Wikipedia:Peer review/Corinna/archive1

Corinna

Corinna is a relatively minor Greek poet, notable mainly for a surprisingly heated debate about when she actually lived, and for being one of the ancient Greek women poets whose work is best (which in the context of Greek lyric really means least worst!) preserved. I have ambitions of featured article status. I brought it to GA back in 2019, but since then it's almost doubled in length, from 1100 words to nearly 2000. Any feedback gratefully received!

Thanks, Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 11:32, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

Comments from mujinga

• I'll get the ball rolling, interested to read Mujinga (talk) 21:23, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
• The pictures are great as illustrations! I feel the captions could be standardised a bit since you currently have a range of ways of attributing authorship eg "Frederick Leighton.", "painting by Ernst Stückelberg.", "by William Brodie"
• "Second century AD" in lead and then "5th century BC", "first century BC" in body seems inconsistent
• "According to the Suda" - could explain Suda is an encyclopedia
• "When she was rediscovered and popularised in the Hellenistic period, her poetry would have according to this theory been re-spelled into contemporary Boeotian orthography, as her original fifth-century orthography was too unfamiliar to a third-century audience" - I'm getting tripped up by "according to this theory" .. maybe move it to the beginning of the sentence?
• "collected in a Boeotian edition in the late third or early second century BC, and later Hellenistic and Roman texts of Corinna derived from this edition.[28] This Boeotian edition " - three mentions of "edition" here
• sentence ending " survive in citations by grammarians interested in Corinna's Boeotian dialect." has no citation
• "P.Berol. 13284" please explain what this is - perhaps some of the info in the notes should be in the article
• "Sow with the hand, not with the sack" - what a brilliant expression!
• "John Heath argues that in the Terpsichore poem" - should Terpsichore be "Terpsichore" there?
• "Corinna seems to have been well-regarded" sounds a bit weaselwordy although you don't mean it that way. Do you even need "seems"?
• link Panhellenic?
• Nice work with the notes generally! I guess "fragment 690" could be "Fragment 690"? That's all I got.

Thanks for these comments, Mujinga! I've changed most things following your advice. There are I think two points where I haven't: the caption for the Stuckelberg painting, because it is descriptive rather than just identifying the artwork, I have left as is; I haven't linked panhellenic, which redirects to Greek nationalism and I don't think is a very useful target in this context. Wikt:Panhellenic would be better, but I don't know that "panhellenic" is such a confusing word that we need to link the dictionary entry. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 10:33, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Sure yes I was also wondering if the panhellenic link worked or not. If not would it be easier then just to say Greek? Mujinga (talk) 20:54, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

I think there's an important distinction in meaning; the local mythical traditions that critics pan Corinna for working within (with all of the sneering comments about being "provincial") are still Greek, even if they aren't panhellenic. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 22:29, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Comments from SusunW

• "was Edgar Lobel in 1930, who…" is grammatically incorrect. Who is a relative pronoun and must follow the person. Perhaps "Edgar Lobel, who in 1930, …"
• I think Jiri Frel is Jiří Frel and should be linked. (Looking at the Cambridge source, I looked up the Allen/Frel article which ties him to the Met.)
• Perhaps also link Musée Antoine Vivenel.
• I am a bit confused by the discussion of Silanion's work. Was it a portrait or a sculpture? Marble or bronze? (The photo says it was a bronze but that isn't sourced in the article and should be, if indeed it was that.) I cannot access the Vergados reference but Thorson clearly says the museum piece is a sculpture. Googling Roman portraiture, I find we 1) have an article on it and 2) that sculptures which were portraits are typically referred to as either "sculptural portrait" or "portrait-sculpture". I'm assuming it was a sculptural portrait, not a bust, bas relief or painting, but perhaps the source will allow you to clarify it in the text and link it to Roman portraiture?
• Link metrical schemes to Metre (poetry)
• "… is similar to Stesichoros" seems odd. Surely her use is not similar to a person? Perhaps "similar to that employed by Stesichoros"?
• Consider moving the link at contest between Mount Cithaeron and Mount Helicon to the first occurrence piping it to contest.
• Who is Marilyn Skinner?, i.e. why is her view relevant? (Okay, now I am fascinated: "Skinner is well positioned to attempt such a detailed survey, having dedicated her professional career to women's and gender studies and the history of sexuality, with publications since the early 1980s on Clodia Metelli, on obscenity and sexuality in Catullus, on various aspects of female poets such as Sappho and Nossis, and on modern approaches to ancient sexuality.[1] I added her to the WIR redlists and maybe someone will write her during next month's gender scholars event.)
• Same who are Anne Klinck (she might meet our notability criteria too [2], John Heath, Diane J. Rayor, Gabriele Burzacchini, and Athanassios Vergados? Maybe it is typical in analyzing literary persons not to give the authority of the reviewer? If so, you can just ignore this.? Maybe it is typical in analyzing literary persons not to give the authority of the reviewer? If so, you can just ignore this.
• Subsequent mentions of Skinner should not require reuse of her first name.
• Consider linking Mouseia at Thespia to Valley of the Muses.
• Is Pausanias, who Snyder describes as a 2nd century AD travel writer, this person? If so should be linked.

