him in print and I therefore had to infer from the Wenceslaus Hollar illustration of the fable in Ogilby's edition what the interpretation might have been. Perhaps I need to make that clearer in the article and reinstate the comment. Personally I'm not against additional information appearing in the description of illustrations although one of the many sets of WP guidelines does advise against it. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 20:44, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]