Talk:Der Rosendorn

Early comments

You will find a proof for the early dating of the newly found fragment on http://www.handschriftencensus.de/26081.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.189.191.240 (talk • contribs) 22:05, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks very much for that, .240! If you happen to know of any other interesting sources, I'd appreciate it. Dankeschön! ——SerialNumber54129 11:11, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Der Rosendorn/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 13:28, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Comments

What an interesting article on a remarkable subject. I'll have a go at this one. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:28, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

• Appreciate that the relevant part of the virgin doesn't correspond exactly to any medical term, but all the same we should choose one translation and use it consistently. The lead currently switches between "vulva" and "vagina", while the Background tries "cunt" and "vagina". Given the vagueness of the region designated by the German term, "cunt" would actually be the best of these (and if "the foulest of language" is permissible, as it seems to be here, then several other short words are available), but any one of them will do.

Crumbs. I've gone with Charlie Uniform November Tango then; also added a note and some context about the prevalence of bad language in med. German lit. But there's no two ways about it: everyone's going to go mad. Or to put it another way; everyone's going to go Fucking mad!

Steady, boys, steady.

• I'd suggest that the same term (whichever one you select) should be used in the image caption for "A 13th-century brooch" in place of "the female genitalia" (a clunker of a phrase if ever I heard one); though we could even say "a Rosendorn" there. I'm not sure about the ending of that caption, "a similar phenomena to that expressed in Der Rosendorn" which sounds like WP:OR unless indeed Koldeweij said so (in which case, the ref should go at the end); and the phrase "that of the male" is so circumlocutory and in such innocent words that I missed it the first two or three times I read the caption. I think what the caption should say is something like "A 13th-century brooch, probably French, depicting a [vulva] being carried in procession by three [penises][15]". (Please insert your chosen terms for the bracketed words.) Commons says four for some reason.

Changed to your wording. Unfortunately, Koldeweij doesn't expressly link the brooch to Rosendorn? But I've changed the text on Commons, which was my original typo.

Thanks.

• Image caption "Der Rosendorn, discovered in 2019." is quite misleading for anyone who reads titles and captions first. Perhaps "Recently discovered early fragment" would be better; the text has been known for centuries.

Good point, done.

• "zwetzler (slang for penis) and fut (likewise for cunt)": "penis" is clearly out of register here by comparison with "cunt"; "dick" or "cock" would be more in keeping with zers and zwetzler which certainly weren't medical terms.

Yep, changed.

• "middle ages" -> Middle Ages (caps, with wikilink).

Done.

• "mild emphasise" -> "mild euphemisms"? Not quite sure what you mean here.

Me neither. Bizarre. Changed to mild terms as (something like) that is clearly what I intended.

• Who's Coxon? And others such as Rees, Schlechtweg-Jahn, Connolly, Rasmussen: please introduce each person named (with first name or initials), e.g. "the critic S. Coxon", "the scholar of gender studies Emma L. E. Rees", and so forth.

Right. Moved Seb. to the first usage, non-false-titled all the other names.

• Schlechtweg-Jahn is first introduced with no initial, then is redlinked with first name. Indeed so is Coxon, who becomes Sebastian a bit lower down.

Catch. Check.

• locus amoenus: please add a brief gloss, something like "(an imagined happy place)". The wikilink is helpful but the meaning needs to be clear within the article.

Added a parenthitical translation and a footnoted description from Oxf. Ref.

• The poem's discovery has been noted more widely by the press, as in Roisin O'Connor's article in The Independent. I think this should be mentioned.

Thanks for that; it duplicates the Guardian article in many ways, but could still be mined.

OK, up to you.

• I can guess what "AAS" means but since it's only used once I suggest you spell it out in full, or perhaps say "the Academy". (I note that The Independent calls it the OAW, and mentions also collaboration from Mainz and Marburg universities.)

Expanded, linked and translated (although not, as yet, the German abbreviation, as I haven't used the English)

• Publication still says "end of the 16th century" while 2019 discovery says "around 1300". This needs sorting out.

Yes, this is tricky. In this case, I gather that the two known codices have been published, but the recently discovered one hasn't (obviously—as it's only just been discovered). So I changed the section header to "Versions" (perhaps "Previous versions" would be better?) to distinguish. Can you think of a better way of doing it though?

The fact that it's a version thing is the key point.

