Wikipedia:Featured article review/The Lord of the Rings/archive1

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

The article was removed by User:Marskell 07:03, 29 September 2008 [1].

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The Lord of the Rings

Review commentary

Notified:SorryGuy (also original FA-nom), Carcharoth, Uthanc ,WP Middle-earth, WP Books,WP Novels, WP Children's literature and article talk page.

The article appears to fail criteria 1a) being well written. The overlong plot summary is past tense which is unconventional, not to say unprofessional, and is littered with other grammatical strangenesses. The article fails 1b) being comprehensive. There is no discussion of the works literary style or the major themes found in the work and should cite the huge amounts of critical and academic literature which addresses the work in order to cover those issues. The article would then encompass the many significant published viewpoints on the subject. Resolving these criteria would bring the article up to FA.Davémon (talk) 08:34, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Please notify significant contributers as well as associated wikipedia projects and post these notifications at the top of this FAR (see the instructions at WP:FAR. Thanks! --Regents Park (count the magpies) 11:38, 17 August 2008 (UTC)--Regents Park (paddle with the ducks) 16:19, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Someone who has more experience with this wikiproject should probably weigh in on this as I'm still pretty new to this whole wiki thing, but within the article there is the following comment:

Before editing the synopsis back to present tense, please refer to Talk:The Lord of the Rings/archive 03#In universe style and Wikipedia:WikiProject Middle-earth/Standards#Tenses

I'm not sure whether this is the forum for people that have opinions & information on the topic, but from what I know of the subject, there is a certain sense in which Tolkien is claiming to write something in a historical/mythological vein rather than a fictional vein. However, many Tolkien scholars typically distinguish between Tolkien's works that are meant to be "artifacts" of his world, and therefore have their place in that history, and simply "stories" synthesized from the history itself. I have misplaced the very nice article that discusses the distinction, but I will edit my comment accordingly once I find it (and if this is the appropriate place to post such information. Astraflame (talk) 16:19, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

While I would welcome the addition to the article of any sourced discussion of Tolkien's use of the "False document" literary device in the Lord of the Rings, the authors use of such a device is not a reason to have the plot-summary in the past tense. Other books, including Robinson Crusoe, Dracula, and a whole swathe of gothic horror short stories etc etc. use the same device, and they have plot summaries written in the correct tense. Using the fiction as a framework for discussing the fiction isn't really acceptable for an encyclopedia. --Davémon (talk) 16:48, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Just to clarify my argument above, what I meant was, even in the context of Tolkien scholars, people generally do not consider the Lord of the Rings to be "texts" in the sense that The Silmarillion as it was originally conceived was (the reference, by the way, is Christopher Noad's "On the Construction of the Silmarillion" in Tolkien's Legendarium). Thus, even in that context, the past tense may be applicable for concepts in the legendarium, such as the articles on Middle-earth or Aragorn or texts that actually claimed to be true documents, such as the Lay of Luthien. In the case of the Lord of the Rings though, even though is some note in the introduction or something claiming that it is a story in the Red Book of Westmarch, Tolkien really never considered it a historical artifact at the level of The Silmarillion, but much more of a fictional work more like The Hobbit. So, even to Tolkien scholars, I think the present tense would still be more applicable to discussions of the Lord of the Rings.

I accept that this distinction may or may not be relevant to this discussion as I do not claim to be fully proficient in the conventions for what is or is not acceptable in this encyclopedia. However, I thought such information would be generally useful to know in the context of writing about Tolkien, even if it does not prove to be applicable to Wiki-articles. Astraflame (talk) 17:22, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying. This discussion is primarily to decide whether or not the article The Lord of the Rings currently meets the WP:FA criteria, and to help decide what to do about it. The kind of broader subject-matter and multi-article approach may be better suited to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Middle-earth. --Davémon (talk) 18:37, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

No problem. Thank you for the clarification on Wiki-etiquette, and done! --Astraflame (talk) 19:12, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

• Comments by Carcharoth - some other users probably need to be notified (User:YLSS, User:CBDunkerson, User:Awadewit, User:Dbachmann and User:Csernica (TCC), among others, User:Solicitr might also be interested, also have a look at the current and recent contributors to Talk:J. R. R. Tolkien and Talk:The Lord of the Rings - update: I've notified 13 other editors that I think might be interested in this - not all are still active, but hopefully between us and anyone else who becomes aware of this, we should be able to do a fair amount of work) if they don't see the WikiProject notice, but I'll review the article for now.
  • (A) I agree with the 'comprehensive' criticism point: "There is no discussion of the works literary style or the major themes found in the work, and no reference to the huge amounts of critical and academic literature which has been written on the work, so it lacks many significant viewpoints on the subject."
    • (A-i) There is mention of the themes in the lead section, which incidentally seems fine at the moment, and a link to Themes of The Lord of the Rings is there, though that article is pretty poor at the moment. Something needs to go in the main article with reference to secondary literature. I'll try and do that at some point.
    • (A-ii) About the secondary literature. We do also have Tolkien research, which is in a similarly poor state, and Category:Tolkien studies, so some overview section in this article on the secondary literature would be possible. I've also added a link to Reception of J. R. R. Tolkien in the "see also" section. See also Category:Reception of Tolkien. We have the articles, but lots of them were written after this article passed FA, and no overview has been integrated into this article yet.
  • (2) The plot summary is too long, but rewriting that shouldn't be too much of a problem - what will probably happen is most of the material will end up at the subsidiary articles and get refined still further there. Would that be acceptable?
  • (3) I do have the books to source a lot of stuff, but will need severe prodding to get them out and to write something. If citations are needed for specific points, please ask.

