Wikipedia:Peer review/Cento Vergilianus de laudibus Christi/archive1

Cento vergilianus de laudibus Christi

I've listed this article for peer review because I'd really like to see it blossom into a GA or maybe (one day) an FA. I've been working rather hard on it for the past two weeks, but alas, I'm pretty much the only editor who has edited it, and I know that means there are areas that I might have overlooked, or sections of prose that make sense in my mind but might translate differently to a wider audience. I'd love someone to take a look over this article and point out and suggestions.

Thanks, Gen. Quon (Talk) 02:14, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Comments from Caeciliusinhorto

• In the lead, there is written "crafted by Latin Roman Christian poet Faltonia Betitia Proba sometime c. AD 350–360 following the author's conversion to Christianity"

1. "crafted" is a strange verb to use here. "written" or "authored" would probably be better. Crafted has connotations of skill or quality which might not fit with wikipedia's neutral point of view requirements.

• I was using such a strange verb since she didn't really 'write' it (the whole thing being a mish-mash of Vergil). I changed it to "arranged".--Gen. Quon (Talk) 16:53, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

1. "Latin Roman Christian poet" reads as clunky to me. Is it necessary to give out all three qualifications? (Indeed, are any of them necessary?)

• Good call. I cut "Latin", since it becomes apparent that it's Latin, and "Christian", per your suggestion.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 16:53, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

1. "Christian poet[...] following the author's conversion to Christianity" is definitely redundant. You could cut the first "Christian" with no loss of meaning.
2. "sometime c. AD 350-360" is also odd. "sometime around 350-360", or "c. 350-360", but not "sometime c.".

• I went with "c." It's more Roman.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 16:53, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

• In the second paragraph of the lead, I corrected "Proba was trying to circumvent a law put in place by Roman Emperor Julian’s law that forbade Christian from teaching classical Greek and Latin literature" to "Proba was trying to circumvent a law put in place by the Roman Emperor Julian that forbade Christians from teaching classical Greek and Latin literature".
• In the section on origins, the article has "Proba was a noted poet, who first composed a piece, now lost, known as Constantini bellum adversus Magnentium, which dealt with the war between Roman Emperor Constantius II and the usurper Magnentius."

• This is the kind of circuitous and tortured sentence that I would write, but it could probably do with simplifying. Perhaps "Proba was a noted poet, who first composed the now lost work, the Constantini bellum adversus Magnentium, which dealt with the war between Roman Emperor Constantius II and the usurper Magnentius." Even that's four clauses, though, and if you can untangle it more that would be great.

• Haha, "circuitous and tortured sentence". Brilliant. I went and made it two sentences separated by a semicolon, and I also reworded some of the clauses.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 16:53, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

• I'm not quite clear on what "who first composed" is meant to mean. I assume the meaning is something like "who had previously composed"; I suggest you change this to make the meaning clearer.

• I tried to reword this to make it clearer.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 16:53, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

• "It should be noted that the proemium and invocation section is composed of several original lines of Latin, in addition to lines borrowed from or alluding to Virgil, the Silver Age poet Lucan, and the 4th century poet Juvencus.": this might be better put with the sentence which says that the poem is a patchwork of Virgilian lines in the previous subsection.

  Done.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 16:53, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

• The paragraph on the contents of the Old Testament section of the poem is significantly longer than the single sentence on the NT section. Can more detail be added here to even this out?

  Oh yes. I have the Proba the Prophet book that I'm going to use to bulk up that section. I just need some (more) free time.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 16:53, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

  How is this?--Gen. Quon (Talk) 17:32, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Looks much better to me. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 15:54, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

• In the section on Proba's Motivation: "with this being said": why not simply "however"?

  Done.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 16:53, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

• The lead tells us that Jerome criticised de laudibus Christi. In the main body of the article, however, this is watered down to "many scholars believe". Which is it?

  It is 'many scholars'. I know that's kind of a nebulous and sort of vague phrase, but it indeed is true, and most sources nowadays will use some variation of "most scholars believe..." when talking about this issue.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 16:53, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

• Once in the article and once in the references, the author is referred to as "Falconia"; otherwise she is "Faltonia". Are these errors in the sources (in which case perhaps point this out with "sic") or in the article? Or are they legitimate alternative spellings?

  Those are just goofs on my part.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 16:53, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Hope this helps,

Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 14:27, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

This review was very helpful. Thank you so much!--Gen. Quon (Talk) 16:53, 8 December 2015 (UTC)