• Given this earlier date (comparable with, say, The Canterbury Tales), I wonder whether the Background section shouldn't mention Chaucer's mentions of the unmentionable parts. For instance, The Nun's Priest's Tale talks of "coillons" (bollocks) while The Miller's Tale involves Absalon's kissing what he hopes will be Alisoun's lips but instead gets her "ers" (arse), her "nether ye", with much joking about why her lips were hairy. I don't think you'll find any shortage of sources, e.g. The Logic of Obscenity in Chaucer's Legend of Good Women, Chaucerian Obscenity in the Court of Public Opinion, Obscenity and Fastidiousness in The Miller's Tale, etc. This wealth makes it clear that rough language was part of the Medieval literary scene.

This is all great stuff, many thanks, and with it, I've expanded the section by a fair old whack. Haven't actually used your sources, but will go over them in the next couple of days, and in the meantime, I think I've covered your suggestions; bummer—I copied you closely enough that you should be attributed, and I forgot.

• While we're on Background / Context, I feel that you've rather underplayed the importance of Eavesdropping; the article somewhat implies that it's a unique feature of Der Rosendorn, whereas Rasmussen 2002 calls eavesdropping "an astonishingly popular subject among a large number of late-medieval German Minnereden". Perhaps the article should have a subsection on Eavesdropping; and perhaps there should be a section called "Themes", of which eavesdropping is one. Another theme, evidently, is Obscenity; another is the talking body-part; and another is the separation. Yet another, possibly, is the similarity with the Rosengarten, according to a very old note by Archer Taylor: perhaps it's worth a mention, perhaps not.

I'm going to pause a halt here, and mull this over. It definitely needs to be incorporated (per criterion 1b), and there's plenty in those themes. Thing is I don't have a source to hand that discusses them in the context of Rosendorn. That's why the "Background" section became a dumping ground.

On reflection, I think this is all good stuff, and with careful phrasing, excellent for the section.

OK.

• Diderot: I think we need to explain that his story tells of "a magic ring that makes [vulvas] talk".
  • Added a supplementary sentence.
    • Many thanks.

• The Smithsonian article mentions (as well as the magic ring...) also "the cult 1977 movie Chatterbox, or Virginia and the Talking Vagina."
  • Yep, added to a new section as you suggest below.

• Perhaps The Vagina Monologues also require a little more of a mention (a brief description, given that Connolly has named that piece). Indeed it seems we need a section on "Influence" or at least "Similar themes in art and literature".
  • Done. Added context for TVM, new section, moved stuff related to later interpretations etc here.

• Are fud and fut both used in the manuscript as synonyms, or is this a mistake in the article?
  • No just fut; but in the meantime, any fud's seeem to have disappeared.

• "a young virgin—a lady-in-waiting (jungfrauwe)": not quite sure about the sequence here. Earlier you put the German first, and the English in parentheses. Is there a reason for swapping the style here?
  • Swapped.

• ""von ainer wurz fugt sich das,/Das die Fud zu ir frauen sprach"" needs italics, since foreign.
  • Done.

• Refs Hughes2006, Adams1982, Shanzer2006, Orrells2017, Oxford_Reference2020 and Müller2011 do not point to anything in the Bibliography.

@Chiswick Chap: I know—I was doing them as you wrote here :) you see, I used Visual Editor to do the basic prose edits, but the refs in the open editor, since VE doesn't seem to allow the ref box to be edited. (At least not easilly. (For me.) Did no-one point the devs towards WP:V?!) Anyway done now. ——SN54129 19:33, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, and don't ping me, I'm on the case. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:41, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

• The lead needs to be extended somewhat to cover each of the sections of the article, and the newly-added material (per the above items).
  • Lead expanded.

Discussion

• Many thanks for looking in, Chiswick Chap, much appreciated. I've made a start on your suggestions, but will have to come back to them tomorrow (or possibly later tonight, as it goes); I ended up doing a fair bit more research including finding a couple more sources (although not massive ommissions, more in the region of further context). ——SN54129 18:54, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Excellent. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:57, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

• Dealt with a few of your suggestions above, Chiswick Chap; apologies for the tardiness! I admit this slipped off the radar, but if you're not in any urgency, are we OK with this pace? ——SN54129 19:29, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Well obviously we want to get the job finished with a bit of progress every day if possible. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:32, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Serial Number 54129: Are you still working on this one? Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:18, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping,Chiswick Chap, I took my eye off the ball with this—now back on it! ——SN54129 15:30, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

---

Finally got back to this, CC. Apologies, again, for my tardiness; but I think, at last, the article's lookng better for it. What say you? ——SN54129 16:49, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

Well, I think that's all done, and I hope you'll agree that the piece is improved for the slow-gestating GAN. I'm happy to pass it now ... are you nominating it for (blushes) the Front Page via DYK? Well why not. Also, I do hope you'll feel like taking on one or two of the many fine articles nominated in the GAN queue! Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:58, 16 February 2020 (UTC)