That's my initial response. I'll aim to get back to this later in the week. Carcharoth (talk) 02:10, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for notifying the other editors. The reference to the academic and critical literature, isn't to merely state that such a body exists, as Tolkien research does, but to be able to correctly cite, through reliable, independent, sources the significant viewpoints on the subject of "The Lord of the Rings". The basis of the missing style, theme and reception (beyond the initial reviews) can only be supported by citing this material. I've reworded the intro to clarify. Davémon (talk) 08:34, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict with dab's comment below) Yes. That should be obvious. Would you like a history of views on The Lord of the Rings over the last 50 years, or just a precis of current (sometimes still conflicting) opinion? There is rather a lot of literature to cover. This covers the work from 1984 through 2000, and the "Year's work" sections in the issues of Tolkien Studies covers most of the rest. The stuff before 1984 is covered in "Richard C. West’s Tolkien Criticism: An Annotated Checklist and Judith Johnson’s J. R. R. Tolkien: Six Decades of Criticism", but I don't have access to those. I will, however, look for articles summarising views on style and themes in The Lord of the Rings. The J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia has several relevant entries giving an overview of the sort I think you are after, as does The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion. One problem with writing something trying to summarise what is still a developing field of literary scholarship is being wary of original research, and keeping it up-to-date. I fully intend to use reliable sources, but there have been problems in the past with people saying that what Christopher Tolkien wrote about his father's works, and what Tolkien wrote about his own works (eg. in The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien and The History of Middle-earth) is not "independent". I've tried to explain that to a certain extent such sources are valid, and that overviews published in the secondary literature should be the starting point, but in some areas it helps to cite all the way back to the primary sources (that the authors in the secondary literature are working with) when a citation or further explication is requested or seems needed. Does that make sense? I suppose what I'm really after is for you to say what you think are unreliable and non-independent sources when it comes to writing our article about The Lord of the Rings - can you give examples? One problem is that it is not entirely clear which views are significant among the myriad of views. There are some themes that keep being mentioned in the literature, so I guess pointing that out would be best, though ideally someone would point that out in a published paper themselves. Where the scholars disagree, that should be mentioned as well, though there are some "fringe" theories that sometimes get published, so deciding how to handle that could be a problem. How long do we have and how much room would you devote to this in the current article? Carcharoth (talk) 10:08, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not going to quibble about CT's independence on LoTR (but is his role as draft-reader, map drawer and commentator in the article? if not it should be!), but to rely majoritively on his work (or that of the authors) whilst discussing Style, Themes, Reception would be missing out on many other significant viewpoints, and so isn't really the answer to that problem.

The scope of the reception issues? Yes, the whole 50 years. Everything. From the initial views to "it's a hippy book" to "let's put this into the literary canon" and everything in-between. Whatever can be properly sourced. If it becomes too unweildly, it can get split off, but not gefore it's written WP:SS.

How much space to devote? As much as we need to show all significant viewpoints. I can't say which ones are significant, and which ones aren't, but if there are multiple reliable sources on them, then they're probably significant enough. Yes there will be conflicting views, and they make the article more interesting.

How long do we have? Well, this stage (discussion of "does it fail criteria, if so what do we do about it") is two weeks. Then as it appears that we have editors who are willing and able to address the issues, then stage two (vote to demote) will be put on hold for as long as it is evident that progress on the article is being made. If nothing constructive happens at all to the article in two weeks then we'll just move to the next stage. --Davémon (talk) 11:58, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree with Carcharoth, I find the article generally rather weak and uninspired. The plot synopsis is too long and the discussion of "Reception" and publication history are rather weak. It generally reflects the take on the LotR taken by nerds, as opposed to literary critics or bibliophiles. I.e.,focus on pop culture, adaptations, later fantasy literature etc. Is it FA worthy? I don't know. I am not aware of a better encyclopedic article on the work available online, and I feel we have to measure the quality of our articles against what else there is out there, not against what quality they could ideally have in theory. I also don't care two bits if an article has a bronze star at the top. What we need to do is simply try and keep improving the article, FA or no FA. Carcharoth is pointing the way to go, the LotR article can only ever become excellent if we first produce excellent Themes of The Lord of the Rings and Tolkien studies articles it can rely on. So, anyone interested, why not just cut the discussion and sit down for a couple of hours' work on those. --dab (𒁳) 09:45, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

What, instead of writing long comments here? :-) You have a point. Carcharoth (talk) 10:08, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

