@bobble I don't think character-analysis is appropriate for this question; I would be really leery of any suggestion that ethnicity is determinative of character
@bobble I meant in general, not just that question
@bobble Thanks, that is a good idea. Should I also ask a clarifying question on meta? That way people can discuss the matter and the rolled back edit can be restored if the discussion leans that way
A chat discussion about this Wuthering Heights question raised the question of the scope of the character-analysis tag. The tag wiki excerpt says:
Questions relating to the analysis of characters in works of literature: for example, their traits, construction, or other aspects. This tag should b...
@verbose I have upvoted your meta question as I support the discussion, but am holding off on voting on the answer until I have more time to think about it.
I don't know enough about the elephant Babar to ask this question myself, but it would be useful to know if he was named after the Mughal emperor. Maybe Randolph or the 'doku, both of whom appear to be fans, would care to ask some day. I have heard that the comics (like the Tintin comics) rely uncomfortably on colonial stereotypes, though
Is there a particular word here that's the "German loan word" or what's the intended meaning?
When you think about the textured histories of the teams
and the faith and passion of the fans and the way these forces are entwined
citywide, and when you think about the game itself, live-or-die, the ...
@verbose I would say no. Within the restrictions of the SE format, people have different styles of writing, and this level of "correctness" is something you'd be driven mad trying to enforce everywhere. An edit that only reformatted dashes is one I'd reject as "no improvement" if it were from a <2k rep user. (Then again, I "misuse" dashes here myself, so take this opinion with your recommended dosage of salt.)
@Librarian Good question. Another possibility, different from the posted answer, would be to ensure the tag is only used for questions needing analysis of characters' personalities (how much retagging would be needed if we did this?) Alternatively, if we go ahead with the proposed broadening of the tag, should we rename it to characters? (For comparison, Movies & TV has a characters tag which is the second most-used on the site; Science Fiction & Fantasy has one which is in the process of being removed.)
@verbose I'm trying to figure out if either of them is rescuable. "In which ages was materialism used by poets" strikes me as a history-of-literature question that might be answerable similar to Fabjaja's Q&A about tragedy - a bit broad, but potentially answerable by a good summary.
@verbose Remember that the tags work for us, not us for the tags! If a tag wiki has unfortunate phrasing, or risks mis-interpretation, we can and ought to change it
@Randal'Thor I approve of renaming the tag to characters or character — the tagging system should be simple
@GarethRees By the way, nice answer to the Heathcliff ethnicity question. I had downvoted the existing answer and was waiting for a good one. (I even thought I might've put that question on my list of bounties without deadlines, but apparently not.)
@Randal'Thor There's probably something interesting to be asked about Wordsworth and materialism — early in his career he flirted with pantheism and panpsychism, and then later (when he belonged to the establishment, as poet laureate) he found this embarrassing and tried to explain away or repudiate it (Empson says that when he (Wordsworth) became Christian, he "thereby lost his powers"). But Patani's questions are really too vague and unfocussed to answer here
@Randal'Thor y'know, a question's not being on your list of open bounties does not preclude your giving it a bounty. (Sorry about the double negative.)
Speaking of double negatives, I expect everybody here is familiar with Sidney Morgenbesser's dismissive rebuttal of J. L. Austin's claim that there is never an instance where a double positive has a negative meaning? "Yeah, right."
@GarethRees but ... but if Randolph gives you a bounty, you have more rep to give out in bounties yourself! Don't you want to enhance your Lady Bountiful image?
Also, why am I still up when I have a fucking Zoom meeting in seven hours, dammit. Good NIGHT.
@Randal'Thor Thanks! I did spent some time considering whether I could add material from Christopher Heywood's 'Yorkshire Slavery in Wuthering Heights', but Heywood is so maddeningly unable to make it clear where he is following evidence and where he is just speculating that I didn't feel I could rely on him
The first sentence of O. Henry's Gift of the Magi is as follows:
One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it
was in pennies.
I've always wondered about this. This implies that $1.27 is in nickels, quarters and dimes, which is impossible on the surface, since 127 is no...
> “Utnapishtim,” cried Gilgamesh, “Why Do you get to live, while I die?” “I can see that you’re vexed,” [There’s a gap in the text] The walls of Uruk are quite high!
This seems to be a request for recommendations? Those are specifically off-topic for this site. Could you rephrase your question so that it asks whether such a work exists, rather than for examples of such works? That would be one way to get around the objection that the question solicits an open-ended list rather than asking a specific closed-ended question. — verboseDec 27 '20 at 3:57
They followed your advice. I agree it runs afoul of the close reason though
@bobble yes, I saw that, but that was before we had the discussion about the suggested language for close reasons, where it was explicitly stated "Are there any ... " does not bypass the "What are examples of ..." ban.
