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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by SandyGeorgia 15:43, 16 May 2010 [1].

Ernest Hemingway

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Ernest Hemingway (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Truthkeeper88 (talk) 14:55, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: WP:FFA, has not been on main page

I am nominating Ernest Hemingway, which in the past six months has been through Peer Review and a thorough GA review. Bringing an article about a writer such as Hemingway to FA status would not be possible without help and collaboration. Thanks to all the editors who have helped along the way. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 14:55, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment—I'm happy every time I see an article on such an important subject brought here. Good luck, and I hope the reviewers will find the article worthy of being an FA. There are no dead external links, but a dab link to burns. Ucucha 15:10, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]


Images - Ideally the info box potrait should look into the text, File:Ehmercury.jpg fails wp:nfcc thus the article fails FAC3, otherwise fine Fasach Nua (talk) 18:48, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Review by Charles Edward

  • General
  • Link Red Cross, Milan, bullfighting, Pampalona, Catholic, Arkansas, Grau-du-Roi, Key West, Wyoming, Massachusetts, Florida, safari, Spain, Madrid, Cuba, China, Liberation of Paris, pneumonia, Britain, diabetes, Nobel Prize, Havana, Castro, iron (mineral), Henry Louis Gates, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, James Joyce
  • The following are linked: Red Cross, Pamplona, bullfighting, Nobel Prize, Cuba, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, Liberation of Paris, safari. Do you think they should be linked multiple times in the article? Truthkeeper88 (talk) 18:27, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Added links.
  • Thanks
  • "Hemingway's marriage to Hadley broke down as he was writing and revising The Sun Also Rises." - is "broke down" the term used by the source? perhaps "deteriorated" instead?
  • fixed
  • "Other members of Hemingway's immediate family also committed suicide: his father Clarence Hemingway; his sister Ursula; and his brother Leicester." - the article has already told me that some of these people committed suicide. Its a bit redundant. I note several other places were information is repeated. Please carefully read through the article and avoid redundancy wherever possible.
  • The father's suicide previously mentioned but not that of the two siblings. I think it's notable that three of six children commited suicide and would prefer to keep this in - unless I delete the entire paragraph altogether, describing the genetic illness with the comparison of EH and his father's behavior before their suicides. Should I take it all out?
  • "His youngest brother Leicester claims: "Never before had an author been given such news coverage following his death."" - what makes his younger brother an authoritative source on that? Was it true?
  • Yes it was true, but not necessary. Deleted
  • MOS
    • In a couple places the article uses season to track time (ie winter, fall) WP:SEASON discourages this.
  • I've replaced season with month in cases where the sources are clear about the timeframe. Shall I guess about the others - I'd prefer not to.
  • I've ran into this problem myself in the past. If the source only uses seasons, I'd stick with those within the article, thats better than making OR. But wherever possible try to avoid use of seasons for time keeping. —Charles Edward (Talk | Contribs) 12:46, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • There are endash being used where hyphens should be used. Check out WP:DASH for some examples and explanations. Here is a couple I noticed, please check the article thoroughly for more
      • "Hall–Hemingway"
      • "seven–bedroom"
  • these have been fixed, will check for others
    • "...where he quickly learned that the truth often lurks below the surface of a story." This statement is a bit unusual, if it is a quote put it in quotes. Otherwise I suggest rephrasing to a more encyclopedic tone. Check out WP:TONE
  • not necessary, deleted
    • "His books were burned in Berlin in 1933, and disavowed by his parents." Did they disavow him or his books? Is "disavow" the term used by the source?
  • The source does not use the word disavow. The parents hated his books. Disavow is my word.
  • Was the book burning related to his parents disavowal? Was it only they who burnt his books, or was it a mass burning of all his books in Berlin? I am still confused about context of this sentence. I think this arises partially because one of the critics speaks as though his work was somewhat anti-semtic, so why would the Nazis hate them enough to burn them? Maybe his parents weren't Nazis though? Maybe this could be elaborated on just a bit. —Charles Edward (Talk | Contribs) 12:46, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Prose
    • "Hemingway's fiction is considered successful because the characters he presents exhibit an authenticity that reverberates with the audience. Many of his works are considered classics of American literature." - tense problems, try this, "Hemingway's fiction was successful because the characters he presented exhibited authenticity that reverberated with his audience. Many of his works are considered classics of American literature." - "is\are considered" is also a weasel term. check out WP:WEASEL
  • Thanks for the rewrite. I've replaced with your version. Much better
    • "Late that year he was happy to begin writing..." seems needlessly fluffed, maybe just "Late that year he began writing..."