My primary motivation wasn't to get the article delisted, but to encourage people to improve the article, so I'm glad that is the response we're getting. For the purposes of this discussion "is LoTR article an FA", whether article's meets WP:FACR is of paramount importance. I'd like to dissuade people from seeing developing "supporting" articles as a way forward. The problems aren't with those articles, it's with the fact that the wikipedia Lord of The Rings article (demonstrably the most popular work of fiction of the 20th century) just isn't very good. Improving related articles isn't going to fix that problem. If the LoTR article actually develops enough properly sourced, reliable content to need to be split into a summary style article, then that would be great, but I fear (if you'll excuse my Tolkienism) painting the detail on the leaves before constructing the branches is counter-productive. --Davémon (talk) 11:58, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I beg to differ on the point that improving an article's WP:SS sub-articles is indeed a crucial step towards the improvement of the main article itself. Any article on a major topic will eventually end up in WP:SS, and as such needs solid sub-articles that are to be summarized properly in the main article's various sections. dab

(𒁳) 12:16, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

The real question is "shall we take sub-articles into consideration in this FA review?". My answer is "No: let's not lose focus". The article under review is The Lord of the Rings, not a combination of it and one or more of Themes of The Lord of the Rings,Translations of The Lord of the Rings,The Fellowship of the Ring,The Two Towers,The Return of the King,J. R. R. Tolkien's influences,Reception of J. R. R. Tolkien,Adaptations of The Lord of the Rings,Works inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien and any other sub-article I may have missed. Themes of The Lord of the Rings has absolutely no wp:v,wp:rs content, so starting from scratch in the main article shouldn't really be a big challenge for anyone wanting to develop the themes section. --Davémon (talk) 20:33, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

This isn't "the real question" at all. The real question is, how to improve this article. We do need work in the Themes of The Lord of the Rings department for that, but not in the The Two Towers department. --dab (𒁳) 14:38, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

It has been my experience that writing subarticles first and then summarizing in the main articles is much more efficient than writing the main article, writing the subarticles, and then rewriting the main article. However, I do recognize that we would need a committed group of editors to achieve this in a short amount of time. Awadewit (talk) 17:19, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I'll try to make myself clear one more time before dropping this as irrelevant: my aim is to improve our coverage of the topic. I don't really care which article sees an addition of quality material first, just as long as quality material is being added. Once it has been added, it is perfectly trivial to transfer it from one article to the other. So yes, it can also be added to the LotR article first and then be transferred to the sub-article, the outcome will be identical. --dab (𒁳) 09:42, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Image For Image:Middle-earth.jpg, the source [2] gives permission for anyone to use the map for their personal or classroom use, but I don't see where it's released under GFDL. DrKiernan (talk) 14:21, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

worse, the map isn't so much "based on the works of JRRT" as the copyright note claims, as a blatant rip-off of Christopher Tolkien's map. I don't think there is any way we can justify keeping it on any Wikimedia server. We might sooner just hsot a copy of the actual CT map and give some fair use rationale. --dab (𒁳) 14:42, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Comments from Awadewit I agree with the nominator. I have thought myself about nominating this article for FAR for just these reasons, but I have never had the time to devote to improving it. I can commit to copyediting at this point, but no extensive research.

• Large expansions - These expansions will require substantial research. Much as been written by scholars on Tolkien's books - this literary criticism could be mined for this article. Without it, the article fails the comprehensiveness criteria:

• There needs to be more discussion of genre - there are brief mentions of "novel" vs. "romance", but no in-depth discussion of what this means. There is also a passing reference to allegory, but again nothing in depth. Many scholars have written about the allegorical nature of these books - exploring that would be helpful to the reader. There is also no discussion of "fantasy" in relation to LOTR - only in relation to books influenced by LOTR. Considering LOTR was a foundational fantasy work, this is a glaring omission.
• There needs to be a discussion of Tolkien's writing style in the books. This would include symbolism, for example, which is used extensively in these works, as well as a brief discussion of Tolkien's use of languages.
• There needs to be a discussion of the themes of the books. Essentially, the meat of the article is missing - what is the book about? It has meaning beyond the plot and the reader is not given any of that information.

• Small expansions - Throughout the article, there are areas where the reader is left hanging, where one or two more sentences are needed to flesh out a point. Here are some examples:

• Since the second edition many different printings of The Lord of the Rings have appeared. - But the section focuses on recent editions. What happened between the 1960s and the 1990s?
• Tolkien, an expert in philology, examined many of these translations, and had comments on each that reflect both the translation process and his work. To aid translators, and because he was unhappy with some choices made by early translators such as the Swedish translation by Åke Ohlmarks - What were some of these comments and why was he unhappy?
• Tolkien acknowledged the influences of William Morris and his Huns and Romans, as in The House of the Wolfings or The Roots of the Mountains. - This and other of the influences need to be better explained to the reader. Where can the influences be seen in Tolkien's work? Right now the reader has to piece all of this together. The second and third paragraphs in this section are much better.

• The plot summary needs to be rewritten.

• It is in the past tense when it should be in the "literary present".
• There is too much detail in some parts (e.g. "Bilbo's 111th (or "Eleventy-first" in Hobbit speak) birthday party").
• Characters and things are poorly introduced at times (e.g. Merry and Pippin are first mentioned in "The Two Towers" without explanation).