@Tsundoku The Wordsworth question is still asking for an open-ended list of materialist poets who were influenced by Wordsworth. Also, since "materialist" is a philosophical term rather than a literary historical one applied to a well-defined group of poets, the question is vague in the extreme.
Especially given that Wordsworth was not a materialist in the philosophical sense.
@verbose I don't see where that question asks for a "list of materialist poets who were influenced by Wordsworth". It's asking whether Wordsworth can be seen as a precursor of that sort of ideas. (The question title is badly chosen.)
@Tsundoku The question title makes clear that the question is about later materialist poetry. The question is: "Is there any materialist poetry influenced by Wordsworth?" The asker makes clear in the comments that they have no idea whether there is any such poetry. So then an answer would have to list off examples of such poetry. I don't see how that's not asking for a list.
So all Randolph needed to lure Gilles back to Lit SE is to set a baited elephant trap? Who knew. 🐘
In the blog post Famous Poems Rewritten as Limericks on LanguageHat.com (2 April 2018), a certain Trond Engen posted the following limerick:
The earth, like an orange, is blue.
Your love and your smile — yes, you do!
The window, the bee,
the sun, la-dee-dee…
I wish I were sure it was true.
He a...
@bobble Dunno. I guess easy questions are more likely to go HNQ? Like it's relatively easy to find at least some evidence to answer the Babar question (although the newest answer from Gilles outdoes both the others IMO), or to do a little research into defunct US coinage (the Gift of the Magi question didn't HNQ yet, but it surely will).
Sometimes I ask questions that are deliberately targeted towards some community member that I guess will be able to answer it fast and well.
@verbose My reading of that question is based on "Can William Wordsworth be considered as a predecessor of the later materialism seen in the later ages?" Examples would help the OP understand whether that is the case or not, i.e. the list is not the question's goal but merely a help to understanding materialism in literature.
I've reworded your title, to better fit with the question body and to sound less like an open-ended list question and more like an answerable list question, although I think it's still asking essentially the same thing that you were trying to ask. Maybe now people will find your question fit to reopen. — Rand al'Thor ♦12 secs ago
I was thinking that you can be a precursor of something without being a major influence. But perhaps that would be a bit difficult for someone like Wordsworth.
@verbose Materialism was not quite the same thing in Wordsworth's day as it is in ours — it included ideas like the panpsychism of Spinoza (if everything is material, then matter has to explain our capacity to think and feel, and in panpsychism the answer is that all matter has this capacity). Some of Wordsworth's early poems flirt with this idea, e.g. in Tintern Abbey "A motion and a spirit, that impels / All thinking things, all objects of all thought, / And rolls through all things."
@GarethRees The question says: "materialism means the philosophical belief that nothing exists beyond what is physical."
@Randal'Thor Begging the question. Who says materialism is seen in later poetry? What poets' works provide evidence of this? Again we're hung up on redeeming close-worthy questions for reasons that are utterly beyond me. 🤷🏽♂️
Yes, that's right. Panpsychism was a materialistic theory (matter has thoughts and feelings) as opposed to a dualistic theory (only non-matter, i.e. souls, have thoughts and feelings)
@GarethRees Thanks for the clarifications, both of materialism as meant in Wordsworth and your intent. WRT the former: "a motion and a spirit" seems non-material rather than an example of Spinozistic materialism to me?
While we're on the topic of closed questions: Concept of pleasure in pedagogy in the time of Rabelais was closed single-handedly in 2019, Tsundoku edited it last year apparently in an attempt to make it more on-topic, but the reopen vote(s) it received aged away before becoming enough to actually reopen it.
I see your objection, but I'm willing to give Wordsworth a bit of latitude since it is poetry, and I think a dualist would not ilke the implications of "All thinking things, all objects of all thought"
The following is from The Ferryman, page 7 (depiction of a man, who was found in the bog, he was supposed to be an IRA informer, but something went wrong and IRA itself they killed him). What does "Some Polos" mean?
Was he wearing it or did they find it in his pockets? Was a typical dress for the...
@GarethRees Go for it! I never got into Wordsworth for some reason. Of the Romantic poets we had to study, Wordsworth and Shelley weren't my cuppa, but I do like Keats, Coleridge, and Byron.
The first sentence of O. Henry's Gift of the Magi is as follows:
One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it
was in pennies.
I've always wondered about this. This implies that $1.27 is in nickels, quarters and dimes, which is impossible on the surface, since 127 is no...
In the blog post Famous Poems Rewritten as Limericks on LanguageHat.com (2 April 2018), a certain Trond Engen posted the following limerick:
The earth, like an orange, is blue.
Your love and your smile — yes, you do!
The window, the bee,
the sun, la-dee-dee…
I wish I were sure it was true.
He a...