  • fixed
    • "...the June issue was banned in Boston for "immorality", and critics believed he "had achieved a new maturity"." These two items don't seem connected. If they are, perhaps tie them together better? It reads now as that because it was banned, he was therefore more mature. I don't think that is what the article means to convey though.
  • More appropriate in the article about the novel. I've removed from here
    • "...Hemingway's exploits, War II historian Paul Fussell remarks..." perhaps it should be "Hemingway's exploits, World War II historian Paul Fussell remarks"
  • That's a mistake and now fixed. Thank you for spotting it.
    • "Alone in Spain, without Mary, he was lonely..." "Alone" and "Lonely" are a bit redundant.
  • fixed
    • "This use of an image as an objective correlative is characteristic of Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, and of course Proust." - its not clear to me why it is "of course Proust". If there was an obvious link point it out, otherwise drop the "of course" as most readers won't know what it is referring to.
  • fixed
  • Citations needed
    • "During the early 1930s Hemingway spent his winters in Key West and summers in Wyoming, where he found "the most beautiful country he had seen in the American West" and hunting that included deer, elk, and grizzly bear." - quote without a citation
  • added
  • References
    • Needs access dates, ref # 134, 188, 192
  • Do you mean to replace "retrieved" with "accessed" throughout the refs?
  • These are journal articles. I'm working from the hard-copies and haven't retrieved them from the internet.
    • Ref 188 has a "pp", but only needs a "p"
  • Good catch! The ref needed to be reformatted & now done
    • There are several references listed that are not used, like Raeburn and Young. These should be moved off to a further reading section, or citations should be added where they are being used.
  • Young is ref #174; Raeburn removed
    • Some of the references are listed "lastname, firstname", while others are "firstname lastime", these need to be uniform
  • I formatted them incorrectly. Now fixed. Thanks.
  • Images
    • Alt text present, EXCEPT on lead image
  • It's there but not formatting. If anyone can help troubleshoot I'd be grateful. Otherwise I'll work on it.
    • Image size is being forced on several images, this is discouraged by WP:IMAGE as it overrides user preferences
  • removed
  • The JFK library doesn't have the author information
  • The JFK library doesn't have the author information
    • Other images look good
  • References are all reliable, a couple are Primary sources but used sparingly
  • Prose is ok, could use a final copyedit to remove leftover redundancies.
    • Thank you for taking the time to read the article, and for the comments. I've left a few questions about linking, the references, guessing regarding dates (months), and the suicides. Very useful comments. Thanks. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 21:07, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Most of the items on my list are relatively minor. If you address them I will be glad to reread the article and consider supporting. Great job so far, keep up the good work! —Charles Edward (Talk | Contribs) 18:02, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've struck off most of the items and I am going to support now, since what is left is very minor! I do suggest though that the article get a final copy edit. Other reviewers are more stickier on the prose than I and may find some things they don't like. Anything you can do to tighten it up and say the same thing in less words would be good.
Support —Charles Edward (Talk | Contribs) 12:46, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the support!Truthkeeper88 (talk) 13:50, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Just finished reading it. Looks good to me. ---kilbad (talk) 23:20, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for taking the time to read the article, and for the support. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 13:12, 8 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the lead (the sentence starting with "During his lifetime he had seven novels") feels like it is mentioning a bit too many numbers for the lead. I'm not sure on the guidelines for this though but the lead should be easy to read and here I get stuck on the second sentence.
  • I have to agree - truly a terrible sentence that I've struggled with. Actually I've deleted it, and the text doesn't seem to suffer. See what you think.
  • per comment below from Maria, I've reinstated the sentence but reworked it, and placed it at the end of the paragraph.
  • "had an enormous influence on 20th-century fiction" part doesn't sound very neutral to me. You could make it a quote or perhaps clarify that some people believe so?
  • removed enormous
  • I'm no Hemingway specialist but shouldn't "A Farewell to Arms" be mentioned in the lead? Perhaps when mentioning that he was ambulance driver?
  • Done
  • Images are an important part of making people read the article. Thus captions should be not only a information about the image but also, if possible, make the reader interested in reading the whole text. "Birthplace in Oak Park, Illinois" does not make me very excited to read about his Early life. Try to make them more interesting. It is a shame if nobody reads the article.
  • Good point. I've tried to add as much as I can. Let me know if more is necessary.
