Disputatio:Poësis regni Britanniarum

Titulus? Res?

There seems to be a dispute between the title and the definition. "Poesis Anglica" makes sense as "Poetry in English" or "Poetry of England". But the definition says "Poetry of the United Kingdom", and goes into detail about the potential inclusion, or not, of Ireland. So, which is this article meant to be? The problem is not helped by en:wiki, which heads itself "English poetry" but doesn't have a lemma and begins apologetically "This article focuses on ..." Other wikis clearly don't know what to make of this: French is a one-line stub; Spanish is a couple of paragraphs about Ango-Saxon poetry; many languages have nothing at all.

We should have an article on "English poetry" (meaning "Poetry in English") but this isn't it. We could, I guess, have an article on "Poetry of the United Kingdom", and this might be the beginning of it, but it clearly wouldn't begin with Beowulf: God knows which kingdom Beowulf was composed in.

I'm not sure which way this article should go, but I've proposed renaming it "Poesis regni Britanniarum" to match the definition. Any other views? Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 14:34, 15 Ianuarii 2014 (UTC)

We should also think about what to do with the general literature articles. I started Litterae Anglicae based on the en:wiki article, which is really on literature in English. It's tricky to be completely logical about it, but I agree at least that Anglica should refer either to all English-speaking countries or to England alone, so as not to offend our Scottish, Welsh, and Irish friends. Lesgles (disputatio) 03:43, 16 Ianuarii 2014 (UTC)

Personally I think language is a very important dividing factor, because language decides whether people can read the literature, or not, or need a translation. But national literatures are important too, and we need articles about those. My problem was in trying to see which of them this article is meant to be!

In many of the most difficult cases, we on Vicipaedia needn't stumble over this, because we use different names for the languages and the countries. So, for example, Iacobus has just started Litterae Franciae, which obviously shouldn't cover Quebec, Belgium, Switzerland, etc., but eventually has to say something about Latin in France, Breton, etc. It is the principal article for the national category Categoria:Franciae scripta. The article for "literature in French" would be Litterae Francogallicae, and would be the principal article for Categoria:Litterae Francogallicae, the category by language. And I guess which of those articles is eventually longer or deeper depends on Vicipaedians.

In this particular case, we don't use different terms for the country and the language, but, on the other hand, to tell the truth, nobody talks much about the "Literature of England", strictly excluding Wales, Scotland, Ireland etc., do they? It's hardly a real subject. So I wouldn't see much point in an article about the "Literature of England". On the other hand, a general article about "Literature in English" is certainly needed, maybe especially as a guide to people who approach English as a foreign language. It might possibly never be as detailed (for the modern period) as articles about "British literature", "United States literature", "Literature of Ireland", "Literature of India", etc., but that, again, is up to Vicipaedians.

Well, that's my thinking :) Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 09:55, 16 Ianuarii 2014 (UTC)

Literature of England (and/or the UK) also includes a certain amount of literature written in Latin, of course. I agree that it's useful to have pages for the literature of a given country, in whatever language, and the literature in a given language, from whatever country. And, this being the web, those pages should link back and forth to each other -- so that a reader starting from, say, Ioannes Miltonus could easily move on to "British literature (in English, Latin, etc.)," "English literature (from Britain and wherever)," "Latin literature (from Britain, Rome, and so on)," "17th century European literature (all countries and languages)," "epic poetry," "elegy," and so on. The present page seems to focus on Anglophone poetry of the UK -- as opposed to Latin, French (or did Beckett only write in prose? It's been a long time), Irish, Scots, or any other language a British writer might have used -- so perhaps it should have both the language and the nation in the title, or perhaps (better, I think) it could broaden its focus to non-English British literature. (But then I do more with neo-Latin than with Classical Latin, so clearly my bias is towards including Latin literature every place we can!) A. Mahoney (disputatio) 13:38, 16 Ianuarii 2014 (UTC)