Talk:Claire Clairmont

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A fact from Claire Clairmont appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 9 April 2008.

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More information about this article... The following comments have been left for this page: Claire Claremont was much more important to the lives of Mary Shelley, Edward Trelawny and others than she ever was to the poet Shelley. The biography in Wikipedia is really not a biography of Claire, but instead is a summary of her one night with Lord Byron with its result --- “Allegra” --- the love child of Claire. I have added a few lines to this page regarding Trelawny. Should someone become interested in knowing more about Claire I would suggest reading “Claire Clairmount and the Shelleys” by Gittings and Manton (Oxford University Press 1992). Sirswindon 18:12, 12 March 2007 (UTC) March 12, 2007 (by SirSwindon) (edit)

i believe claire was the most important of shelley's female friends, and she is very underestimated in biographies.

Contents 1 "Seduced" by Byron?? 2 Marina or Maria 3 References 4 Referencing styles 5 GAN Review

[edit] "Seduced" by Byron??

The header "Seduced by Byron" isn't accurate, even according to this article. Claire pursued Byron and not the other way around. I would like to change this misleading phrasing.Gingerwiki (talk) 01:15, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Plain "Byron" would be better, I think. qp10qp (talk) 16:09, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Marina or Maria

All my sources, which I reffed, say Maria. James Bieri, who went to Naples and looked at the registration certificate, gives "Mary", with a question mark, from which I take it that the legibility is a problem. I daresay you have sources for "Marina", but "Maria" is not wrong. I think this is a red herring, anyway, since Shelley gave Mary Godwin's name at the baptism. qp10qp (talk) 19:21, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

All mine say Marina. I also typed it into a search engine and turned up a number of literary journal articles that quote the name as "Marina Padurin." The interpretation of the last name is also different in some of the sources. One said it was Shelley's Italianization of some theory of Mary's.--Bookworm857158367 (talk) 16:59, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

But if he was trying to disguise her name: a) why make her so traceable? b) why give her correct name at the baptism later that day? qp10qp (talk) 18:57, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I changed the main text to "Maria" or "Marina" to reflect that sources differ on the names. There's no way to know what his intent was. It appears to be a minor point. I'm going to attempt to get this into Good Article shape. Would you help with formatting the references properly or tracking down more? --Bookworm857158367 (talk) 23:41, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Sure. I have some good books on the Shelleys. And I have Gittings and Manton, which I read before Christmas with great pleasure. qp10qp (talk) 01:43, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Great! I have Eisler's biography of Byron and I found some journal articles and book excerpts on-line, but the article could definitely use more references from those definitive sources. I'd like to fill in more of the details about her educational background, other things she wrote, where she lived, details from her correspondence, etc. The format for the references probably needs to be standardized, too, probably the way it was done for the Mary Shelley article and Fanny Imlay article. --Bookworm857158367 (talk) 03:58, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] References

I've formatted the sources according to a Chicago-Turabian system, very similar to that at Mary Shelley, and added details where necessary.

I can't locate the book below (I can only find his Letters as a whole). Since it is only reffed once, I've cut it and reffed the same info to Gittings and Manton.

• Trelawny, Edward. Edward Trelawny --- Letters to C. M. J. Clairmont (1822-1829). Edited by H. Buxton Forman, 1910.

qp10qp (talk) 19:52, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Referencing styles

To explain what I've done:

The system is that of shortened refs, so that the notes contain an abbreviated reference and the full reference is found in the bibliography. I find that this makes editing very much quicker, because one can make footnotes instantly, without fiddling about with templates. I rarely cite anything but books and articles, so I am not entirely certain of where the link brackets etc. go for online refs, but I have tried to follow a consistent pattern.

I am using the Turabian/Chicago style guides, which I have copies of in front of me. The principle is that notes use commas and bibliographical references use full stops: this is why I have dismantled footnote templates to place information in the latter. For four or more authors, one should say "et al" in the notes but write them out in the bibliography. Calling it a bibliography rather than references makes the list come up on Google for people searching for bibliographies on Claire Clairmont.

The Deirdre Coleman reference really needs some information about the source and publisher, but I can't work out where the homepage is for that site. It is not yet clear to me that it is a reliable source. I would suggest that the Scotsman review is definitely not a reliable source, being a review. We can cross these bridges closer to GA (why not aim for FA?).

Please alter anything you don't like. The main thing is to get the information over, and the above methods are not set in stone.qp10qp (talk) 00:18, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

It looks a lot better now. If someone has a copy of the history of governesses that was reviewed in The Scotsman, it would be better to replace the source, I agree. I don't think newpaper articles or reviews are necessarily unreliable, however. Yes, I'd like to see it get to FA eventually, but we should probably put it through a peer review/GA process first. I've nominated it for GA and we'll see what suggestions are made then. I'm not completely happy with the way I set up the photos/pull quotes, so if someone with a better eye than I have can make them more aesthetically pleasing, that would be nice. Thanks for the help. --Bookworm857158367 (talk) 00:51, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it's ready for GA yet, though, because there's so much more to say about her later life. qp10qp (talk) 01:16, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

You're probably right. I don't have much more to add, though, so if you have the materials with more background, I hope you'll keep adding to it. I think she deserves a full treatment biography with all the details we can find on her.--Bookworm857158367 (talk) 02:25, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GAN Review

Hello, I'll be reviewing this article for GAN. There are a few things that need to be taken care of so it can fulfill the criteria, so I'll be putting the nomination on hold. I've been watching the development of Mary Shelley with great interest over the past few months, so I think I know what I'm doing here. :)

Two major issues need to be addressed, however: first, at only one sentence long, the lead section needs to be greatly expanded. Per WP:LEAD, the beginning section must summarize the entire article. Second, I'm concerned about the lack of referencing. There are surely enough works to pull from, as the Bibliography suggests, but there are entire paragraphs with only one sentence buried in the middle. The "Death of Allegra" section, which is only one paragraph long, has only one reference. In order to satisfy WP:V, I suggest that more inline citations be added, especially at the end of quotes; “He [Trelawny] likes a turbid and troubled life; I a quiet one; he is full of fine feeling and has no principles; I am full of fine principles but never had a feeling (in my life).” has no ref, for example. The entire first section, which contains some claims that will certainly be contested ("It is suspected..."), only has one ref.

