Talk:William Shakespeare/Archive 11

message: As I stared at the funeral monument, and pondered what do about how it affected the "Plays" section title, I realized that "Death" as a section title was, how shall I say it, a bit indelicate?  I wondered what everyone thought about changing it to "Final years"  or "Later years" and moving the heading up a few lines.  I'll give it a try and then self revert so we can have a look.Smatprt 03:01, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd been thinking that picture needed cropping as well. Wrad 03:04, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The person who manipulated it kind of twisted it; it doesn't really appear that long. But I wanted to get the entire monument in the picture, and I clipped it out of a picture of the entire wall and floor. Like I say, next time I'll get another angle. In the meantime, what are the rules about lifting a pic from the Web somewhere? Tom Reedy 03:10, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi - I just tried this ;[]. What do you think.  I also made the pic a tad smaller and it seems to work better, eliminating the section title issue. I self-reverted until I hear what you think. Smatprt 03:18, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: P.S. - I tried "Later years" as it seems to work best with the "Early life" section title.Smatprt 03:21, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

text: See what you think. We might have to add a bit more copy to lose that white space between the sections; maybe add some detail about the will that we cut out previously.Tom Reedy 14:39, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well done.  I like the inscription too.  I moved a bit of copy from the last paragraph to the beginning of that section.  I think it provides a nice transition and it also deals with the white space issue. Thanks. Smatprt 15:10, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

text: This is weird. On my work computer, everything looks fine. On my home computer, it still crowds the next line. Tom Reedy 18:49, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm afraid I agree: there's still a problem when viewed on high-resolution monitors. AndyJones 19:45, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Is one possible solution to photoshop a mirror-image, then slap that on the right-hand side of the page where overrunning the next heading is far less of a problem? You'd have to move the text box to the left. AndyJones 19:36, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it would be better to import more copy, perhaps expand the will provisions a bit from the material we cut leading up to FA status. I don't think changing which side it is on would solve the problem.Tom Reedy 03:10, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you are both correct - moving the image to the left would keep the section title from being pushed aside.  More copy, though, would certainly help. Re: flipping the image - I am afraid that someone would eventually notice and say "Hey - that photo is backwards", so I'd rather see another image that could move right (either facing left or facing front.Smatprt 06:17, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Extending the will provisions is all very well, but summarising them lucidly is a great challenge, which in my opinion we have never risen to. I haven't seen a version that really nailed it and did not sound confusing or wrong. I'm not sure the reader needs to know the ins and outs anyway. It might be worth workshopping versions at Shakespeare's life. Over there is another image (see left).qp10qp 13:55, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, we took an almost hopeless biography that was bogged down in seemingly intractable argument and turned it into a featured article, although it took a while, so I'm sure if we put our minds and talents together we can come up with something. And the monument photo at the left is useless, it seems to me. I can grab one from a friend's Web site with his permission, but I'm sure he stole it from somewhere else.Tom Reedy 20:35, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Looks all right to me.qp10qp 21:02, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Death?

message: Add "O.S." to the two instances of the death date.  That conveys the details to a historian succinctly without needing to chase down a footnote, and gives a link foe the confused.  (The exact syntax is cribbed from other articles; in this case, Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden.) 71.41.210.146 23:01, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not a big fan of this. Most books don't bother with it. Too much information, I think. And the result of the greater intrusiveness would be exactly the same, that people would have to go to the footnote to find out what was meant. Not that a short footnote can ever cover it. A look at the article Old Style and New Style dates will reveal how complex and unsatisfying the terms old and new style are, how they applied both to year and to days, and how they differed from country to country. Most famous British dates go to blazes if one inspects them too closely.qp10qp 23:36, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requested minor edit... 

