Talk:The Princess and the Pea

Title of the fairy tale

I moved the contents of the page The Real Princess to the page The Princess and the Pea, turned the former into a redirect page and changed the links on other pages accordingly. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, even though the present (unsourced) Project Gutenberg version of Andersen's fairy tales uses the title The Real Princess, it seems that The Princess and the Pea is by far the most commonly-used English title (110,000 hits in Google as compared to 19,800 for the former). Secondly, the latter title much more closely resembles the Danish title, Prinsessen på ærten (literal translation: The Princess on the Pea). Bwiki 17:18, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

That's the title I've always heard. I added a PD Dulac image I got from this PG project. gren グレン 18:55, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

The correct title is The Princess on the Pea. That the Princess slept on the Pea is fundamental to the meaning. "... and the pea..." assigns the role of equal subject to the pea. That a misinterpretation of a correct translation is widespread does not make the incorrect title correct. It merely propagates an uneducated Anglo-/US-centric attitude within something that aspires to be an actual encyclopaedia.

Unsubstantiated analysis removed

It ends with a very interesting musing regarding possible sado-masochistic psychological imagery, but leaves it largely unanswered. I'm sure there's commentary out there somewhere. I'd look for it myself, but, honestly, I don't feel extremely motivated at the moment. Maybe later. However, leaving it as is would be a disservice. Either it's a legitimate analysis with documented material or it isn't. Cheers. -- Hinotori 11:31, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually someone added this to the plot synopsis today, and I moved it to analysis. For all I know it's purely unsubstantiated speculation by this one person. --Steerpike 12:25, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

In fact, it was largely copy-pasted from the annotations found at the external link provided by Diddims today (sections 9 and 10). Therefore, I deleted it and moved the external link to the "External links" section, shortening the URL so that it does not point to any specific section of the annotations. Maybe the link is a vanity link, but I will leave that for others to decide. To be fair, the original annotation was more cautiously worded; it said that Some modern writers have explored the sado-masochist possibilities of [the black-and-blue-all-over] story element while Diddims speculates that "black and blue all over" has unsettling undertones of sado-masochism (my emphasis throughout, Bwiki). That would imply that the "black-and-blue" part of the story as such has S-and-M undertones, which is of course purely unsubstantiated. --Bwiki 18:17, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Plot synopsis

Re TERMINOLOGY. In Switzerland, where I come from, a synopsis is something like an abstract: a brief summary, a condensed general view. This is obviously not what the term means in America at the moment. Otherwise Wikipedia would not give the title of "synopsis" to this retelling of The Princess and the Pea that takes up more space than the original. But however we may call it, I don't understand why anybody would want to make a short story long, managing in the process to leave out the most important details and adding in return elements of his own imagination. There must be a reason for it, but I just don't see it. Can anybody help?--BZ(Bruno Zollinger) 08:56, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

The Princess and C.G.Jung

Re BLACK&BLUE. The talk about SM is pure poppycock. The princess, when she went to bed, did not know that this was a test. So where's the masochism? The queen did not think that the girl was a princess. So where's the sadism? Besides, C.G.Jung who has analyzed every well-known fairy tale (cf various Grimm tales in Wikipedia) has nothing to say about SM. There is, however, this ingenious theory of his: Andersen, a sanitizer if there ever was one, made a "pea" out of pee. It was the all-pervading smell of urine that caused the princess to thrash around on her bed until she was black and blue.
As a rule, I wouldn't put much stock in what Jung has to say on any subject whatsoever. But here he certainly has a point. After all, reacting to a pea hidden under 40 mattresses would not signal delicacy but dementia. A nose for urine, on the other hand, is a true sign of nobility.--BZ(Bruno Zollinger) 13:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

A brilliant theory, except that in Danish, the words for pea and pee are not even remotely similar. Dearsina (talk) 19:20, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Protagonists' virtues, motives

I was just reading a book on crystals and their healing properties. I came across an incerpt on magnetite (lodestone). The book claims that this crystal is used to test the loyalty and fidelity of a wife. It also states that a man could place this stone beneath his wifes pillow, and if she fell out of bed, she was no longer virtuous.

Somehow, this seems to relate to the princess and the pea story. Maybe if she did not feel the pea, somehow she would not be virtuous. ???

172.193.204.172 06:29, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Re VIRTUOUS. You missed the point of the story, Anonyma. The princess is virtuous by definition. We are to make up our mind about the virtue of all the others. Here goes: The king is obviously an old fool who has nothing to say. The queen is an evil schemer intent upon keeping a virtuous princess out of her family. The servants are cowards. They could have tipped off the princess about the stupid scheme. But they preferred to stay out of the picture altogether. This leaves the prince: Mother's little helper? A coward like the servants? A victim of his mother's cabal? Or are we totally on the wrong track? Think: A "king" who has to go out in the rain himself to open some doors. A "queen" who herself has to perform menial tasks like preparing a bed. Could it be that all the time it had been the PRINCE who had been pulling the strings behind the scenes? The story gives us a hint: Now he knew that she was a true princess. He needed a test! Which brings us to the main question: How crazy must this princess have been to want to marry into such a family? What do you think, Anonyma?--BZ(Bruno Zollinger) 12:28, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

GA Review

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

This article has been quick-failed as the nominating and only currently active editor has been banned for 18 months. Jezhotwells (talk) 18:31, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:The Princess and the Pea/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

   When I ran the Peer Review script to see what came up against the MoS, it said:

• Consider adding more links to the article; per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links) and Wikipedia:Build the web, create links to relevant articles.^[?]
• Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (numbers), please spell out source units of measurements in text; for example, the Moon is 380,000 kilometres (240,000 mi) from Earth.^[?] Specifically, an example is . Dag.

I agree with the first bullet point there, but not sure about the second point. Suggest adding in more links though.

1. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

   Do the references which are located at the end of the paragraphs in the composition and commentary sections cover the whole of the paragraph? Also, as a suggestion, I think a quote maybe worth putting in the "Commentaries" section. Just a thought.

2. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

3. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

4. It is stable.

   No edit wars etc.:

5. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

6. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

   some of the above bits just need clarifying and or changing, after which I'm happy to pass. Please leave a note on my talk when you have commented back. D.M.N. (talk) 15:38, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Replies

Thanks for the review. A few initial replies:

• I've added a couple of links, but I can't see anything else that warrants linking.
• The convention adopted is that a citation at the end of a paragraph sources everything in the paragraph.
• I'll see if I can find an appropriate quotation to add to the Commentaries section.

--Malleus Fatuorum 17:31, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay, I've only just managed to get the sources from the library. I've now added what seems to me to be an appropriate quotation to the Commentaries section. --Malleus Fatuorum 22:37, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

Passed. D.M.N. (talk) 07:41, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Wrong infobox

This should be using {{Infobox folk tale}}, not {{Infobox short story}}; our article is about the folk tale and its adaptations (including Andersen's into a short story), not about the Andersen short story in particular.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  19:48, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Then shouldn't it have both infoboxes, and probably some others besides. cygnis insignis 01:35, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

GA Reassessment

The Princess and the Pea

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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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: Speedy delisted because of copyright issues. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 17:17, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Due to the CCI at Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/ItsLassieTime, I had to remove about half the article. While I was able to salvage more than I have in other instances, much of the meat of the article, namely the composition and publication, is gone. While restoring it to GA is a bit more feasible than others that have been nominated, it still needs a large amount of work. Wizardman 15:52, 19 March 2023 (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.