Talk:Laurence Sterne's correspondence with Elizabeth Draper

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cielquiparle talk 12:22, 27 April 2025 (UTC)

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Caricature of Laurence Sterne, mocking his relationship with Elizabeth Draper

• ... that Laurence Sterne’s journal of love letters reverses the found manuscript trope by claiming that his real diary is fictional? Source: Cash p. 285: "More puzzling is his reversal of a literary tradition: instead of passing of a fictional diary as a real one, Sterne seemed to be passing off a real diary as fiction. Obviously, it was not a serious attempt at disguise"
  • ALT1: ... that Laurence Sterne’s love letters to a married woman inspired two books of fake replies? Source: Oates p. 155, https://www.jstor.org/stable/41154354
  • ALT2: ... that Laurence Sterne's love letters to a married woman inspired his last novel's depiction of sexual desire as a force for moral improvement? Source: Parnell xxxii-xxxiii, https://archive.org/details/sentimentaljourn0000ster_s2k5/page/n33/mode/2up
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Gordon House (Silverton, Oregon)

5x expanded by LEvalyn (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 12 past nominations.

~ L 🌸 (talk) 02:55, 2 April 2025 (UTC).

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

Image: Image is freely licensed, used in the article, and clear at 100px.
Freely licensed: Used in article: Clear at 100px:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Found no problems with this nomination. I'd say ALT0 is the most interesting of the hooks. Lazman321 (talk) 16:09, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

GA review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Laurence Sterne's correspondence with Elizabeth Draper/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: LEvalyn (talk · contribs) 06:13, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer: MediaKyle (talk · contribs) 18:44, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Introduction

Hi there, thanks for your work on this very interesting article. As per our discussion via the Wikipedia Discord, I will be reviewing this article today. Suggestions made that are not related to the good article criteria will be marked with (Optional). Please respond to each suggestion with a separate inline comment, ideally making use of the {{Done}} template so my tired eyes can keep track of what's going on. MediaKyle (talk) 18:44, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Turns out I have to make an unexpected trip into town, but I'll be picking this back up in probably an hour or so. Cheers, MediaKyle (talk) 19:23, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Prose

• She was an intellectual with bluestocking aspirations, sentimental and romantically minded, and unhappily married.: While I quite enjoy this sentence, I found myself slightly bewildered when I read that, wondered what "bluestocking" meant, and hovered over the wikilink to see "Bluestocking is a derogatory term..." so naturally the next question becomes, is it appropriate to call her this in Wikipedia's voice? We touched on this briefly on Discord, but it might be best to adjust this. Two ways I can think of right off the bat would be to quote a description directly and include an explanatory footnote, (i.e. She was variously described as an intellectual with "bluestocking aspirations"...) or perhaps choose different terminology and then include the "bluestocking" part in a footnote. MediaKyle (talk) 18:55, 17 June 2025 (UTC)
  • Hmm, a good question! The term was not (always) derogatory yet at the time, and referred to a specific social group that she wanted to join, the Blue Stockings Society. I've changed the target of the wikilink, do you think that is sufficient? I prefer to keep the term if possible because it is a concrete historical descriptor that I believe was applied to her at the time. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 22:51, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

    I've been looking into this, and this might be a bit of a dilemma. I believe the main question here is: When the source refers to her "bluestocking aspirations", is it saying this in a disparaging way, or is this a mundane reference to her desire to join the Blue Stockings Society? The claim of it being a derogatory term is unreferenced on the Bluestocking article, so I looked into it. According to this article, "But by the late 1770s, those who felt excluded by the Bluestockings began to use the term disparagingly, for the “ins” who kept them “out.” ". Does the source provide any additional insight on the matter? MediaKyle (talk) 23:42, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

    Looking at the sources again, I think it's definitely a reference to wanting to join the group. Cash 1992 says She was an intelligent woman, widely read, and a good writer with ambitions to be recognized as a bluestocking. (p 270). Cross 1904 says They sent her back to the dull humdrum of India with the literary ambitions of Mrs. Montagu and the blue-stockings. Henceforth she was to find at Bombay a great "Dearth of every thing which could charm the Heart--please the Fancy, or speak to the judgment." (p vii). I also found a biography of her which doesn't mention the bluestockings as a group but does say, in its description of her writing style, that In some of her letters there is a distinct suggestion of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu — a suggestion which is probably not accidental. I think by the time Sterne met her she had already been exposed to the bluestockings and formed these aspirations. Montagu was a public supporter of Sterne's writing (she liked sentimental fiction), so being interested in the bluestockings would likely increase Draper's interest in Sterne, or at least her willingness to indulge his flirtations. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 00:47, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

    As it turns out, the whole Bluestocking thing is a bit of a rabbit hole. I've been reading into it myself since my last message, finding this Britannica entry which states The group was never a society in any formal sense where our article on the subject leads one to believe there was some structure to it, even assigning it the name "The Blue Stockings Society of England", which I have yet to see elsewhere... But now that you've quoted the sources, and given the understanding that it only started to become derogatory in the late 1770s, I think it's use in this article as of now makes sense. Whether or not someone might have to do a very messy merge between Bluestocking and Blue Stockings Society to make it make more sense is a whole different can of worms... One not related to this discussion. MediaKyle (talk) 00:58, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