• Some copyediting work needs to be done. Here are some examples:

• The idea of the first chapter ("A Long-Expected Party") arrived fully-formed, although the reasons behind Bilbo's disappearance, the significance of the Ring, and the title The Lord of the Rings did not arrive until the spring of 1938 - The first chapter is not Athena - this language of arrival is strange - the book is not a baby.
• Once Tolkien considered the Ring, the books really became centred around it and its influence on the inhabitants of Middle-earth. - "really became"?
• Several other authors in the genre, however, seemed to agree more with Dyson than Lewis. - The article then goes on to talk about a science-fiction author, but LOTR hasn't been discussed as science fiction in the article (nor is it usually considered science fiction).
• The live-action film trilogy has done much in recent years to bring the novel back into the public consciousness - The novel? What about "the novels" or "the trilogy" or "the works"?
• It is often assumed to have strongly influenced the RPG industry which achieved popularity in the 1970s with Dungeons & Dragons - RPG is not explained or linked

I hope these suggestions are helpful. Awadewit (talk) 17:16, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

• Comment - 1. I disagree about the plot summary. I believe that, for the length of these works, the plot is too short. 2. "There is no discussion of the works literary style or the major themes found in the work" Section influences suggest otherwise. 3. Most of the material needed is linked via main templates, so redundancy would be pointless. Ottava Rima (talk) 01:12, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I think you have looked at the ToC, but not actually read the article, let alone the articles linked via the main templates. dab (𒁳) 09:44, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I could throw back far worse against you. But I think my history and experience here with these pages verify what I say above. Furthermore, those linked articles don't diminish the quality of the page. Ottava Rima (talk) 13:34, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Each article must stand on its own and explain the topic it claims to cover - it cannot rely on other articles to do this. LOTR must outline the themes and genre of the trilogy, for example, which it does a very poor job of. Awadewit (talk) 20:31, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I feel that the above is an unreasonable request. If you notice at Johnson's page, some major topics are limited to a simple link. The same goes for Shakespeare, and most other major literary fields. These are three major books that spun into many movies and other derivative works. Wikipedia has a policy against redundancy. This is how I feel on the topic. Ottava Rima (talk) 01:01, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

• sources: I am looking at Drout's JRRT Encyclopedia for comparison. This is the only recent publication of an encyclopedic article with the topic "The LotR" I can think of. On pages 385-392, it has the articles "Lord of the Rings, The" (Amy H. Sturgis) and "Lord of the Rings, The: Success of" (Jared Lobdell). Sturgis discusses "Publication history", "Summary", "Style" and "Adaptations". Lobdell's "Success" article is on the impact of the commercial success on Tolkien himself. Recent literature quoted by Sturgis includes:

  Zimbardo, Rose A. and Neil D. Isaacs, eds. Understanding The Lord of the Rings: The Best in Tolkien Criticism. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2004.

  Shippey, Tom. J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century. Bos­ton, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2000.

• I don't think the Sturgis article is particularly great. It's still an useful tertiary source. She does make some pointed statements as to the work's critical reception, What some critics see as meandering, other scho­lars find intricate, Critics over the decades remain divided over The Lord of the Rings, as some continue to see it as an epic masterpiece of timeless relevance and others perceive it as an adolescent adventure with delusions of gran­deur.
• what neither Sturgis nor we are particularly strong in is the history of the work's composition. This would be our The_Lord_of_the_Rings#Writing section. This period covers a decade of Tolkien's life, and has been meticulously researched, in The History of The Lord of the Rings and in biographical studies, most notably The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide. We absolutely need to elaborate on that. --dab (𒁳) 10:07, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Comments from Davémon having nominated the article for review, I think it only fair I elaborate on what I think must be done to the article to bring it up to the level I'd expect from a wikipedia Featured article on "[the greatest book of the 20th century]".

Structure:

Presenting the information in a closer adherence to Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels/Style guidelines will help ensure the significant areas interest are covered properly by the article, and help people who haven't read the book to understand its meaning and place in the world. It's not too far away right now and a bit of adjustment would make it great.

Focus:

• The article must avoid intentional fallacy. This means that the article should not report Tolkien's comments about his own work at face value. Where Tolkien, or his literary executors opinions are cited, as much biographical context as possible should be given (i.e. date, reason for comment, who the comment was addressed to) and what independant sources have said about the comment or the subject. This is a fundamental requirement of maintaining neutrality. ( e.g. : from the lead: larger conception of a legendarium about an alternate mythological past of the world when did Tolkien say this? why? what relevance does this factoid have? does anyone else discuss the book this way? why?; #inspiration: Some locations and characters were inspired by Tolkien's childhood again, when did Tolkien say this? what motivated him to do so? has anyone else actually noticed this influence?).

• Plot summary needs to be much tighter, summarising the whole book rather than trying to recount every event. The plot of The Lord of the Rings is reasonably simple in comparison to many other modern novels, and it should be simple to describe "what happens". Use the individual book articles to flesh out significant detail if needs be, but the main article should be as concise and accurate as possible. (e.g. : While Fatty acts as a decoy for the Ringwraiths - Fatty Bolger !?! but no mention of the barrow-downs? barrow-swords far more significant to the plot than Fatty Bolger! "After hearing the story of his Brother's death, Faramir became convinced that the Ring was better off destroyed than used as a weapon." - so what? it's not really a critical plot point. etc.).