(edit conflict)* An "alt" description is missing for the photos of the work by Brodie, the Part of P.Berol, and the marble sculpture of Corinna.

• I honestly do not know the answer to this question, so I toss it out … do you need to cite the claims of who created the photographs for a FA?
• Photos:

• Corinna of Tanagra, c. 1893 says author is "Christie, Manson & Woods", which is true for the book, but not the painting. Painting was authored by Frederick Leighton, who died in 1896. The book doesn't say where it was published, but as it was published in 1908 by Christie's and notes the auction was at 8 King Street, St. James's Square, which is the auction house's address, we are probably fine to conclude it was published in London. We have no evidence that it was ever published in the US, but 70 years after Leighton's death would have been 1966 and 70 years after publication would be 1977. Based on that analysis, I think that it should probably have {{PD-old-auto}} and {{PD-1996}}. (I am unsure if you need to use {{PD-Art}} because this seems to imply that it would be redundant if the photograph (not the artwork itself) is already in the PD?) Perhaps buidhe can help answer that and look over my other photo comments? (It's so complicated and I am trying to learn this but it is hard!)

• I went with "PD-scan" and "PD-old-70-1923". Because it is a scan of a book, published before 1923 (satisfies any concerns about PD-US), and the author of the creative work died at least 70 years ago. (t · c) buidhe 22:50, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

• Stückelberg Myrthis und Corinna seems fine on the PD-Art (Switzerland does not grant a copyright for photographs of artwork in the PD) but the tag seems to be automatically generating a message that it was published in the US. I can't find any version of the book or the artwork ever "published" anywhere other than Switzerland and publishing is irrelevant because the US status is the same as Switzerland's, i.e. cannot copyright a faithful reproduction of a PD 2-D artwork. I don't see any tag on WP that says it is ineligible for copyright in the US, but to prove that it is ineligible, I think it needs to be tagged to show that the original work expired 70 years after the 1903 death of the painter and was in the PD in prior to 1996 for the US, i.e. {{PD-old-auto}} and {{PD-1996}}.

• PD-Art can be used for all countries regardless of the laws of the country of origin, according to consensus on Commons. I'm willing to accept PD-1996 even without knowing when the first publication was because the chance of being copyrighted in the US is very low (if unpublished, it would also have lost copyright protection). (t · c) buidhe 22:50, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

• Re: Corinna (by William Brodie) I must admit I don't understand the licensing on it. Brodie died in 1881, thus his sculpture went into the PD in 1951. The photo album accredited to Philip Henry Delamotte who died in 1889 doesn't contain any publishing information at all, but the Met indicates it was made around 1859 in Britain. (The operative word here is made, not published.) US copyright says for unpublished works 70 years after the death of the author, if they died before 1952. But British copyright law says if the author is known: "If the work was not published before 30 August 1989 and the author died before 1969 then copyright expires at the end of 2039." The museum supposedly acquired the album in 2005, so how could they have donated it to commons? Seems to me as if the photograph isn't in the PD, because it cannot be covered under the 2-D art rule and we have no evidence of publishing prior to 1989?

• SusanW raises some valid points here but I'm willing to accept MetMuseum's assertion that there are no copyright issues, which seems entirely plausible to me. (t · c) buidhe 22:50, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

• I'm confused. In the analysis of the British National Archives release of photos on the recent review of Olive Morris, you weren't willing to accept their copyright release, but in this case you are willing to accept the Met's. I don't understand the difference? SusunW (talk) 13:59, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

  The more recent something is the more likely it is still in copyright so a work from the late twentieth century asserted to be copyright-expired warrants a lot more caution than a nineteenth-century work. In addition, I'm more likely to trust "public domain" versus "no known copyright restrictions"—I may be wrong but I tend to think that institutions would use the latter more loosely. (t · c) buidhe 03:22, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

• Part of P.Berol. 13284, similar to the above art tag, the {{PD-scan}} tag is auto-generating a tag that says the French publication was published or registered in the US. That is unsubstantiated. We have no indication that it was published anywhere other than in France. Though we know from the publishing date of 1911 that it was out of copyright in 1981. Thus it seems logical that {{PD-1996}} should be the proper US tag.

