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Revision as of 02:49, 13 November 2012

This article was nominated for deletion on 26 October 2012 (UTC). The result of the discussion was keep.

	Glossaries (inactive)
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Literature List‑class Top‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Literature, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Literature on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.LiteratureWikipedia:WikiProject LiteratureTemplate:WikiProject LiteratureLiterature List This article has been rated as List-class on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale. Top This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

Delete?

WP:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_a_dictionary or a collection of lists. What's the value of this page? -Jcbarr 02:22, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages articles are not dictionary definitions, or lists of dictionary definitions, or mere collections of internal links

Except for:

• Disambiguation Pages when an article title is ambiguous.
• Structured Lists to assist with the organisation of articles.

I beleive this page is good for those who want to learn about literary terms they may not know about without having to find a 3rd-party list.

Mark4011 16:07, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

This page would be better if the elements were broken up into several categories. So many of them have to do with poetry, that it is difficult to find them for writing.

No, don't delete. This would be better if turned into a category, or perhaps into several categories. I guess the English majors don't have as easy a time figuring out wiki syntax as the computer science majors. All their lists are categories! --Metzenberg 11:00, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

NO don't delete this list; it will be a valuable in time. I've just added a comprehensive "Further reading" list and tried to clean it up a bit. I'll continue to expand it and clean it up now that I know that it exists. --WassermannNYC 15:49, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Someone needs to add "context", I came here looking for that page to give to someone as a reference but their isn't a literary page concerning "context" which seems very basic and necessary for completeness. Bryanpeterson 16:17, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Don't delete it! It is very informative for poets who are hungry for a further knowledge of how to use the terms in the list. ktn1

Added some more terms: Context, Discourse, Text. The article is certainly necessary for philologists reading books on literary theory in English. Not deleting is out of question. As a Russian philologist I know it. There also would be helpful an index of linguistic terms.--Чупакабр (talk) 14:53, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Inclusion criteria

Someone suggested this list/index be turned into a category. There are several items on the list that do not have their own Misplaced Pages articles and likely never will because they are not independently notable enough to merit such. If this was just a list of literary terms that have their own Misplaced Pages articles it would make sense, but as it is it is just an indiscriminate list of words that could be expanded ad infinitum. elvenscout742 (talk) 07:14, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Removal of Haiga

After Haiga was removed from the article, I reinserted it, but have since been reverted with this edit accompanied by the summary:
Revert: it's only a "literary term" to someone who doesn't speak Japanese/understand what the word itself means. It is a type of painting, and is only as "literary" as the word "illustration", which isn't on this list.
This is patently untrue, as haiga, far from being a mere illustration as the reverting editor appears to think, is a mixed form combining poetry and painting, and intimately part of the haikai literary movement. Haiga were produced by haikai poets, notably the haiku masters Matsuo Bashō and Yosa Buson, so an editor claiming that the term is not a literary one is merely displaying the limitations of his own knowledge. Is there any reason this literary term should not included in the article? --gråb whåt you cån (talk) 14:23, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Haiga is a Japanese style of painting. The word itself means "haikai painting". If the word has a different meaning in English and is used primarily by poets to describe works of poetry that are accompanied by images, please add that information to the article on haiga - and please cite reliable sources. Otherwise, add a definition of the term to this page, and help us turn this page into either a glossary of literary terms. Or an index of Misplaced Pages articles on literary topics. Perhaps a merge with Index of literature articles should be under discussion? elvenscout742 (talk) 03:01, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

See Stephen Addiss, Haiga: Takebe Socho and the Haiku-painting Tradition, University of Hawaii Press, 1995, pp. 9-10.Tristan noir (talk) 05:08, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

That is a book about painting. This list is supposed to be a glossary of literary terms. If you wish to add a style of painting that happens to use poetry as its theme, please also add illustration, comic book, film and manga. (By the way, the ga in the latter is the same as in haiga, and if manga means "whimsical drawings", then haiga means "vulgar drawings" or "humourous drawings".) elvenscout742 (talk) 10:59, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

I offered the specific page references because Addiss there discusses haiga not only as painting but as a literary phenomenon also, e.g., It may seem odd to admire and study paintings that were not created primarily by painters, because in our own society we have honored the work of the finest professional artists almost to the exclusion of any others. In Japan, this has not been so, in part because of the close union of poetry, calligraphy, and painting. All three are created with the same tools of brush, paper, and ink by artists to whom poetic vision was paramount. Your comparisons to “illustrations,” "comic book," and “manga” are misplaced. It seems eccentric to insist that haiga is solely a style of painting when many of its best-known practitioners are poets first, graphic artists second. Visual poetry, in its many manifestations, incorporates image and text, like haiga, and visual poetry is commonly recognized as predominately literary in nature.Tristan noir (talk) 02:49, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Solution: Major Overhaul

Okay, I don't think my AfD request is going to go anywhere at this point. Honestly, I was not aware of the debate over the value of "indexes" overall until after I nominated this page, and now I think the page probably needs to stay where it is in the meantime anyway.