  • You've done some improvements but it can still get better. The thing is you don't always have to write "about" the picture in the caption, it has to be related but does not have to be "Ernest Hemingway baby picture, ca. 1900" that doesn't make me very interrested to read the text. Instead it can be for example "When Hemingway's parents married in 1896, they moved in with Grace's father, Ernest Hall, after whom they named their first son". It's hard to give good examples since I haven't read much about Hemingway but take Nobel Prize for example. Now please look at the picture of the will and look at the caption. It sounds a bit "exciting" and makes you want to read the text more than it would if the caption would only have been "Alfred Nobel's will". I hope this helps!
  • Will work on the captions, but prefer not to exceed the recommendations of WP:CAPTION
  • Have added to the captions, but tried to stay at 3 to 4 lines of text.
  • Good job!
  • In Nobel Prize part: "He told the press Carl Sandburg, Isak Dinesen and Bernard Berenson deserved the prize, but the prize money would be welcome." This needs some clarification, why did he say that? It needs a bit more context.
  • He was being modest. It was lost during the course of prose tightening a few days ago. I've added it back.
  • Did he did not believe he earned it then?
  • The sources speculate that he may have believed he received the prize as a result of obituaries published after his accident earlier in the year. Shall I add the speculation?
  • I think it might be needed to understand the sentence so yes.
  • Done
  • Thanks.
  • It might not be very relevant but when I read 'Despite his finding that Hemingway "had died of a self-inflicted wound to the head", the story told to the press was that the death had been "accidental".' I wonder how we now know it was a suicide?
  • This is actually a great question. I believe the doctor at the scene was interviewed by Carlos Baker and the information may have have been published in a biography in the 1970s. An earlier book, written by A.E Hotchner in the 1970s, which I don't have access to, may have also mentioned suicide, for which Mary sued Hotchner. In the 1980s, before she died, Mary admitted it was suicide, but finding the article may be difficult. I'll see what I can dig up. (Adding: I'm off by a few decades - she admitted it was suicide in 1966 Mary Hemingway admits suicide
  • Great, looking forward to it!
  • Yeah I saw that. I meant in the text. Perhaps add it as a note?
Thanks for reading and for the good comments. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 00:15, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support with comments: I reviewed this article for GAC, and I'm glad to see it's improved even further. I suggested that Hemingway's writing/works be given more prominence, as well as little personal touches that engage the reader and make the (already colorful) subject matter more lively; these points have been implemented wonderfully. Per Charles Edward's concerns about the prose, I've performed a perfunctory c-e throughout; please fix any errors I may have inadvertently introduced. Overall I think it's definitely FA quality, but I have a few fixes in mind, with one suggestion for expansion near the bottom:
  • The lead needs to better summarize the article in full per WP:LEAD. Perhaps include a little more information about his writing/important themes? Iceberg theory is there, but it could probably be expanded to another sentence.
  • Removed yesterday per comment above; reinstated with tweaking and a new placement
  • Do you intend the article to use the serial comma or no? I see a few examples of both throughout the article, so best it's made consistent. For example, "Michigan where Hemingway learned to hunt, fish, and camp in the woods and lakes of Northern Michigan. His early experiences with nature instilled a lasting passion for outdoor adventure, living in remote or isolated areas, hunting and fishing."
  • I tend not to use the serial comma. Will weed out the excess commas
  • He arrived in France in March, and in Spain ten days later with Dutch filmmaker Joris Ivens. -- This is strange, and I didn't know how to fix it. Is it important to note when he arrived in France, since the assignment was obviously in Spain? If so, ten days later than what?
  • Fixed
  • In 1959 he bought a home overlooking the Big Wood River, outside of Ketchum, and left Cuba, although he apparently remained on easy terms with the Castro government, telling the New York Times he was "delighted" with Castro's overthrow of Havana.[23][24] In 1960, he left Cuba and Finca Vigía for the last time. -- I didn't want to mess with this because the refs get in the way, and I don't know what citation is supporting what claim. Anyway, it's redundant, as twice it's stated that he left Cuba. I suggest splitting it as such: "outside of Ketchum. In 1960, he left Cuba and Finca Vigía for the last time, although he apparently..." etc.
  • I've cut down a bit here. I do think it's important to know that he lost his home, library, art, and manuscripts, so I left that in.
