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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by Karanacs 16:45, 11 May 2010 [1].

The Author's Farce

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The Author's Farce (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): NocturneNoir (talk · contribs) Ottava Rima (talk · contribs)

Ah, the Henry Fielding plays... This has been a long project and collaboration between Ottava Rima (talk · contribs), myself, and many others. After failing the first FAC (linked above), the project lost steam, but I'd like to think that we're starting up again. After the first FAC, the article was copyedited by both Malleus Fatuorum (talk · contribs) and lightly by Tony1 (talk · contribs). Please enjoy. ɳOCTURNEɳOIR talk // contribs 19:53, 18 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]


Images seem appropriately licensed, why was the page chosen for the infobox rather than the cover? Fasach Nua (talk) 20:48, 18 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment: I don't know why this has attracted so little attention at this FAC. It's a good subject; I will be back soon with some detailed comments; in the meantime I hope others will read it. Brianboulton (talk) 18:46, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Leaning to support: In the main this is very well done. I have not finished my readthrough yet, but here are a few mainly minor points from the earlier sections:-

  • Lead prose
    • Awkward construction: "The Little Theatre allowed Fielding the freedom to experiment with his plays and to alter the traditional comedy genre where the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, which had rejected Fielding several times, did not." This could be rearranged to: "The Little Theatre—unlike the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane which had rejected him several times—allowed Fielding the freedom to experiment with his plays and to alter the traditional comedy genre." (or maybe you can devise something better?)
    • Instead of repeating the title, the third paragraph could, without ambiguity, begin "The play..."
    • The words "When it was discussed" seem unnecessary
  • Plot
    • The nature of The Pleasures of the Town as a puppet play should be made clear when the title is first mentioned.
    • The wording "abuses against Nonsense" should be in quotes as this is not a normal everyday expression.
  • Source
    • You should mention that Theophilus Cibber was Colley's son.
    • It would be useful to have an indication of the present-day equivalent value of £13, which was a not insignificant sum in 1729. Measuringworth.com gives a figure of £1,760 on the basis of relative purchasing power.
    • What was the Scriblerus Club? (I see it is linked and explained in the next section - this should be brought forward)
  • Themes
    • "rejection from the Theatre Royal" → "rejection by the Theatre Royal"? And then "his being forced back..."
    • Although present tense in this section is generally correct, it seems wrong here: "...proves beneficial because it allows him..."
    • Pseudonyms ("Scriblerus Secundus") should be in quotes
    • Sentence needs more punctuation to remove ambiguity: "During Fielding's time, theatre comedy was a standardized genre with set structures frequently used by playwrights including Molière."

Will conclude tomorrow. Brianboulton (talk) 22:39, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Since Malleus made several fixes before I could jump in (thanks Malleus!), I just wanted to drop a few comments.
    • The words "When it was discussed" seem unnecessary. I changed this in response to Tony1's comment on my talkpage: "... was a critical success", but then we're told it was largely ignored by theatre critics for hundreds of years? Seems contradictory, so perhaps a change of wording to remove the tension? And "its effect on Fielding's career" ... positive effect? I guess it's clear from the previous statements in the lead, though. Hopefully, Malleus's change reconciles both.
    • The wording "abuses against Nonsense" should be in quotes as this is not a normal everyday expression. Nonsense is a character, so "abuses against Nonsense" is more of an action than a set-phrase. The direct quote from the play is "Murdertext: For abusing Nonsense, Sirrah" and "Murdertext: Verily I smell a great deal of A--bomination and Prophanes--a Smell of Brimstone offendeth my Nostrils, a Puppet-Show is the Devil's-house, and I will burn it--shall you abuse Nonsense, when the whole Town supports it?" Therefore, I've changed the mention into a direct quote, which should clarify matters.
    • You should mention that Theophilus Cibber was Colley's son. Not entirely sure how this is relevant, but I've done it and moved the wikilink.
    • What was the Scriblerus Club? (I see it is linked and explained in the next section - this should be brought forward) Themes is now above source, so this should no longer be an issue.
    • Most other comments not directly addressed here have been fixed. Cheers and thanks for the review. ɳOCTURNEɳOIR talk // contribs 19:03, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Outstanding points: (Brianboulton (talk))