However, there are as I see it two main problems with this list as it stands at the moment: (i) the parameters for inclusion are too broad, leading to a significant number of red links, which seems to defeat the purpose of an "index", and (ii) the items in the list are just words, with no accompanying definitions or explanations of their relevance as "literary terms".

These problems can be addressed simultaneously by one of the following two solutions:
(1) The article is made into a true INDEX, where every item on the list links to a Misplaced Pages article that covers the topic. This would mean that all the red links need to be removed for the time being. Assuming at least some of them may one day have articles, those articles can be linked to after they have been created. This would also mean a significant, potentially problematic overlap with Index of literature articles, which at present only has 10 red links/non-article entries. Honestly, I think the two should be merged, and a discussion should take place over which is the better title for the page, with the other becoming a redirect.
(2) The page is renamed to Glossary of literary terms, and every item for inclusion requires at least a short definition. This is the more difficult solution to implement, but is probably the preferable one. It means that all the worthwhile words in the list remain, but the page avoids being an indiscriminate list of words and meets the criteria for a glossary discussed in WP:LIST.

As should be clear, I favour the latter solution, but I cannot implement it alone because of the sheer size of the project. I also probably shouldn't even begin to implement it until it is approved by the Misplaced Pages community or at least one or two other editors, since it involves moving the page and changing an "index" to a "glossary". The main issue with this page right now is that it isn't really an index or a glossary at the moment, but an indiscriminate list of words.

Any further opinions/thoughts/suggestions?

elvenscout742 (talk) 04:06, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I didn't notice until after I posted the above that a glossary of literary terms already exists. I now think we should either merge the words here in there, or create a separate page under that title. elvenscout742 (talk) 08:32, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Please explain what you mean by "create a separate page under that title"? --gråb whåt you cån (talk) 13:34, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Simply that glossary of literary terms currently redirects to the section "Annotated list of literary techniques" in the article Literary technique. Given that the inclusion of a glossary in that article that takes up well over 2/3 of the page seems a little excessive, I would suggest moving the contents of that glossary into a separate article, which we could start at the present redirect page Glossary of literary terms. We could then use that as a starting point and move the contents of this page over there, including definitions and whatever else is necessary (etymologies, where that content would not appear in a common dictionary), along the lines of what is already there. This way, we can also keep (and expand) the separate Index of literature articles, giving us both a comprehensive list of Misplaced Pages articles on literary topics and a meaningful glossary of literary terms. elvenscout742 (talk) 14:28, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree with the #2 solution, and agree the problem is very big. The Glossary of literary terms is a good model, exactly what this article should be. Maybe if we just convert the full list of words into a single sortable table with empty fields and a banner asking for help to fill in, it might attract someone looking for a project. We can use the Glossary of literary terms to populate some of the entries as an example to get it going.

For fields, suggest something like:

!Term, !Category, !Description, !Citation, !Notes

The "term" and "description" are self explanatory. The "category" is for organizing along categorical types (future project), and "notes" a catch-all for anything else. -- Green Cardamom (talk) 21:15, 1 November 2012 (UTC

Elvenscout742, I think your #2 solution is commendable. My reservation is that it may be over-ambitious, though I'd be happy to be proved wrong. In practical terms, I support #1 as more achievable. I don't agree that any overlap with Index of literature articles is/would be problematic: overlap/redundancy is not of itself a negative thing in a WP context. As I see it, when the goal is reached it may be worthwhile proposing that Index of literature articles be merged to this article, but that's a bridge to cross when we come to it. --gråb whåt you cån (talk) 20:56, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

There is no deadline. I think if we create a table with blank fields, people will naturally fill it in, perhaps sooner than we imagine. The key is to create the table and set the direction with some example entries, then it will take care of itself. -- Green Cardamom (talk) 21:38, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

I am in favour of Green Cardamom's table with blank fields. Any idea which template/category/whatever we use to inform the Misplaced Pages community that we are producing an incomplete table and if anyone wants to help they are welcome? elvenscout742 (talk) 05:53, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

I believe {{incomplete list}} might be good inside a box header at the top of the table along with other information, like example Note in List of the world's richest literary prizes. Ok so who is going to make the table :) This is perfect for scripting. I could hack away at it using basic awk/sed but there might be a better way. Is there a forum for asking help for data formatting? There are some great tools out there for this sort of thing. -- Green Cardamom (talk) 10:01, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

I honestly have no idea. I just recently got my head around formatting references here. ;) elvenscout742 (talk) 10:40, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

• List-Class Literature articles
• Top-importance Literature articles