    Yes, I think you're right that both those articles need some serious improvement... maybe those will be future GA projects for me! Thanks for going down the rabbit hole with me. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 01:19, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

• Similarly, I believe the term unhappily married can be retained, but I would either add a footnote explaining this or add a quote supporting the article text to the reference. MediaKyle (talk) 18:55, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

  Digging in to this a bit more, I found multiple sources which considered the marriage merely lukewarm rather than actively unhappy at the time. I personally find it hard to imagine an orphaned 14 year old being happy married off to a man more than twice her age, and then giving birth the next year... but apparently she isn't rude about him in her letters until 1772. I revised this section a bit, especially the explanatory footnote -- let me know your thoughts. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 23:25, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

  Looks great to me. Unhappily married was a tad jarring, and this clears things up a bit regarding the timeline with her husband. MediaKyle (talk) 23:49, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

• (Optional) There is characteristically Sternian ambiguity...: This may be pushing it a bit on the "understandable to a broad audience" front, however, you could link to wikt:Sternian. MediaKyle (talk) 19:08, 17 June 2025 (UTC)
  •  Done I made some revisions, hopefully they clarify. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 22:51, 17 June 2025 (UTC)
• (Optional) This playful religious name-calling serves to remind us that Sterne was an Anglican clergyman.: Perhaps a nitpick, but I would change "us" to "the reader" for clarity. MediaKyle (talk) 20:18, 17 June 2025 (UTC)
  •  Done. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 22:51, 17 June 2025 (UTC)
• (Optional) Remembered now for his fiction, in his day more copies of his sermons were published than of his novels. "in his day" may be slightly ambiguous, a better term might be "throughout his life", "during the time he was alive", or similar. MediaKyle (talk) 20:23, 17 June 2025 (UTC)
  •  Done. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 22:51, 17 June 2025 (UTC)
• (Optional) Draper left Sterne's presence in late March 1767, after only three months of proximity. While of course correct, this seems rather long-winded and could be rephrased as something like Draper left London in March 1767, after only three months together with Sterne. MediaKyle (talk) 21:39, 17 June 2025 (UTC)
  •  Done Thank you, that's a much better wording! ~ L 🌸 (talk) 22:51, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Verifiability

This article is largely built off the references Cash 1992 and Oates 1955, neither of which I am able to access. Arthur H. Cash is a reputable scholar, and there is no reason to doubt the reliability of the cited text. J. C. T. Oates is likewise a respected scholar, and there are no concerns about reliability. Cross 1904 and Cross 1929 are also not accessible to me, and these sources come from the reputable scholar Wilbur Lucius Cross. I was able to access the reference Parnell 2003 (Tim Parnell), and confirmed that the text in this article lines up with the cited work. Therefore, I believe it is reasonable to say that the nominator has done their due diligence on the sourcing, and it is acceptable for the purposes of a GA review. MediaKyle (talk) 20:47, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Breadth and scope

This article seems to be nearly comprehensive in its coverage of the correspondence, providing the background on the individuals involved, a synopsis of the correspondence itself, its publication history, scholarly analysis and legacy. No major elements appear to have been omitted. MediaKyle (talk) 21:27, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Images

Every image in this article currently is public domain, except for the image File:Laurence Sternes study at Shandy Hall.jpg, which is appropriately licensed. The images are suitably captioned in accordance with MOS:CAPTION. MediaKyle (talk) 18:44, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Earwig check

Earwig highlighted two "unlikely" matches, which I determined to be false positives caused by the block quote under "Analysis". MediaKyle (talk) 18:44, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Miscellaneous

I've read over the article a few times now and visited some of the associated articles trying my best to understand the context for all of this. One question that has popped up in my mind now is: Who is Thomas Washbourne Gibbs, and why did his father have the manuscript and letters? Was it perhaps this fellow? This obviously has nothing to do with the GA review, but it might be something that could be expanded upon if the answer is even available. MediaKyle (talk) 21:50, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

This is a fun rabbit hole -- great find! According to Cross, it was a Thomas Washbourne Gibbs of Bath, so I bet it is the same person. Gibbs said, "How they came into the hands of my father, who was a great reader, and had a large collection of books, I never had any means of knowing."[1] Draper must have brought them with her when she moved back to London, but I don't think anyone has information as to when, why, and how they left her possession. A curious question, though! ~ L 🌸 (talk) 23:02, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Summary

Overall, this article is exceptionally well written, and your references are so beautifully formatted it almost brought a tear to my eye. This article is in fact such a "Good Article" that it made me feel bad about the two articles I've written about books. The article is also stable, as I suppose would be expected.

The only major point of contention I had over my numerous reads is the "bluestocking" part. Once we've addressed that and you've made any other adjustments to your liking, let me know and I'll give the article a final go-over. MediaKyle (talk) 22:50, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for your thorough and generous review! Your kind comments really warm my heart. I have some ambitions of bringing this article to Featured Article status, so I'm glad to hear it looks strong. I replied above to your notes about the term "bluestocking" and her unhappy marriage-- let me know what you think of my changes. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 23:32, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

I've just gone over the article again this morning and no other issues have arisen, and everything above has been addressed from what I can see. I'm going to go ahead and promote this now, congratulations on a job well done. MediaKyle (talk) 12:22, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.