I also have some minor suggestions and/or corrections:

• Is an infobox truly necessary? She wasn't a professional, after all. I chuckled at first when I saw "mother of Lord Byron's daughter Allegra" under "Occupation". Infoboxes are not mandatory, but I won't fight for its removal if you're partial to it. :)
• The first sentence of the first section in the body begins with "She"; treat this as the first sentence of the article and introduce the subject by full name (or at least first and surname).
• The prose needs reworking in most areas; some sentences are short and too staccato for my liking. For example, "In December of 1801, Mary Jane Clairmont married William Godwin." This sentence can be supplemented with background information; don't think that every reader is going to click on that link to find out who Godwin is! Who is Godwin? Who was he previously married to? Where is this taking place? It's not stated where Clairmont was born, where she grew up, that the family relocated to live with the Godwins, etc. In short, we need more.
• Mary Shelley does not need to be linked twice in the first section; the first time suffices. Mary is also referred to by two separate names in the space of a few lines: Mary and Mary Shelley. Refer to her first as Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin and then as Mary Godwin.
• Name confusion also with Mrs. Godwin (nee Clairmont): she's first Mary Jane Vial Clairmont and then Mary Jane Godwin. Consistency is key, although I admit that name changes do make it difficult.
• Godwin, Clairmont... call people by their full names when there are lots of them about. Copy-editing will fix this: "Mary Jane Godwin was also a sharp-tongued woman who often quarreled with Godwin and favored her own children over Godwin's daughters" becomes "Mrs Godwin was a sharp-tongued woman who often quarreled with her husband and favored her own children over her stepdaughters."
• Clairmont encouraged all of his children to read widely and give lectures as soon as they could read. Is that supposed to be "Godwin encouraged..."?
• Why is Fanny Imlay's death not mentioned?
• Who are these people? Byron, Shelley, Hogg? It's not even mentioned that Bysshe Shelley was a poet when he was first introduced. Don't assume that the reader knows who you're talking about. Even "Clairmont entered into an affair with the Romantic poet George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, known as Lord Byron" will be an improvement. Something, anything.
• Punctuation does not go inside the quotes unless it's part of the quote: fix "horrors," "The Idiot," and "Claire."
• Again, Mary Shelley is continuously referred to as Mary Shelley before she becomes Mary Shelley. She was Mary Godwin until she married.
• Watch the repetitive interwiki links; Percy Bysshe Shelley is linked to three times in one section, Switzerland is linked to the second time it's mentioned instead of the first, etc.
• Also watch the dashes: I see double dashes (--) and single dashes (-) in place of what should be en dashes (–).
• The references for/and the two poems in the "Percy Bysshe Shelley" section do not match up. They should be part of the quote, not after it.
• Something funky going on here; doubled ref? posthumous collection of Shelley's works published in 1824.[10] [11]<[10]
• Bysshe Shelley's death is mentioned in passing ("After Shelley's death...") twice, but it's not explained. What happened? One of the main problems with this article's comprehensiveness is that the reader has to assume too much. This may be "common knowledge" to some, but not to everyone. It's okay to explain things!
• It bothers me that it only takes one paragraph to sum up forty years of a person's life; might the last paragraph be expanded?

In short, this needs quite a bit of work, but as I have faith that this can be improved I'm putting it on hold. Here's the game plan: expand the lead; cite, cite, cite; more information is greatly needed, especially descriptions of people and what makes them notable; pay attention to name confusions: refer to people by their first or fullnames if necessary, but keep with the chronology. Instead of names, how about using titles or relationships? Use "stepsister" for "Mary Shelley" or Mr. Godwin for Mary's father, for example. An impartial copy-edit may also help. Let me know if you have any questions about this refer or would like additional insights. Best of luck, María (habla conmigo) 19:13, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your detailed review. Bookworm knows that I think the submission for GA jumped the gun. I haven't got time to do the work myself, which at my slow pace would take a month. My advice to Bookworm is to withdraw the nomination, giving us space to work through the above very helpful suggestions at our leisure over the next several months. (Personally, I find Claire a much more interesting woman after she moves to Russia, but the article doesn't cover this yet.) qp10qp (talk) 20:42, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Sure, if Bookworm wants to withdraw the nom, it would take the pressure off from having to meet a deadline. I work better under pressure, but maybe that's just me.  :) Let me know either way, guys. María (habla conmigo) 22:54, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with Qp10qp here about withdrawing the GA nomination at this time. Your suggestions will certainly be useful in improving on the article, but I don't have most of the books mentioned in the article and can't assign page numbers. I think Qp10qp has more of them, if not the time right now. We'll nibble away at it and hopefully resubmit it soon. I'd like to see the article improved on and brought up to FA level eventually. Thanks so much for your time. --Bookworm857158367 (talk) 00:02, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I've removed the nomination from the GAN list; because it's a withdrawal and not a fail, I see no reason to add the GAN fail template to the top of this page. Best of luck on a future nomination; if you'd like another review pre-nom, just let me know and I'd be glad to look it over again. María (habla conmigo) 03:12, 12 April 2008 (UTC)