Talk:Philology and Middle-earth

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Philology and Middle-earth/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs)

Reviewer: Averageuntitleduser (talk · contribs) 03:34, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Howdy Chiswick, this seems like a very pleasant read! Averageuntitleduser (talk) 03:34, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Many thanks! I think you'll find it all clear and robustly cited, and supported by subsidiary articles, but if there's anything that needs attention, it'll be fixed promptly: I'm used to working through issues with reviewers. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:00, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

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

Well-written

A careful, but utterly fascinating read! The use of philology in Middle-earth is balanced nicely with some context of Tolkien's knowledge of the field in general. The "dwimmerlaik" and "Smaug" paragraphs especially were very satisfying! After a tiny copyedit, I have only minor quibbles or clarity suggestions.

Many thanks.

• Just for confirmation, what error is the "[sic]" referring to?
  • Removed; it's not an error, just emphatic.

• in its Mercian form — link "Mercian"
  • Linked.

• race Tolkien's thought — "trace Tolkien's thoughts"?
  • Fixed.

• their land was the Mark — for clarity, perhaps: "they called their land the Mark", as they are established as the Riders of Rohan.
  • Done.

• Who is "the archaeologist"? I'm afraid I don't follow.
  • Tolkien means "people working in archaeology of the period"; of course he could also mean the actual team who excavated North Leigh Roman Villa. It's as if we were talking about points of view on one of the world's wars, and we said "the soldier would say...", meaning "from a military point of view".
    • Got it, looking back, I think the phrasing works.

• used in the Codex Junius to mean "Aethiopian". — perhaps link "Aethiopian" (I think it works, as although Tolkien argues against this, it's still only referring to Codex Junius's meaning).
  • Done.

• Tolkien was asked to conduct a philological investigation of a Latin inscription there: — for full clartiy, perhaps try: "...of a Latin inscription there, translating it as:"
  • Added.

• "Common Eldarin", "Silvan", and "Telerin" are used on a whim, perhaps give them short descriptors?
  • Added one, that should give a clue to the rest.

• suggesting that it must have been something like the surviving Norse myths — for confirmation, is the "it" referring to his mythology?
  • Spelt out England's lost mythology (which he hoped to recreate).

• (re)creation — I feel like "reconstruction" would work better.
  • Done.

• "Common Speech" should be explained at first mention.
  • Glossed.

• Use "place-names" or "placenames" consistently.
  • Done.

• The same went for forms like "dwarvish" and "elvish", strong and old, and avoiding any hint of dainty little "elfin" flower-fairies. — this sentence is confusing me a little. Are "strong and old" supposed to be the forms of certain words? I feel like it's missing something; it doesn't feel like it follows the format of the "elvish" and "dwarvish" example.
  • glossed.

Verifiable with no original research

The sourcing quality looks good; many prominent biographies and anyleses are used. Neither an overreliance or underreliance on primary sources, which seem to have a fair bit of material. No issues with copyvio during my spot-check.

Spot-check

• Bowers, John M. (2019). Tolkien's Lost Chaucer. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-884267-5.
  • Looks good Y
• Carpenter, Humphrey (2000). J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography. New York: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 978-0618057023.
  • Looks good, I imagine his idea for the term "Middle-earth" is supported by the others. Y
• Carpenter, Humphrey, ed. (2023) [1981]. The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien Revised and Expanded Edition. New York: Harper Collins. ISBN 978-0-35-865298-4.
  • Looks good, can't find the full translation, but per WP:TRANSCRIPTION, this is alright. Y
• Clark Hall, J. R. (2002) [1894]. A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (4th ed.). University of Toronto Press.
  • Looks good Y
• Flieger, Verlyn (1983). Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien's World. Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8028-1955-0.
  • Looks good Y
• Fimi, Dimitra (September 2016). Tolkien and the Art of Book Reviewing: A Circuitous Road to Middle-earth. Oxonmoot.
  • Looks good Y
• Kuusela, Tommy (May 2014). "In Search of a National Epic: The use of Old Norse myths in Tolkien's vision of Middle-earth". Approaching Religion. 4 (1): 25–36. doi:10.30664/ar.67534.
  • This is silly, but where does it mention that Lonnrot traveled the coutryside? Looks good otherwise.
    • Yes, Kuusela is a bit sketchy on the details. Added the Kalevala Society's account of Lönnrot's life: his collection of the Kalevala poems is about the best-known thing about him. You may be amused to hear that as I write, Melvyn Bragg is broadcasting an In Our Time programme on BBC Radio 4 about The Kalevala, and the programme summary says "The compiler of this epic was a doctor, Elias Lönnrot (1802-1884), who had travelled the land to hear traditional poems about mythical heroes being sung in Finnish, the language of the peasantry, and writing them down in his own order to create this landmark work."
      • That's funny. In this case, I'd wonder if WP:SKYISBLUE would stretch this far. Anyways, I'm happy with the new citation. Averageuntitleduser (talk) 10:49, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Broad in its coverage

After looking around Google Scholar, Google Books, and TWL, I'm quite confident that this article adresses the main points and uses its sources fully.

• Would this Mythlore article be worth a sentence or two? It's quite aptly titled, and seems to analyze Moria and Faramir in a philological context, before making some general comments about phonology and semantics in his books. Either way, this article seems so robustly cited that I will only leave it as a suggestion.
  • Added a paragraph. Branchaw is not a first-rank Tolkien scholar but her thoughts are sensible and worth a mention. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:19, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
    • I realized this later, but I quite like the addition.

Neutral

Looks good on this front. Quotes and opinions are are identified/attributed.

Stable

No recent content disputes or edit wars.

Illustrated

The own work diagrams check out, other images are all correctly labeled either public domain or creative commons. Some are quite large, but during my read-through, I didn't have many problems with this.

Summary

Once again, a very interesting read! Please do explain to me if I'm missing something in my suggestions, otherwise, great work! Averageuntitleduser (talk) 02:14, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

It's been a pleasure, I'm now happy to pass this article! Averageuntitleduser (talk) 10:50, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.