Talk:Gérard de Nerval

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Untitled[edit]

I bought an edition of Nerval in 1999. I'm wondering about the sources of his inspiration for the material in chapters 7--8 of Aurélia (1855). It prefigures, oddly enough, H. P. Lovecraft's The Shadow Out of Time to a remarkable degree as I can show by quoting the passages. He also anticipates a number of H. P. Blavatsky's themes in The Secret Doctrine (1888). Has any one written about this? Lisa the Sociopath 21:42, 31 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I wrote a thesis on the topic of the sources of Aurélia. I'd be happy to share what I know. There's a lot to say and Aurélia is a fascinating piece of work. I'll start working on a draft on my user page. Whoever is interested, feel free to help out! Nathaniel dennett (talk) 04:23, 3 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Trivia[edit]

I removed the trivia section tag and renamed the section 'Pet lobster' as all the articles of trivia relate to whether or not he kept such an animal. If there is a desire to still have the article tagged for a trivia section I suppose it could be switched back, although given that it was only about one topic I feel the renaming is appropriate. Keresaspa (talk) 17:48, 11 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Pet Lobster[edit]

Under the Pet Lobster section of this page there is a link to a "British television program 'Status Anxiety' that in fact links you to a book by the same name. Is this correct? Does the reference come from the Book, or a TV Show of the same name, or the Documentary Film? --Count of Cascadia (talk) 00:29, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I removed "He regarded them as "peaceful, serious creatures, who know the secrets of the sea, and don't bark"." from this section as the same quotation is repeated in a more complete form in the next paragraph. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.2.50.139 (talk) 11:55, 10 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's not serious for an encyclopedic entry to devout so much space to an anecdote like that of the "pet lobster" section. Mention it somewhere in the text if you like, but this is bizarre and looks silly, to be frank. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.213.205.18 (talk) 10:42, 14 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that it seems strange at first glance to devote so much space to a pet lobster, especially because I have yet to find any primary contemporary sources that attest to the fact (the legend was started, I think, by Nerval's friend Théophile Gautier), but at the same time, the pet lobster is now strongly associated with Nerval's name. Many readers would turn to Wikipedia to see if the stories are true. Because the first reference is in Gautier's memoirs, we should emphasize that fact, so that people know that it may not be anything more than a legend. Gerard de Lafayette (talk) 01:22, 4 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

pitu el duque de las bolas[edit]

What ever does this mean? -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 11:41, 23 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Section of Low Value[edit]

The "Allusions by others" section has no worth. Anyone can casually allude to de Nerval's name. The important things are to tell us what de Nerval thought, to examine his works, and to describe the way that he affected subsequent writers. What "others" thought or wrote when merely alluding to de Nerval is of no moment.Lestrade (talk) 00:55, 8 April 2012 (UTC)Lestradeo[reply]

This problem still exists. Now we have Later references and Assessments, neither of which provides truly encyclopedic content. Allusions belong in a literary journal or a book of criticism, but not in an encyclopedia. UPDATE: "Later references" has been removed. Gerard de Lafayette (talk) 20:16, 8 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If you are going to add comments, why not indent them like this for readability? BTW, you might restore the image you removed when deleting this section. Otherwise well done. Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 21:18, 8 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Like this, right? Gerard de Lafayette (talk) 02:27, 9 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly! Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 17:32, 9 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

On a related note, I think that the Further reading page has too many scholarly articles. An encyclopedia should direct the reader to general audience books that she can buy, not articles in scholarly journals only available in universities. I'll go through and figure out which ones belong and get rid of the ones that I think don't.Gerard de Lafayette (talk) 01:17, 4 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. But in general this entry needs expansion more than trimming. Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 21:21, 8 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That is a good point! I didn't end up deleting any sources. And I'm working on expanding other parts of it. Gerard de Lafayette (talk) 02:27, 9 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Various major changes I intend to make to this article[edit]

This is a great article about one of my favorite French writers, but I think it could be improved by adding some more content, backing up claims with references and evidence, and removing non-encyclopedic content.

Biography[edit]

I want to break the current content into the following subsections:

Early Life
Mental illness and suicide
Grave

I also plan to add more content once I have time.

Selected works by Gérard de Nerval[edit]

I think that this section should turn into a larger section that goes into his writing. I want to do the latter as soon as I have time. In the meantime, shortening the descriptions so that they are merely factual, as opposed to reflecting judgments of the author, would be a major improvement.

UPDATE 11/8/2015: Descriptive list has been shortened.

A list of works is usually presented in chronological order by date, beginning with earliest and ending with posthumous. Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 21:33, 8 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

As you can see from the intemperate but not entirely unreasonable comment below, you have made a critical mistake: you removed material with a promise to add it back elsewhere, but you have not kept your promise. Much of what you removed was questionable in its details and quality and lack of citations, but it's always best to build before doing demolition. Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 03:39, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Assessments and Later references[edit]

I plan to remove these sections for the reasons presented above on this Talk page at Section of Low Value.

UPDATE: I removed Later references, but I'm thinking that Assessments could be made into an "Influences" section that would be worthwhile.

Or "literary reputation"? Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 21:34, 8 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Draft[edit]

I will be implementing these changes over the next few days. I'll make the changes in each section separately, so that it is easier to see what has changed. In the meantime, you can see my current draft here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Gerard_de_Lafayette/sandbox/Gérard_de_Nerval

Feel free to contact me if you have any concerns or are interested in working with me to revamp this article! Gerard de Lafayette (talk) 01:43, 4 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Description of works[edit]

Some twit has removed all the work I did on de Nerval's works and replaced it with a shrunken list of little value that is scarcely good enough for a small entry in a pocket world encyclopaedia. It took me some years to do my descriptions which were much more thorough, informative and accurate. What is the point of wasting the opportunity that Wikipedia offers? This person obviously thinks little of de Nerval's value and public interest. If this is not quickly resolved by Wikipedia I shall resign.

PS - Can someone tell me what to do to resign from Wikipedia? Whitespeck (talk) 23:40, 16 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Whitespeck! I left you a note on your talk page, I hope you read it. I'm sorry to have undone the work you did without proposing an alternative first. I've reverted the section to your version for now, but I hope you'll be willing to help when I start building a longer section on Nerval's works. Gerard de Lafayette (talk) 13:22, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]