• What PD-1923 is supposed to mean is (published) or (registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before 1927. The publication could be in another country; see the Hirtle chart. Licensing is OK. (t · c) buidhe 22:50, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

• buidhe Thanks for looking at these, so to make sure I understand, published means anywhere? It doesn't read that way to me, but I tend to take things literally. I truly appreciate your comments. SusunW (talk) 23:03, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

• Yes, see the Hirtle chart, first row under "Works First Published Outside the U.S." confirms this applies also to works published outside the US before 1927. (t · c) buidhe 23:05, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

• Thanks! SusunW (talk) 13:59, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

• Statue of Corinna says author was Phototypie Berthaud who died in 1912. I think that is meant to say Michel Berthaud, who died in 1912. According to the National Library of France, the business does not appear to have been active after 1898. Like the other two above, I think the licensing tag is wrong, as it says it was published/registered in the US. We have no evidence it was ever published in the US, just that it was published in France, i.e. it should have {{PD-France}} and {{PD-1996}}, because it was in the public domain by 1982.

• Licensing here is fine for the reasons stated above. Even if the exact author is unknown it doesn't matter because {{PD-old-unknown}} allows us to assume they have been dead at least 70 years. (t · c) buidhe 22:50, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Overall, the article is well written. I hope I was able to help some. I know very little about the ancient world and even less about literary criticism, but perhaps my lay-person's review gives a different slant. I appreciate the opportunity to possibly learn more about photo reviews and thank you for that. SusunW (talk) 21:57, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for your incredibly helpful comments! I've mostly adopted them pretty much wholesale. Further comments on a few specific points:

• Though I have slightly tweaked the wording regarding Silanion's Corinna, I haven't used the phrases "portrait sculpture" or "sculptural-portrait", neither of which I have ever seen used in a reliable source. I hope nonetheless that it's clearer now?

It's fine.

• I haven't wikilinked Roman portraiture because the situation is more complicated (the surviving statuette dates to the Roman period, but it's a copy of a Greek original; I don't think the wikilink serves readers well here).
• I don't as a rule explain the authority of commentators I'm citing by name; I take the view that if they are being cited for their views on an ancient Greek poet, readers are going to assume that they're classicists unless told otherwise; if they are interested they can click the blue links for those that are notable, or look to see what they've written for those who aren't. I don't think repeating "classicist X" 15 times serves the reader particularly. I did wikilink Skinner as I agree with you that she's interesting and quite plausibly notable.

Difference in genres I suppose and why I said ignore it if you wished. It occurs to me that we only know of the ancients because of scholars; whereas, with the 18-20th century women I typically work on, there are other sources of media to build upon.

• I haven't linked Mouseia to Valley of the Muses because I would consider it potentially confusing to link the name of a festival to an article on a location; readers might think that West was proposing a location for performance rather than a particular occasion on which C's poetry would have been performed.

Makes sense.

Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 20:31, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Sorry for tripping on your fingers. My internet has been up and down all day. Apparently they are working on the service at the police station across the street. o.0 I finally just decided to type until the end of my comments and save it, but that resulted in an edit conflict. *sigh* SusunW (talk) 22:14, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Ugh, internet problems are the worst. Hope they get yours sorted out! Second worst is Wikipedia's byzantine image copyright rules, so I'll save that particular joy for the weekend, I think. You're right to point out that I haven't done alt texts, though, and I should get on that... Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 22:26, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Comments by Kaiser matias

I'll look this over in the next day or so. Kaiser matias (talk) 22:41, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