• Reception needs to have a wider focus than a simplistic good reviews vs. bad review dichotomy. It should include academic and expert opinion, comment from cultural observers and cover the extremely well-documented discussions of reader-reactions including:

• Racism ("Why is the Only Good Orc a Dead Orc?" Rearick in Modern Fiction Studies - Volume 50, Number 4, Winter 2004)
• Conservatism ("Breaking the Magic Spell" Zipes)
• Environmentalism ("Ents, Elves, And Eriador" Dickerson et al)
• Popularism: how did the critical establishment react to LoTR being voted greatest book 20th C. etc. ("The Truth Beyond Memory" miller 2001)
• What was the books role in the counter-culture of the 1960's - how has that modified both the critical reception of the work and it informed the cultural movements that championed it.

• The Major Themes section needs to summarise and cite the major well-documented themes that have been seen in the work, including:

• The Quest (at the very least, "The Quest Hero" by W. H. Auden)
• Morality - Good vs. Evil.
• War ("Reading The Lord of the Rings", Eaglestone, 2006)

• Stylistic concerns, use of language

• Poems: their function and effect.
• Nomenclature: oft hailed as one of Tolkiens greatest skills - how? why?

• Context:Lord of the Rings relates to Tolkien's other works.

• How the main plot mirrors that of The Hobbit.
• How elements from The Silmarillion appear, and how LoTR changed the direction of it.

Legacy needs to encompass the novels effect into the wider world.

*The Hobbit hominid Homo floresiensis.

• Sources

• Anyone working on the article should start by reading: Hammond and Wynne "Review Essay: Tom Shippey's J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century and a Look Back at Tolkien Criticism since 1982" which overviews many of the literature this article should be citing: [3] (for free)
• Journal of the Mythopoeic society do publish some articles online (for free) at FindArticles - which is also a great source for other journal articles related to The Lord of the Rings. not as good as access to JSTOR, but not everyone (including me) does.

Hopefully not teaching grandmothers to suck eggs:

• google books
• google scholar

• Citations:

The article fails WP:FACR 3c : consistent citations. These would be better formatted using citation templates, and where one book is cited regularly (Letters or Biography for example) then harvard style applied. see WP:CIT & WP:HARV.

Hope the comments are taken in the positive spirit they're intended, and the article really becomes worthy of being a Featured Article! --Davémon (talk) 10:58, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Some useful links there, thanks. Did you see the links others have provided as well? As you can see, there is quite a lot, and it can quickly overwhelm anyone attempting to work on this. Where do you suggest we start? I suggested the overview articles in the literature, and the one you cite is good. There are others as well. It is also important to be able to focus on the really notable and key points in the literature, and not end up citing obscure stuff that will soon be forgotten. That is the real trick. I could easily cite papers on some of the more, shall we say, outlandish stuff, but that wouldn't be useful. It all comes back to using overview article by respected Tolkien scholars. Anything by Shippey, Flieger, Hammond, Anderson, Scull, would do. There are others though, whose work is as good. I suggest that if an author or book gets questioned, then a positive review by the accepted scholars should be provided as evidence for the reliability of the source. That should limit things to a manageable level. As for time to work on the article itself, I had been intending to do something this weekend, but real life is about to get in the way. Hopefully there will be time after that, or others will make a start on this. Your point about citations should be actionable without too many problems, though it could be fiddly work. Carcharoth (talk) 01:03, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I think it's a bit early to worry about wp:weight and wp:bias issues, any research based developments would be progress. If problematic sources or problems around bias issues do arise, it's probably best to deal with those on a case-by-case basis, rather than trying to establish a general ruling here. Davémon (talk) 10:46, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. We should be concerned about Weight all the time, especially with summary style, which allows us to put most of the minor works in separate pages devoted to it; if not, we would have a serious weight issue. You have to remember, this is a series page, not the individual book page, and needs to be treated as such. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:09, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I completely agree with Ottava Rima: wp:weight isn't currently a problem and with the stance suggested, it shouldn't be a problem for this article in the future. --Davémon (talk) 21:00, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

• Followup comment - hmm. I see I've failed to keep my promise to do some work on this. Apologies for that. Not an excuse, but I'd like to quote from the interview of Mav that was the latest dispatches article, Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-08-25/Dispatches: "It now often takes me 5 times as long to bring two similarly important and extensive topics to FA quality. At one time I thought that spending 4 hours working on a single article was a huge amount of time. Now I spend at least that much time reading sources before I write anything." (User:Mav) So, in short, this is going to take more time than I thought, though that doesn't mean I won't find time in the next week or so, but I can't guarantee anything. I wouldn't normally say this, but I did promise to do something so I felt a follow-up was needed. Carcharoth (talk) 20:11, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

