Talk:Emily Dickinson

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Featured article star Emily Dickinson is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do.
Maintained The following user(s) are actively contributing to this article and may be able to help with questions about verification and sources:
Yllosubmarine (talk • contribs • email) and Roger Davies (talk • contribs • email)
This in no way implies article ownership; all editors are encouraged to contribute.
This article is within the scope of the following WikiProjects:
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Archives

Archive 1: 2004 – December 31, 2007 Archive 2: January 1, 2008 onwards



Contents

[edit] Semi-protection

I've just semi-protected it for a week. Let's see how we get on after that. --ROGER DAVIES talk 17:54, 11 February 2008 (UTC)



[edit] Infobox

Why have you demanded that Emily Dickinson's page not have an infobox? Virtually all other authors, political figures, philosophers, etc. have them. - User Jajhill 05:07, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

What does it add? --ROGER DAVIES talk 07:34, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Exactly, Roger. I can see the merits of an infobox on a much smaller and less comprehensive article in which important aspects of the individual's life have yet to be mentioned. I'm not against infoboxes all together because I believe they serve a purpose in some instances. In regards to this article in particular, however, everything that an infobox would provide can be found in the lead and throughout the article, making that infobox superfluous. Furthermore, infoboxes are not mandatory; just because most articles include them does not mean that we must. María (habla conmigo) 15:09, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

No, not everything is covered in the first paragraph of the article that would be found in an infobox. For example, certain poets who influenced her and poets she influenced are not mentioned in the first paragraph. Nor does it name her debut poem that she published, the paragraph just eludes to it rather than being specific. And I'd like an explanation as to what infoboxes remove from articles. - User Jajhill 09:54, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

They remove a professional look to the page. To show the same information twice at the beginning of the article is redundant. The question of influences is complex, and it is superficial to reduce it to a list. qp10qp (talk) 13:57, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
qp10qp is correct about the question of Dickinson's influences; most of what is described in the article about what literature had an impact on her is surmise and therefore subject to debate and speculation. I have difficulty with the "Influenced" and "Influences" fields in an infobox because it is almost always original research by way of synthesis, but in this case in particular only a few things can be said for certain. To include in an ugly infobox that Dickinson was influenced by the Bible and Shakespeare is ridiculous; who wasn't during that time period? As to the issue of her "debut poem", I believe that is somewhat debatable, as well, and not truly noteworthy. What is important to note that very few of her poems were published during her lifetime and all of them were edited and altered -- this information is noted in the lead. María (habla conmigo) 16:29, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
I must disagree with qp10qp. A properly laid-out infobox adds professionalism to the page. The table of contents is what removes a professional look; it breaks up the flow of the article and creates a lot of unnecessary whitespace. An infobox provides information to our readers in an easy-to-understand manner. That's what an encyclopedia is supposed to do, is it not? The infobox is not intended to replace the article, rather to attract the reader and influence them to read the rest of the article for details not contained in the infobox. An infobox also improves the overall professional look of Wikipedia by providing a consistent look-and-feel to articles. Yes, articles are not required to have an infobox. It does help though. Truthanado (talk) 04:00, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
"Professional" is a subjective term and (unfortunately, IMO), I believe some tend to mistake standardization for professionalism. I see your point, but I hold to my opinion that an infobox is unnecessary. As for the TOC, when it is forced to the right side of the page, for example, the article looks jumbled, cramped and sloppy. It may look differently on your monitor, but on mine it's a big 'ol mess. :) I guess in that regard I'm for standardization, who knew? María (habla conmigo) 04:14, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
For the record, I like the page better without an infobox. I think they make pages look like the Guinness Book of World Records. I prefer not to have factoid summaries for people like Emily Dickinson. – Scartol • Tok 12:08, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
I wonder what Emily Dickinson would say about all the fuss about the format of her Wikipedia article. Infobox or no? Normal ToC or right ToC? Whitespace or no? Just wondering. BTW, would it hurt to have a very simple infobox with her name, picture and birth/death dates? Truthanado (talk) 00:53, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
One problem here is that infoboxes automatically center-justify captions. When you're lead image has a significant and encyclopedic caption, the way this one does, it does look rather unappealing in the infobox. The center justification only really makes visual sense on short captions. I have to say that the right aligned TOC does look really nice on my monitor, but if you manually shrink the size of your browser you can see the formatting errors it causes. The right aligned TOC would work well in an article without a picture in the first section. --JayHenry (talk) 01:11, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Blackmur quote

It strikes me as disproportionately long. qp10qp (talk) 03:00, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Already been taken care of. :) María (habla conmigo) 13:24, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Information removed from article

This was added to the "Teenage years" section, but I have removed it for several reasons:

Between 1846 and 1852, Emily Dickinson experienced serious problems with her health, specifically a chronic cough, fatigue, and significant weight loss. Extracting clinical clues from her correspondence, some historians have suggested that she was suffering from tuberculosis (Hirschhorn, 1999). That year, Emily sought treatment with a highly respected homeopath, Dr. William Wesselhoeft[1] in Boston (St. John, n.d.; Hirschhorn, 1999). Emily wrote that he prescribed two homeopathic medicines for her. She didn’t think that the medicines were effective, but her older and more practical sister, Lavina, thought otherwise.

Lavina (who originally referred Emily and their brother Austin to Dr. Wesselhoeft because he was her homeopath) asserted just two weeks after homeopathic treatment: “I think Emily may be very much improved. She has really grown fat.” Because Emily was always extremely thin, this statement of her gaining weight suggests some health improvements. Her brother Austin wrote Emily’s closest friend, Susan Gilbert: “He [their father] says Emily is better than for years since she returned from Boston” (Thomas, 1988, 219). And lending further support to the real benefits from the homeopathic treatment, within several months, she no longer complained about the chronic cough that she had experienced for five years.[2] [3]

For one, the sources are either not elaborated on (Thomas, Hirschhorn) or simply not reliable (Geocities); the links to the Emily Dickinson archive are not the more reliable because they require registration. There are also several incorrect assertions, such as the fact that Lavinia was the older sister; she was three years younger than Emily.

Please do not add this information back until it has been discussed. Thanks! María (habla conmigo) 13:45, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I concur. Please do not add that information unless it can substantiate the article. --DavidD4scnrt (talk) 10:01, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
This was a while ago, so I'm sure it's long forgotten now. All of what was added appears to be copy-and-pasted from (factually incorrect, as I pointed out above) Google Books, so whether or not it "substantiates" is immaterial, really. ;) María (habla conmigo) 12:53, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Identification of Emily Dickinson poems

Maybe someone could take a look at that article. Should it be in a "See also" section? Ty 05:15, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure; it's a very old article (written in 2004 and little updated since then), the information is unsourced, and most of what is stated there is already said here on the main article. It could use a healthy expansion in order to be significant enough for a "See also", but I'd like to hear other opinions on this. Should it be prodded, perhaps? María (habla conmigo) 11:13, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
If it's already in the main article, I agree with prod. Ty 01:45, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Congratulations!

Congratulations to the primary editors of this article, who got it up to Featured Article status! I dipped in some time back and added material about Dickinson's green thumbs based on a newspaper article that I had read, as well as some photographs. I'm delighted to see how much better the article is now. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 16:43, 20 May 2008 (UTC)