Talk:Guy Davenport/Archive 1

message: Early June 2005: The Davenport page is being made subject to anonymous (AOL) dynamic-IP edits, usually giving no edit summaries, which repeatedly wreck all or most internal and external links.  Where comments are given, some claim to be restoring the text to "poetry" and the end to a suitably "Davenportian" mode.  Also, the numerous awards given to Davenport are being removed, claiming that they are "irrelevant". Presumably, these edits are coming from a single individual, and the irrational behaviour may arise from the "gay" dispute below. Martin: 19:28, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Vandalism

message: As a former student of Professor Guy Davenport's when I was at the University of Kentucky (1965-1968; 1971-1976) and as a friend and correspondent of Guy's up to his death in January 2005, I find it necessary to ask in this discussion forum of the Free Encyclopedia of Wikipedia why the contributors to this page are permitted to bicker over the sexuality of a writer or the sexualities of characters in his stories?  It would be more interesting to learn about the many accomplishments of this translator, writer, painter, and perhaps above all, teacher and  conversationalist. Professor Davenport said to me the summer of 1974 soon after the publication of Tatlin!, his first book of stories, during one of our many walks from his office in the Patterson Office Tower on the UKY campus to his apartment a mile and a half north of campus near the Bell Court neighborhood of Lexington, "My God, I hope my readers don't think that I behave in the same way as Adriaan, Kaatje, and Bruno ..." referring to three imiginary characters in 'The Dawn in Erewhon' first published in Tatlin! (NY: Charles Scribner & Sons, 1974).
Our senses are surfaces of mind, the narrator says somewhere in 'Dawn': "Before the invention of intellect in the western Mediterranean, along the Nile and Euphrates, on the Hwang Ho, man distributed his mind througout his body, thinking with his lungs, gathering courage from his great knees and testicles, seeing with his hands and lips and phallos as much as with his eyes, sensing eternity in the marrow of his bones, moral rectitude in the shoulders like a god's." (Tatlin! 1974, p. 199)
Another issue -- External Links. I would recommend a link be made to my web page dedicated to Guy Davenport's work:  URL is < www.geocities.com/chuck_ralston/07_dav.htm > which focuses on his books, parts of books, periodical articles, and significant critical essays about Guy Davenport.
Any clear, well-stated, factual information relating to Davenport's life & work is relevant in an Wikipedia entry. (Hadn't he bought his house by 1974, Chuck?)
I've used your website. It's not bad but needs work, much more information. It's a beginning. Thanks for doing it.
As you can see from the entry & the discussion, the entry was tugged over by two parties: Party A, which wanted it to be constantly raising a banner for gay rights; & Party B, which wanted it to stick to the facts & show his work in a complete context. There is space for a third view, in which the sexual issues of Davenport's work are made part of the discussion. I'm not sure how this discussion could be included in the entry, but it's a very worthy discussion topic. James Nicol 01:08, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Davenport's is not the only Wikipedia article that gets pulled into the gay rights debate.  See the discussion for Sviatoslav Richter for another example.  Paul 23:44, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scope and Purpose 

message: ::Have deleted the following:
:::It's not impossible that he made over 1,000 drawings and sketches of boys exercising in their brief underpants.
::I suspect this was added facetiously.  In any case, that was hardly a Wikipedia-appropriate sentence.  And not just because it was utterly without documentation; sentences beginning "It's not impossible" are pointlessly true no matter what follows that all-purpose introduction.  It is not impossible that the person who wrote that sentence was drunk, just as it is not impossible that he or she was serious, or that he or she was 10 years old or younger.
::It would be helpful if people with facts to add were to write with some precision and provide documentation where needed. Oh, yes: and to sign in, demonstrating their seriousness.SocJan 00:28, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  deleted text 

message: Dear user Nposs, I think the Gilbert Purdy link is valuable. Perhaps Purdy has spammed other pages and made edits in violation of Wikipedia's conflict of interest policy. But it's not him, now, wanting this link to stay; it's me.  I think that on this page the link to this particular essay is valuable. There is not a lot of information out there on the Internet about Davenport, and Purdy's essay is a good one. I ask you to let the link stand. I have no connection to Purdy; I just like Guy Davenport, like the essay, and think the link is valuable. --SethTisue 05:01, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gilbert Purdy link 

message: One remaining link which still points to a disambiguation page is the link to "Shu", from the title "The Bowmen of Shu". I don't know Pound's poem, so I don't know how the link should be disambiguated. Anyone want to tackle this?--SethTisue 19:10, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think any of the specific states listed on the disambig page are apropos here, since the dates of none overlap with Li Po's lifetime. The Sichuan article may be marginally relevant, but let's allow the silliness surrounding this article to die down before going into the matter further. Deor 19:19, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shu