  • The Sun Also Rises is written in the spare, tightly written prose for which Hemingway is famous, a style which has influenced countless crime and pulp fiction novels.[150] It is a style considered to be his greatest contribution to literature. -- This can be condensed somewhat, although again I don't want to mess around with things where refs are concerned. The influence to crime and pulp fiction could possibly be moved to "Influence and legacy", while the rest can read something like: "for which Hemingway is famous; it is considered to be his greatest contribution..." etc.
  • trimmed and condensed
  • Henry Louis Gates believes Hemingway's style was fundamentally shaped by post–World War I. -- "post-World War I" what, exactly? Sentiments?
  • developed and explained
  • It doesn't state who developed the term Iceberg Theory; although there's the separate article and everything, it may be of note here.
  • He did. Clarified
  • The concept of the iceberg theory is sometimes referred to... -- is it "Iceberg Theory" or "iceberg theory"?
Lowercase - fixed
  • Typical is this analysis of The Sun Also Rises: "Hemingway never lets the reader forget that Cohn is a Jew, not an unattractive character who happens to be a Jew but a character who is unattractive because he is a Jew." -- Where does this criticism come from? Also, I see no mention of alleged racism anywhere; misogyny and homophobia, yes, more of that. I also want to know more about these "apologetics" -- in short, bring on the Hemingway bashing!
  • Sorry, I don't have them. This is from a paper that surveyed the 4000 papers written since his death, which I've explained in the text. Will track down the specific apologetics and add them in.
  • His reputation was sealed with the publication of The Sun Also Rises. He became the spokesperson for the post-World War I generation, and he established a style to follow. -- "After his reputation was sealed..., he became..."?
  • Reworded
Very helpful. Thanks for reading and for the comments. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 21:42, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Overall excellent job done. Hope this helps, María (habla conmigo) 20:21, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment I'm slowly giving it a read, and so far this is iffy to me - Hemingway met young and newly influential painters such as Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro, and Juan Gris. - Picasso by the time Hemingway met him was an international celebrity and a superstar in the art world especially in the circle of European and French painting - in Paris - which was the leading art center in the world. By 1922 Picasso was 41 years old, - no longer young, Juan Gris was 35 and Miro was 29. Arguably he met the leading artist of the 20th century and 2 up and coming stars. This needs an adjustment - ...Modernist (talk) 22:07, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment and a question - The Picasso inclusion is much better now. It's a long read. This line also seems a bit odd and makes no sense - From June to December 1944 he was in Europe at the D-Day landing, accompanying a group in a landing craft to shore, before returning to the troop transport ship. - that June to December sure was a long D-Day, I think he was in Europe June to December and he was at D-Day...I know how hard you have worked on this, it's an impressive and by and large a well done article and hopefully I'll get through it by tomorrow...Modernist (talk) 23:27, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Good catch. I've fixed this
  • I have no good answer to that question. I think I've wanted to focus on Hemingway himself, and his immediate family, so I must have made a decision to remove Margaux from the article. I can re-instate her (and Mariel) if you think it's important, or perhaps I could add their articles to the See Also section.
  • Thanks for taking the time to read. I agree with your comment about the length, which I've struggled to keep from getting out of control. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 14:46, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sorry to butt in, but I'm not sure I agree with you, Modernist. Surely Hemingway's main legacy is his literary legacy, which the section correctly focuses on. He's not known for his relatives. Except of course for the unfortunate end he shared with Margaux (and several other family members), what is there to say except for the fact that they exist(ed)? María (habla conmigo) 16:37, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've added Marguax and Mariel, but the problem I struggled with earlier, is that he has one grandson (Sean Hemingway) who is a writer, another granddaughter (Lorien) also a writer, and so on. In the end, I decided to focus only on Hemingway himself. However, I do think Margaux's suicide is an interesting footnote in this story, and if Margaux is mentioned, then Mariel should be too. I'll leave to you all to decide what to do. The text I've added is easily removed or commented out. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 16:48, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I think the commentary about Margaux and Mariel is important, if his other grandchildren are particularly noteworthy you might add a sentence to that effect at the end...Modernist (talk) 17:04, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for the support. Honestly, I hadn't heard of the other grandchildren until I began the research for this article, but obviously Margaux and Mariel are noteworthy. I lived in the LA area when Margaux died, and it was big news (as I'm sure it was elsewhere). Truthkeeper88 (talk) 17:41, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question: if the source text ends with a period, then I've left it inside the quotation marks. If not, the punctuation is outside the quotation marks. I'm happy to change them, but after a discussion with Awadewit, which I may have misunderstood, I believed it was correct as I've done it per WP:LQ. Templates gone from infobox, delinked again. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 15:07, 16 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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