• My estimate for this article (for someone with a job) would be about a year (assuming more than one hour per day). There is a lot of scholarship on Lord of the Rings. And think of the all of fandom. Wow. This is huge. Just huge. Find a collaborator and cut it down to six months! :) Awadewit (talk) 04:36, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

• A year? I think a summary for the main article can be produced quicker than that. And I'm hopeful that I've found a collaborator (though at the present rate, I may end up being the cheerleader!). See User:Astraflame/Tolkien Bibliography. That is exactly the sort of collection of mini-review/summaries of the most relevant (or possibly relevant) articles and books in the literature, that I was thinking of producing myself (and that page is still a work in progress, so lots remains to be done). There are also exisiting "literature reviews" in the literature, so that will help (just need to find them again). Thanks for the support and encouragement. As Dab said above, the bronze star is not that important. Getting the article expanded and comprehensive and bringing it up to today's standards, is. Carcharoth (talk) 06:33, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are prose (1a), comprehensiveness (1b), and referencing (1c). Marskell (talk) 10:51, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

• Comment I disagree that comprehensiveness is a problem, unless we completely disregard Wikipedia standards of summary style. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:30, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

The 'branch' articles lack proper sources, proper citations, make little-to-no claims for notability and in no way reflect the standards. --Davémon (talk) 22:31, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Also, summary style does not mean that the topics aren't covered at all in the main article, it means that they are properly summarized. That does not happen in this article. There is no adequate summary of the themes, style, or genre of the novels. There are only fragmentary comments, if that, regarding these topics. Awadewit (talk) 04:32, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikilinks says that a wikilink is used to rely on more information, making it an appropriate tool for summary style, so everything doesn't need a paragraph. I say focus only on things that deal with all three as a whole, and the individual books have the rest. Ottava Rima (talk) 13:47, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

It is rare that an author will discuss aspects of the individual books in isolation. They will normally address the book as a whole, since it is a unified, single story. Plot arcs, character arcs, and so on, of the significant characters at least, usually span the whole book. But I think I do get your point. Specific detail can be relegated to subsidiary articles. General, broad, overview points, are what is needed in the main article. The trouble is that sometimes the layout of such a broad overview is difficult to write without studying and writing the detailed stuff first. Since I'm writing at the moment (ie. I feel like writing something), and stuff has been rumbling around in my mind for a while, I'm going to rattle something off, without sources, and see what comes out. And yes, I'm going to do this here, so those of a process-minded orientation may want to avert your eyes. :-)

Since the publication of The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien, a wealth of secondary literature has been published discussing the literary themes and archetypes present in the story. Themes that have been identified and analysed include friendship and sacrifice, forgiveness, power, temptation and addiction. In Tolkien's works as a whole, death and immortality feature strongly. In a quote from a letter written in 1958, Tolkien said of his work "It is mainly concerned with Death, and Immortality; and the 'escapes': serial longevity, and hoarding memory." (Letter 211). Tolkien wrote about other themes in his book in letters to friends, family and fans, and also in the book itself. However, in his Foreword to the Second Edition, Tolkien said that he "disliked allegory in all its forms" (using the word applicability instead). Tolkien's work also deals with a love of nature and the problems of technology and industrialisation. Tolkien also wrote about how his religion (Catholicism) affected the work, and this is a point taken up by many subsequent writers who have examined the book in detail looking for parallels and influences. Tolkien's work as a philologist, Anglo-Saxonist and medievalist heavily influenced the book, with his languages and detailed backstory setting his work apart from those by later authors. The concepts of fate and doom in his works emerge from the older, pagan, worldview he was exposed to by his studies of ancient languages. The passage of time is an enduring theme, with moments of loss and and farewell present at many levels. <yadda, yadda, yadda, add sources, etc>

Is that the sort of thing people are looking for? Carcharoth (talk) 14:46, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to see the issue of themes treated in much the same way as in The Illuminatus! Trilogy or Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. It should probably be the largest section in the article, and each theme given its own paragraph / subsection. An authors opinion of their own work fails neutrality independance, and often reflects a highly personal take on the text, rather than what the average reader or literature-critic may think. --Davémon (talk) 17:56, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Lets nip this bud quickly. Davemon is expressing a complete misconception of NPOV. "As the name suggests, the neutral point of view is a point of view, not the absence or elimination of viewpoints." The author's opinion of their own works is very important and necessary. There cannot be an argument made to remove such a thing. Furthermore, BLPs and controversial material guidelines allow for an author or an organization to express themselves on their own pages. It would follow that authors who are dead equally have this right. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:12, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