message: Any interest in changing the image to the Sanders portrait, which seems most likely of the various candidates to be an actual painting from life? --Dystopos 22:02, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: One good reason not to would be that there is as yet no consensus on the portrait; another would be what is published underneath the portrait on that page: © All rights reserved. "Sanders Portrait." Canadian Conservation Institute, Department of Canadian Heritage, 2001. Tom Reedy 14:40, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is my understanding that there is consensus that the Sanders portrait is more likely to have been painted from life than any other known portrait. The currently-displayed image (The Chandos portrait) is generally held to have been painted after Shakespeare's death and the identity of the sitter has not been confirmed. Furthermore, the conservation institute's claim to hold copyright on a work created in 1603 is spurious. (See explanation at :Template:PD-art). --Dystopos 15:11, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Cite? I am not aware of any such consensus.Tom Reedy 16:08, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: From the link above "As forensic and genealogical evidence continues to come forward in relation to various candidates for most "authentic" image it is clear that the Sanders portrait remains an important contender for the title." and "Most Shakespearean experts contend that the painter of the Chandos is not known and was most likely painted some years after Shakespeare’s death.". The recent news on dating the panel's inscription is here: Globe and Mail. I'm not trying to start an argument. I was just making a suggestion. --Dystopos 16:27, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

text: The website you refer to says, "In Nolen's book [about the portrait], however, five of the seven authorities she consults do not believe that the picture is of Shakespeare" (one was neutral, I believe). These authorities include respected Shakespeare scholars, such as Wells, Bate, and Gurr. The problem with this painting is that though it is itself genuinely of the period, the label which asserts that it is of Shakespeare was, according to analysts (handwriting, language, use of the Steevens date of birth of 23 April, etc.), written towards the end of the eighteenth century, but on authentic paper: this makes the likeliest scenario that the label was a forgery. The family that owns the portrait cannot provide provenance further back than about 1800, so their family legend that the painter was a member of their family (why did he keep it?) is unverified.qp10qp 17:31, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't believe the label is necessarily a forgery; it could have been added later and still be correct. But there's just not enough evidence to prove it's a portrait of shakespeare, and I doubt there ever will be. The portrait we are using at least has tradition behind it. Tom Reedy 19:07, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: But the paper matches Shakespeare's time and the handwriting, language style and information don't. Why were they written on old paper?qp10qp 19:14, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The Globe and Mail article addresses the dating of the inscription which has recently been confirmed as having been made at the same period as the painting and the paper. That said, it was my belief, from reading the recent news, that the authenticity of the Sanders portrait was less problematic than that of the Chandos. Since this seems not to be the conclusion of the other editors, I'll let it rest. Goodnight. --Dystopos 00:44, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

text: The label gives his death date; but the painting was supposedly painted when he was 39. I haven't read the Globe and Mail article, but in itself that would not be a reliable source. Please don't feel that your suggestion has been dismissed; it is good to discuss all possibilities here, and this question is interesting. The point about the Chandos is that its provenance goes back to the mid seventeenth century and to someone connected with Shakespeare. That doesn't prove it is of Shakespeare, but it trumps the provenance of the Sanders. With Shakespeare, one tends to trace the traditions back as far as possible and to give more emphasis (not necessarily credibility) to the earliest ones.qp10qp 11:52, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Scientists also get a great deal of things wrong. And we do not take the word of a lab, employed by the owner of the painting, as reported by a newspaper. Let the scientists publish their findings in journals; let other scientists retest their findings. In the slow-turning world of Shakespeare scholarship, anything else would be jumping to conclusions.qp10qp 15:10, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Agreed. Meanwhile, I personally would much rather see the drawing from the Folio at the head of the article than the Chandos portrait, for the reasons already mentioned. Thank you, Shir-El too 02:21, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Sanders portrait

message: I've just been pondering some things: What does the name "Shakespeare" mean? Where does it come from? What sort of ancestry did Shakespeare have? Celtic, Roman, Germanic? What language does his name come from? In the end, I don't know whether this information would belong here or on the Shakespeare's life page, but I do wonder if scholars have said anything about this. Wrad 22:07, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Chambers writes a lot about this. vol. II, IIRC.Tom Reedy 14:32, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Where did he come from?