Talk:The Miser

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Unsourced Material

Article has been tagged for needing sources since 2010. Feel free to reincorporate the below material with appropriate references. Doniago (talk) 12:55, 6 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Notes

The Miser is a comedy of manners about a rich moneylender named Harpagon. His feisty children long to escape from his penny-pinching household and marry their respective lovers. Although the 17th-century French upper classes presumably objected to the play's message, it is less savage and somewhat less realistic than Molière's earlier play, Tartuffe, which attracted a storm of criticism on its first performance.

The play is also notable for the way in which it sends up certain theatrical conventions. Many comedies from the Elizabethan period and onwards contain asides which are delivered by characters to the audience and which the other actors ignore. In L'Avare, however, characters generally demand to know who exactly these asides are being delivered to.

The play's ending is also self-consciously ridiculous, mocking the French idea of comedy to better the comical effect of the play and its parts, while still taking in hand the tragedy of Harpagon and his life.

NPOV

"The Serbian Jovan Sterija Popović's comedy Tvrdica (The Miser, 1837) was also based on Moliere's play. In this equally pioneering work, the Harpagon figure is represented as a small town Greek merchant"

changed to

"Jovan Sterija Popović's comedy Tvrdica (The Miser, 1837) was also based on Moliere's play. In this work, the Harpagon figure is represented as a small town Greek merchant

No other adaptation listed includes the nationality of the artist. Additionally it is undue weight to call it "pioneering" unless a reliable source has described it thusly. Doniago (talk) 15:35, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The reference says of Popovic's work that 'His own plays constituted the repertory of the young Serbian theatre'. Therefore pioneering = a first; and 'equally' refers to the example of drama in Arabic mentioned in the previous para. It is also necessary to distinguish Serbian national origin, since in Croatian language (which is not too different from Serbian language) there was a much earlier miser play. All the reverted material is available in the reference and its deletion appears arbitrary to me. Would it help if I made the meaning clearer? I'll wait for a reply, since consensus is best. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 15:57, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your thoughtful response. The note about the young Serbian theatre doesn't specifically mention The Miser in that context, which I admit may be splitting hairs. I feel that "pioneering" in common English implies exceptionality of some sort, rather than simply meaning "first". I suppose that raises the question of whether "pioneered by" would be more acceptable, and my feeling is that it might be. An argument could also be made that we should stay away from forms of "pioneer" in general unless there's evidence of exceptionality.

With regards to nationality, I suppose the other examples are inconsistent. In some cases the nationality isn't mentioned, while in others it appears to refer to where the adaptation was developed rather than specifically the nationality of the artist. I.e. "In England the artist X" versus "The English artist X". I think the section should be made consistent in general.

I was rather hoping to find an appropriate MOS that we could use for guidance here, but it looks like none exists. I hope my thoughts on these matters make sense, and again, thanks for clarifying your reasoning! Doniago (talk) 16:23, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Expecting consistency in a project like WP is asking for the impossible, especially since so many 'editors' lack basic editorial skills. However, a virtual remake of the article does allow us to shape it more radically. But I don't think it is helpful to miss out important (and referenced) information on such weak grounds. It so happens that I spend half the year as part of an international editorial team working on a 20-volume encyclopedia. Although we have editorial guidelines, there are also provisions for variation of style and approach in order to avoid formulaic writing. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 14:56, 10 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]