  • Performance history: On the whole I found that the prose of this section read far from smoothly. There are rather too many details of performances, mingled with mentions of other plays which I personally found very confusing. I wonder if it is possible to summarise the performance history more generally? There are also specific prose queries:-
    • "The 18 March 1730 Daily Post and in the 21 March 1730 Weekly Medley and Literary Journal ran notices..." The word "in" needs to be removed.
    • "premiere", not "premier"
    • "...ran for 41 nights, eight of the performances during the three weeks following Easter." I found this a bit confusing; normally when you say a play ran for x nights you mean consecutive nights, but in this case, eight performances during the three weeks following Easter suggests that performances were intermittent. Would it be better to say it ran for 41 performances?
    • "alongside of..." "of" is unnecessary
    • "and was later billed for a revival on 3 July 1730." Does this refer to The Author's Farce or to the combination just mentioned?
    • "Between the November and January..." Delete "the"
    • "There were even benefit shows..." Why "even". and for whose benefit?
    • "A revised version of The Author's Farce was started towards the end of 1733..." Passive voice. Does it mean that Fielding started to write a revised version?
  • Critical response
    • "It is impossible to know how the play stood without Tom Thumb, or if the third act's puppet show The Pleasures of the Town was the most popular feature of the play..." Why is it "impossible" to know these things? Would it be more appropriate to say "There are no reports of how ... or whether the third act..."?
    • "Later in 2002, " - comma required, thus: "Later, in 2002,..."

That is all I have. I look forward to upgrading to full support. Brianboulton (talk) 20:24, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Apologies for the late replies.
    • The vague bits are due to sources, which are also correspondingly vague. I cannot answer any of the questions you have asked simply because there isn't any data to answer them with. I have fixed all other outstanding issues.
    • I'd argue that the performance history is important enough to not generalize. ɳOCTURNEɳOIR talk // contribs 19:06, 1 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • There are still a few points unaddressed from my list (the others are all resolved):-
        • In the Plot section we still have "Luckless puts on the puppet show", wording which at that point is entirely unexplained to the reader. It needs to be something like "Luckless puts on his play as a puppet show..."
        • The incidence of passive voice, noted above, is unaltered.
        • I don't like "It is impossible to know..." It sounds too assertive, and you can't know that it is impossible to know. Why not adopt my suggested "softer" version? Brianboulton (talk) 00:22, 8 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. This is pretty good. There are just a few things I think need attention though:
  • The order of the last two sections (Critical response and Performance history) seems wrong. Critical response starts off by telling us that "It is impossible to know how the play stood without Tom Thumb ...", but we don't learn that the play was put on with Tom Thumb, or even that Tom Thumb was another play until the following Performance history section. I'd suggest reversing the order. If not, then Tom Thumb needs to be explained earlier.
  • From the Plot section: "This leads to the third act, in which Luckless puts on the puppet show, portrayed by actual actors rather than puppets, to make money." I'm not at all sure why "to make money" has been tagged on to the end of that sentence. It's ambiguous in any event. Did he put on the puppet show to make money, or did he use actual actors instead of puppets to make money?
  • From the Critical response section: "Beyond a few minor references, there is very little further mention of the play from the 18th century." Should this be "during the 18th century"? "From" seems a little ambigous, as it could alternatively mean "from the 18th century [onwards]".

Malleus Fatuorum 17:24, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose This article has a lot of good information, but I think that the prose still needs more work to bring that information forward. Also, there are a few places that need explanation or elaboration.

Prose

Here are a few examples taken from the lead that show general prose problems with the article:

  • The first and second acts describe Harry Luckless's attempts at romance and his efforts to make money by writing plays - We need a brief description of Luckless, such as "the hero" or "the central character". This kind of problem recurs throughout the article - the reader is assumed to have knowledge of the topic at hand or understand the structure of the play too well.
  • This problem still exists in the article. Note that the second sentence is about the theatre and why Fielding staged his play there, but this is before we know about Fielding's problems with the theatres or the experimental nature of the play.
  • The first and second acts describe Harry Luckless's attempts at romance and his efforts to make money by writing plays - "attempts at romance" is a bit vague - it can mean both that he is looking for a relationship and writing a romance. The prose often needs to be made more precise.
  • Through the use of a play within a play, Fielding satirised the London theatre scene, especially the focus on turning a profit and the debasing of the literary public with new genres. - The prose is often wordy (you don't need phrases like "through the use of" and "the focus on").
  • I'm still seeing a few problems with this, but I can go through the article on my own sometime over the weekend and work on reducing them (e.g. " However, the journal does mock the nature of the play as a farce and the quality of the Little Theatre.") Please leave a note on my talk page reminding me to do this! Awadewit (talk) 21:23, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • especially the focus on turning a profit and the debasing of the literary public with new genres - Unclear - I think that the writers assumed knowledge on the part of the reader here.
  • By using a play within a play, Fielding satirized the London theatre scene's focus on turning a profit and debasing the literary public with new genres. - Do you mean "debasing literature by introducing new genres solely for the sake of profit" or something like this? I still find this sentence confusing.
  • Fielding critiqued society as a whole and touched on issues of sexuality, politics, and social problems. - This needs another sentence - what kinds of critique did Fielding offer? Give the reader a hint!
  • The "Sources" section appears to be a prose list rather than carefully structured paragraphs. For example, the first paragraph begins with details about a comparison to a Farquhar play and then moves into biographical elements. The second paragraph also discusses biographical elements. Both paragraphs mention landladies. Each paragraph needs to have a coherent topic (perhaps a landlady paragraph?) as well as a topic sentence that introduces it.
  • The last four paragraphs of "Critical reception" are a series of quotations. This material needs to be molded into a narrative that the reader can follow. I would also suggest paraphrasing some of the quotations. Jumping between so many different voices is difficult.
Additional information or clarification needed
  • This experimentation, beginning with The Author's Farce, introduced aspects that were common to many of his later comedies. - Please add an explanation of what these aspects were.
  • Fielding's use of the pseudonym connects his comedic style to that found in the writings of the Scriblerus Club members and reveals their influence on his new style. - Please explain what the style of the Scriblerus Club was. Listing the names of the writers won't help most readers.
  • Fielding wasn't attacking Swift et al, and the text doesn't say that he was, only that he incorporated elements of their style into his own work. One example is given: "... such as incorporating the elements being attacked into the work. Fielding thus allows the audience to believe that he is poking fun at others, less discriminating than themselves, and less able to distinguish good art from bad." Malleus Fatuorum 21:06, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I read this sentence as he was incorporating elements of their style in order to mock them (it is extremely confusing). Note, however, that nowhere in the article are these "elements" explained - the reader already has to know what Swift's, Pope's, and Gay's styles are to understand what is being incorporated and even that is not particularly helpful because Fielding wasn't incorporating every element of their styles. This part of the article - on the play's style - needs a bit more elucidation and clarity. Awadewit (talk) 23:43, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The major element of their style Fielding adopted was the incorporation of the thing they were ridiculing into the satire. Hence the play within a play in the third act. Hopefully that's explained a little more clearly now. Malleus Fatuorum 17:54, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • During Fielding's time, theatre comedy was a standardized genre with set structures frequently used by playwrights including Molière. - Please explain what some of these set structures were. Also, why are we mentioning Moliere here?
  • It does not rely heavily on rhetorical wit, but Fielding does incorporate dramatic incongruities, such as comic actions and humorous language during scenes that should be serious - An example of this would be nice.
  • As for the ending, the blending of the fictional world and the real world destroys the various frames of the narrative and represents the nonsense common in contemporary British society - That Fielding believed was common?
Other
  • Should the other plays mentioned be redlinked?
  • Like Brianboulton, I was not terribly interested in the details of the performance history, but I think that they need to be retained. I reread them and each one notates a change in the text of the play, which is extremely important. This information will be useful to someone.

I checked the MLA database for material on The Author's Farce. In my opinion, this article covers the fundamental scholarship on the play (I recognized the names of famous Fielding scholars in this article, for example). There is more available, obviously, but whether or not to use it is a judgment call. I look forward to striking this oppose. (I am only editing Wikipedia on the weekends, so I will check this FAC next weekend. If you want me to look at it sooner, please email me. Thanks!) Awadewit (talk) 05:16, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Actually, I'm pretty sure I could find this material if I had the time to go to the library and look for it - it is all common knowledge amongst 18th-century scholars (if we didn't need citations, I could just add it in myself). Unfortunately, as it is finals week, I don't have time to do that. Awadewit (talk) 21:23, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sources comment: The William Warner book (or article) lacks publisher and date information. Otherwise, sources look okay. Brianboulton (talk) 20:41, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Missing details added. Malleus Fatuorum 20:56, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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