No the authors opinion of their own work isn't necessary. Point to a single literature FA which uses it. --Davémon (talk) 18:20, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I sense an argument brewing which is entirely unnecessary. Using the author's viewpoint to illuminate a work is entirely acceptable and scholars do it all of the time. In Mary Shelley, for example, we explained her own views on biographical criticism and quote her to explain her intentions regarding her edition of Percy Shelley's works. However, all of this must be balanced by the views of scholars. Awadewit (talk) 18:34, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:38, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Sure, biographies should cover authors intentions, but Novel articles...? In the Themes section, not Writing or Publication history? Wikipedia: Intentional fallacy a-go-go! :-) --Davémon (talk) 18:41, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Intentional fallacy is something that scholars are much more aware of, yes, but they are still interested in what authors meant to say. Biographical criticism is not totally dead - we are just much more aware of its pitfalls and much more cautious now. Also, perhaps this is the time to mention psychoanalytic criticism? (Interestingly, in Proserpine, it is evidence from Mary Shelley's journals that scholars use to help establish that the play is children's literature - is that intentional fallacy? We don't want to be too absolute here.) Awadewit (talk) 19:02, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Where critics have read journals/letters and then decided something about the work - we're citing the critic, not the author, and that is fine. For us to cite the authors journals/letters and draw conclusions about the work is WP:OR. For us to base editorial decisions regarding weight / focus based on the authors journals/letters is intentional fallacy (undue weight to extreme-minority views), to base weight/focus on the body of criticism gives due weight to majority views. We need to use WP:RS reliable, independant sources: "Articles should be based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." - Tolkien isn't any of those things (except "published", obviously) with regards his fiction, and his opinions about his work aren't generally supported by the wider literature. --Davémon (talk) 20:03, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

To solve this problem, I usually only use quotations from authors that scholars have already deemed important. That way I don't have to decide myself. So, for example, all of the quotations from Mary Shelley in that article are used by multiple Shelley scholars, so I know that they are significant in someone else's view other than my own. It is not me picking them. This is one good compromise, I think. Awadewit (talk) 20:14, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

This is complicated for Tolkien because a vast amount of posthumous material was published, along with a volume of selected letters. See The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien - you actually have to read that collection to really get why people so often quote from it (and our articles do rely heavily on it for biographical material - some of the points Cirt asked for citations for will be sourced directly from either J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography, or Letters, or someone who was working from those sources). One thing to be wary of is that the Letters, covering as they do many years of Tolkien's life, show his views changing or merely being inconsistent, so synthesising views from his letters is definitely a trap to avoid. Having said that, I agree that authorial intention is extremely tricky to handle. There have been whole literary criticism movements rejecting such concepts and focusing on the response of the reader, rather than the intention of the author. I think the only way to balance things is to represent both to varying degrees. But when there is a wealth of primary material (his letters), and commentary from his son and literary executor (read any volume of The History of Middle-earth [HoME]), and there are people still rummaging through his drafts (both in HoME and elsewhere) for some meaningful nuggets, then there is a problem, but the solution is not to ignore large swathes of what has been published, though I agree that focusing on what quotes others have published is best. Deconstruction is also a pleasant bedtime read. And just to confuse matters, Tolkien said (in the Foreword to the LotR):

"I think that many confuse 'applicability' with 'allegory'; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author"

Make of that what you will. Tolkien was talking about allegory there, and he did also express distaste at those people who deconstructed works and tried to make links to an author's life experiences (I'll try and find that quote as well), but equally he had strong views on his work and his reasons and motivations for writing it, and that can't be ignored. Quite how to get the balance right is, again, difficult. Carcharoth (talk) 08:35, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

The authors views are marginal and aren't significant to the broad, general understanding of the work that one would expect from reading an encyclopedia article. The literature directly on allegory in the Lord of the Rings is tiny in comparison to the literature on, say, the influence of Anglo-saxon culture/language or the theme of War or Faery. Just because Tolkien got a bee in his bonnet about allegory (or whatever) in the 1950s doesn't mean allegory (or whatever else) has to be covered in the Lord of the Rings article - although a brief note in the publication history saying what edition the anti-allegorical forward first appeared in, and what gave rise to it being written and published would be good biographical / historical info. Of course Tolkiens letters and other posthumously published works has had an effect on the reception of LoTR by some readers/critics but that is better discussed at Reception of J.R.R. Tolkien where proper space can be allocated - it's not vital to understanding the books. From what I can gather, we are in agreement that we need to use independent secondary sources for any type of analytical or interpretive content. While I'm here, do we consider commentators published by the same publishing house as the author an 'independent' source? The money trail obviously leads back up to the same point. Davémon (talk) 15:39, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd just like to point out that there are at least two reasons why Tolkien's posthumously published material is considered so important to scholarship regarding The Lord of the Rings: 1) as a work, The Lord of the Rings was never meant to stand alone. As part of a legendarium (some of which only survives in the posthumously published notes), studying The Lord of the Rings in isolation is like studying Machiavelli's Prince without also reading his Discourses; it can be done, but would only be a mediocre-quality work at best. Relying only on primary resources while working on a Wikipedia article of course risks WP:OR issues, and I suppose that is the point that you are trying to make here. However, we also shouldn't just pay attention to internal critiques of The Lord of the Rings, for many of these (sadly) do not always take the legendarium into account. [I suppose my first point is therefore two issues: one regarding the legendarium context and the other regarding the generally spotty quality of Tolkien research] 2) Tolkien was considered one of the leading scholars in his field of his day. His work has been shown pretty definitively to build upon this work. Therefore, topics like allegory are often not considered for further criticism since Tolkien already thoroughly criticized such claims in "On Fairy Stories" among other works -- not just (or even directly) in regards to his own work, but in the more general field of scholarship that he was working in, and which future scholars have inherited. This isn't to say that such discussions of allegory in Tolkien are impossible or do not exist, but it is a contributing factor to why they are so rare.