• "...and was nicknamed Myia." Any idea why?
  • Absolutely none. It comes from the Suda, which is hardly the most reliable source to begin with, but it's one of the few "facts" that we "know" about Corinna's life, and biographies of her mention it, so I do too. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 08:11, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
• "Corinna was said to have competed with Pindar, defeating him in at least one competition, though some sources claim five." What type of competition?
  • Poetry competition: I've made this explicit. Presumably similar in format to the one described in the contest poem, where various poets would perform their songs (possibly with a chorus) and a jury would decide the winner, though I don't know of any source which discusses this in detail. One of the ancient sources (IIRC Aelian) says that it was decided by a jury, but he's much later than Corinna and is mostly interesting in explaining away why the "better" poet lost, so maybe not the most reliable source. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 08:11, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
• Note 'e' ("Denys Page includes 38 in his edition; Ian Plant says "perhaps as many as forty-two" fragments survive") has numbers as both numerals and written out; I'd be consistent here, and as the Plant quote has it spelt out, I'd do the same for both.
  • Thanks; changed. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 08:11, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

Other than that I don't see anything majorly glaring. For someone with very little background in the subject it comes across accessible, and I find it interesting that there is such a debate about her life. Kaiser matias (talk) 00:01, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

Thank you! Changed a couple of things per your recommendations. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 08:11, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

Nicely done. Good job here. Kaiser matias (talk) 14:45, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Placeholder Comments from Tim riley

I'll join the reviewers here in the next day or two, I hope. More a.s.a.p. Tim riley talk 14:15, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

This is an impressive article. Only a few points from me:

• It would be nice to be told where the surviving fragments are now located: you mention a "Berlin papyrus" but give no other details.
  • Added the locations to note f, discussing the fragments. I can promote this whole note to the body if you think it would be a good idea – I didn't originally as I worried it might be excessive technical detail. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 17:29, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
• Tatian's cited work is given its English title at first mention and its Latin one at second. I'd be inclined to standardise on the first. (Though is "ad" really to be translated as "against" rather than just "to"? The Wikipedia article on Tatian doesn't think so.)
  • You are of course right on the translation of ad Graecos; I have no idea what I was thinking. I've used Address to the Greeks in both cases, on the grounds that for a non-specialist audience, it's probably better to stick with English where possible. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 10:12, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
• It would put things in context if you gave Tatian's work an approximate date.
  • Described Tatian as "the second-century AD theologian" on first mention. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 17:29, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
• When you attribute a quotation or statement inline, such as "according to Derek Collins", it would be good to give the author a bit of context, such as "according to Derek Collins in a 2000 study" or "according to Derek Collins of the University of Michigan" or some such. Similarly, without going overboard, you might give, e.g., "Martin Litchfield West and David A. Campbell" some brief label, such as "the historians", "the classical scholars" or whatever they are.
• "Κόριννα, romanized: Korinna" – Although I usually advise people writing in BrE to use –ise endings rather than –ize, I think the latter is unassailably appropriate in an article about an ancient Greek writer, and just for once I refrain from thumbing my nose at Fowler and the OED's "…the suffix itself, whatever the element to which it is added, is in its origin the Greek -izein, Latin -izare; and, as the pronunciation is also with z, there is no reason why in English the special French spelling should be followed, in opposition to that which is at once etymological and phonetic." Generally outdated advice, me judice, but not, perhaps, in this case.
  • Hmm, I'm generally with you on avoiding the Oxonian -ize, and in the body of the article I have written "popularises" and "emphasises"; "romanized" comes from {{lang-grc}} and there is no option that I can find to force the template into using -ise. I shall think on this. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 10:12, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
• "Skeptics of the traditional chronology" – on the other hand, not even Fowler spells "sceptic" with a "k", and the OED concedes it is "Now usually spelt sceptic in the U.K. and Commonwealth and skeptic in the U.S."
  • Ugh. I knew you'd find an Americanism sneaking in somewhere! Fixed. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 10:12, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
• "before the Hellenistic period" – a date of some sort – a starting century would do – would help the reader get his or her bearings.
  • Wikilinked Hellenistic period. A date is given in the next sentence; I will think about whether there's a good way to re-write this to put the dates up front. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 18:44, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

That's all from me. I hope you will take the article to FAC, and if you do, please ping me and I'll gladly look in there. – Tim riley talk 18:28, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for these helpful pointers! I've implemented the easiest fixes, and will look at the others soon. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 10:12, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Query from Z1720

@Caeciliusinhorto and Caeciliusinhorto-public: It has been over a month since the last comment in this PR. Are you still interested in receiving comments? If so, I suggest seeking reviewers from relevant Wikiprojects or editors who have written similar FAs. If not, can we close this? Thanks. Z1720 (talk) 12:58, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, Z1720; I've closed it Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 13:14, 10 May 2022 (UTC)