Talk:William Wycherley

French to English

From the article:

which caused even his great admirer Voltaire to say afterwards of them, "Il semble que les Anglais prennent trop de liberté et que les Françaises n'en prennent pas assez"--

I just love how that whacky 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica assumed that all educated English users also knew French. We could use a translation, (and not from AltaVista's Babelfish, either ;-). func(talk) 23:57, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

French to English done, but more needed?

I put up a rough translation of the French but it seems to me that more work is needed here. For example, this paragraph is off-subject (Plutarch's impeachment of Aristophanes???), opinionated, and extremely overblown:

"In all literatures-- ancient and modern--an infinite wealth of material has been wasted upon subjects that are unworthy, or else incapable, of artistic realization; and yet Wycherley's case is, in our literature at least, without a parallel. Perhaps he felt that the colossal depravity of intrigue in which the English comedians indulged needs to be net only warmed by a superabundance of humour but softened by the playful mockery of farce before a dramatic circle such as that of the Restoration drama can be really brought within human sympathy. Plutarch's impeachment of Aristophanes, which affirms that the master of the old comedy wrote less for honest men than for men sunk in baseness and debauchery, was no doubt unjust to the Greek poet, one side of whose humour, and one alone, could thus be impeached. But does it not touch all sides of a comedy like Wycherley's--a comedy which strikes at the very root of the social compact upon which civilization is built?"

I agree. Such digressions bore the reader. Rintrah 15:33, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Wow

I found this article almost unreadable. Guess it's good that it was (mostly) not written by Wikipedia contributors, then. -- Ultra Megatron 04:13, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Date of death

Lede says 31 December 1715. Text says 1 January 1716. Can we at least agree on this, please? -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 21:05, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Style

Much of the article reads like a moralistic Victorian short story, more literary than encyclopaedic. I have tightened up some grammar and may add more dating in the chronology.Cloptonson (talk) 20:46, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

I have duly added the promised dating from information sourced in the ODNB, with more precise details of his military service and first marriage.Cloptonson (talk) 19:48, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Second Marriage

I shall be rewriting this paragraph:

In coming to Wycherley's death, we come to the worst allegation that has ever been made against him as a man and as a gentleman. At the age of seventy-five he married a young girl, and is said to have done so in order to spite his nephew, the next in succession, knowing that he himself must shortly die and that the jointure would impoverish the estate.

I intend to make a more accurate and factual account of the second marriage, as there was a high degree of coercion, which I will source to his sketch in the ODNB. The quoted age of 75 is inaccurate if we take seriously the baptism date and death date difference (actually 74).Cloptonson (talk) 21:27, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

First Marriage

This phrase, apparently lifted from the late Victorian edition of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica, is ambiguous to interpret about the progression of Wycherley's relationship with his first wife and I have decided to delete this for that reason:

An introduction ensued, then love-making, then marriage..

When the Encyclopaedia was published 'love making' in common parlance was the term for courtship, whereas these days it is more usually the term for sexual relations - which may not have literally been the case in Wycherley's day despite the sexual licence common amongst the English court then. The couple did not produce children.Cloptonson (talk) 10:55, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Tone problems

The article has significant problems with tone/style/puffery throughout (besides the "Early life" section). The whole second paragraph of the "First two plays" section is probably the most obviously unsuitable, but the whole final paragraph of the "Last two plays" section, nearly the whole final paragraph of the "First marriage" section, and many other parts have major issues, mostly because they're taken from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica with minimal changes. A number of sentences are confusing/unclear because of this, and some changes to the text taken from the Encyclopedia Britannica aren't supported by the original. AKiwiDeerPin (talk) 06:04, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

As one who has tried to improve the presentation at different times in last few years, I found yesterday that changes seem to have been made by intervening editors that had altered or removed citations I had put in, with the effect that I had a citation for one part of a book but somehow the initial citation that would have introduced the full details of the book to the reader had been deleted, a few unexpected appearances of 'Not defined' comments in red, and of bracketed numbers that did not connect to footnoted citations ("[1]", "[2]", and "3]"). I have reinstated the removed citations, also unified citations to the ODNB to one format that omits page numbers (some of my previous ones depended on the page of the ODNB the information was taken from). The only changes I have made to text taken from the 1911 EB has been to tighten the grammar and paraphrase to read better to modern eyes. Hope that improves things in your sight.Cloptonson (talk) 06:59, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

I have read through the article and thank you for the further paraphrasing, cutting out much 1911 EB verbiage. I did restore a few words that may have been accidentally deleted, I have removed a 'clarification needed' tag because the phrase is taken from the source in the ODNB article, which quotation marked the "ill-usage" without detailing what form that took. I suspect they were grievances over his behaviour towards them as their commander. I have rephrased my reference to deployment on the Isle of Wight - there were no Dutch landings but they were anticipated with the naval attacks on Solebay that summer recently going on. I also replaced the sentence, which appeared to have been removed, that set this service in context of the Third Anglo-Dutch War.Cloptonson (talk) 08:58, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Later life section needs clarification

• "succeeded to a life estate in the family property" - Is this different from just inheriting the property? If not, that would be a much clearer phrase to use. If it is different, it still should be clearer/explained.
• "by special licence...he married" - What does "special licence" mean here?
• "the mistress of a cousin" - Whose cousin?
• "who had collusively and somewhat coercively" - Collusion with whom? Coercing whom?
• "the jointure would impoverish the estate" - "Jointure" should be made clearer/explained.

AKiwiDeerPin (talk) 07:22, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Note they are from sentences cited to that 1911 EB, unless otherwise stated. Reply to your points

• "succeeded to a life estate in the family property" - as the sentence is cited to the 1911 EB it may have been directly lifted from it by earlier editors. Don't know straight off how it could be paraphrased without knowing if there is a distinction, I have limitations to my English legal knowledge.
• "special licence" - this is what wikipedia itself says about this from its own article on Marriage license in the jurisdiction of England and Wales, abeit the paragraph needed a citation added: There were two kinds of marriage licences that could be issued: the usual was known as a "common licence" and named one or two parishes where the wedding could take place, within the jurisdiction of the person who issued the licence. The other was the special licence, which could only be granted by the Archbishop of Canterbury or his officials and allowed the marriage to take place in any church. This waived obligation to arrange banns in church (the 3 Sundays of public notice of the marriage) and restrictions on church where the marriage could take place. I have wikilinked the special licence.
• "cousin" - Thomas Shrimpton was a cousin of Wycherley on the latter's maternal side. I have resolved the ambiguity.
• "collusion" - the collusion of all sides, if we accept Wycherley's not turning her down and keenness to marry her as collusion on his part.
• "coercion" - from Shrimpton and Jackson on Wycherley. IIRC 'collusion' and 'coercion' (or words that derive from them) were both mentioned in my ODNB source - if you have access to the ODNB yourself delete either word if the ODNB did not in fact use it. The ODNB does make clear that Elizabeth Jackson was forced onto Wycherley.
• "jointure" - see wikipedia article Jointure. I have wikilinked the word.

Also BTW it appears that the reference to Wycherley's return to Roman Catholicism seems to have been removed. This does his religious history an injustice after his youthful interlude in the RC church, though I accept it may have been accidentally excised. If this was in the ODNB, I will restore it. (Nearest ODNB is in Shrewsbury Library but there is no 1911 EB there.)Cloptonson (talk) 08:12, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Having accessed an ODNB, I have restored the reference to his reconversion to Romanism.Cloptonson (talk) 13:16, 11 May 2024 (UTC)