That said, in regards to what is pertinent to improving the article, in my opinion, the issue is more what sources out of the extensive and largely-unsorted scholarship we'd like to see cited/considered. Such a discussion should probably take place on a case to case basis, rather than going round and round regarding abstract or semantic requirements, for if the above discussion indicates anything, it demonstrates that the criteria involved can get both contentious and messy. [For instance, clearly quoting anything from Tolkien's Letters or notes is nonsense, but the above quote that Carcharoth brings up is one of the most widely quoted lines of Tolkien by scholars studying his work and the lynch-pin of a great deal of Tolkien scholarship.] Towards such a discussion, I've already put up a workpage that begins (and by no means, at the moment, completes!) the work of listing the main secondary sources regarding Tolkien, and would greatly welcome your comments there. Astraflame (talk) 22:42, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

So Tolkien cunningly guided the course of Tolkien scholarship by his comments in Forewords, in Letters, and his essays such as On Fairy-Stories and (I would add) the essays in The Monsters and the Critics? That's an interesting perspective. :-) Hmm. I see from our OFS article that an expanded edition of OFS was published this year and I don't have it! :-( Carcharoth (talk) 23:51, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

• Remove. Though some great work has been done on this article, there are still a good deal of glaring (1c) issues. This article would not pass a WP:GA review per the current standards in its present state, and would most certainly encounter significant difficulties if it were on WP:FAC. Cirt (talk) 21:32, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I see that Carcharoth (talk · contribs) plans to work on the article further, though it may take some time, so I have struck out my Remove for now, though my assessment of the article remains the same. Cirt (talk) 21:33, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Update: I tagged some problem issues in the article that will need to be addressed. Cirt (talk) 01:22, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

• Remove Dealing with (1b) properly will be a massive undertaking, with careful balancing of conflicting opinions to keep weight and neutrality issues minimal. I'm sure there is enough interest and knowledge out there to bring the article up to scratch, but think it might take very long time. --Davémon (talk) 22:31, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
• Remove Comprehensiveness and prose issues. If the article is rewritten, I will of course reassess it. Awadewit (talk) 04:32, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
• Comment While I agree that, ultimately, comprehensiveness will require a lot of work (I think the above estimate of a year is actually rather optimistic), much of this work really spills over to articles that have recently been deleted or put up for deletion (i.e. Themes of The Lord of the Rings and Reception of The Lord of the Rings). These articles are/were in fairly poor condition and need to be rewritten, which clearly will take a huge amount of time. However, the problems with the prose in The Lord of the Rings article, and issues simply being disregarded or omitted from the current article (no mention of racism, the "hobbit" species discovered, etc.) could be fixed in the main article before the subsidiary articles are complete. [See the paragraph that Carcharoth posted above starting "Since the publication..." as an example] Adding these paragraphs and otherwise filling gaps and copy-editing would take a relatively short amount of time, and clean up the article a great deal. Some work, in fact, has already been done to change the plot synopsis back to present tense. So, is it the opinion of the current reviewers that such work is just meaningless and boot-strapped without the full articles on the Themes, Reception, and Tolkien Scholarship? or should that be what we are actually focusing on here instead of concerns that are really in reference to the sorry state of those other articles? [Also, as the previous paragraph would demonstrate, I'm clearly in no position to do any copy-editing, but even so, I thought that the distinction was worth making] Astraflame (talk) 23:04, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Reception of The Lord of the Rings? I think you meant Reception of J. R. R. Tolkien, which by the way has not been put up for deletion (though you are right that the "themes" article has). I also think Reception of J. R. R. Tolkien (which was largely written by User:Dbachmann - Dab) is quite a bit better than the "themes" article and has great potential. But that's less important that the point you are asking the FA reviewers and directors - is it acceptable to "bootstrap" and place a 'sticking plaster' on this article while the subsidiary articles are being extensively rewritten? Links to these subsidiary articles will still be there, so people being directed from a (possibly) featured article to these "under construction" articles might be a concern, but maybe not if the 'sticking plaster' is well-written and can stand alone by itself. I think something can be written as a stopgap measure, but am wary of doing so if that contravenes some aspect of FARC etiquette. Dab also makes the point that good content should just be added, rather than talking about it. Personally, I'd read through the secondary literature books steadily (well, as much as I can) and add in summary points and relevant points to different articles, as I come across suitable material. That would lead to a steady improvement (though possibly some WP:UNDUE weight concerns may arise) and then overviews can come later. Carcharoth (talk) 23:38, 7 September 2008 (UTC) PS. It's Carcharoth, not Charcaroth or Charcharoth... Surprisingly common mistake. Glad I didn't choose Thuringwethil or Tevildo as my name. :-)

Closing. I accidentally let this go three weeks with no updates. Much is said above, but the article remains largely as it was when the FARC period started. The removes seem to take this. Carcharoth has some ideas for it and subsidiary articles. Perhaps something can be taken back to FAC; in the meantime, removing. Marskell (talk) 06:55, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.