Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Millie (short story)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. RL0919 (talk) 23:03, 26 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Millie (short story)

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There aren't any reviews/analysis other than in somebody's blog. This is a test case, as the template at the bottom of the article shows lots more of these critters. Clarityfiend (talk) 19:44, 19 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 19:50, 19 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the Article Rescue Squadron's list of content for rescue consideration. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 21:08, 19 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Keep "these critters" is one the classic modernist authors, a "Western canon" figure. I'm amazed but not surprised we need to defend a literary figure of this stature. As if there are not countless PhDs and critical works about Mansfield that any AfD nom should be checking for. Yes the articles need work (most articles do), but AfD isn't cleanup and anyone who knows anything about literature would know that Mansfield and her works are way beyond notability. -- GreenC 21:41, 19 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

GreenC: Do you think it fits for 5. The book's author is so historically significant that any of the author's written works may be considered notable. from WP:BOOKCRIT? --MarioGom (talk) 23:49, 19 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Merge all short stories by Katherine Mansfield into a single article titled Short stories by Katherine Mansfield. The individual titles can section-redirect to the appropriate points in the merged article. bd2412 T 22:03, 19 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You probably mean a "Bibliography" article (ie. Category:Bibliographies by writer) for example Edgar Allan Poe bibliography, they usually link to standalone articles. There are no articles titled "Short stories by.." -- GreenC 23:21, 19 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@GreenC: There are plenty of articles titled "List of short stories by" - a pertinent example would be List of short stories by Ivan Bunin. bd2412 T 11:04, 21 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm I searched for 'Short stories by.." but either way the "List of" format is similar to the Bibliography articles, each entry has a few sentences and optionally a link to the main article. The existence of lists doesn't preclude a longer treatment elsewhere or other way around. -- GreenC 19:06, 21 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Notified: Talk:Katherine Mansfield, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Literature, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women writers, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women's History, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject LGBT studies by 7&6=thirteen. MarioGom (talk) 23:11, 19 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Meets WP:GNG certainly. Google Scholar as well as Google Books have plenty of leads, looks like WP:Before was not followed. Gleeanon409 (talk) 22:08, 19 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. Passing mentions of the story in articles about the author are not enough to establish notability for a standalone page. Please, see WP:BOOKCRIT. --MarioGom (talk) 23:22, 19 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- True, however it’s quite obvious that “There aren't any reviews/analysis other than in somebody's blog” is patently false. If critical to this process, I’m sure some appropriate sources can be identified. And WP:RX can often get copies if not online. Gleeanon409 (talk) 23:41, 19 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Merge as per GreenC. Notability is not inherited. This short story does not meet notability criteria. If not merge, then simply delete. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 04:53, 20 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy Keep The nomination starts with a clear falsehood as it is quite easy to find detailed coverage of the topic such as "Millie" (1913). Andrew D. (talk) 07:51, 20 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to Something Childish (which could be expanded with brief details of each story), or to a section in Katherine Mansfield (or the already-suggested bibliography article) if SC is also deleted or redirected. This article as it stands is a disgrace. Apart from publication details (and the recently added link to the text) and a plot summary (with no secondary sources), it contains only one short, unsourced sentence describing the writing style. Until my recent edit this sentence was in a section misleadingly titled "Literary significance" although the article made no claim of literary significance at all. This article is already poisoning the well in that the first page or so of google results link to multiple copies of it, thus the sooner the content is deleted the better. I have looked through the google results for this short story and most are indeed to blogspot or wordpress articles or similar. Of those, A Review of Katherine Mansfield’s “Short Stories” says that "Millie" is one of two of her short stories set in New Zealand both of which have a darker tone than her other stories, but illustrates this with a quote from the other story. There is also this Master's thesis which mentions "Millie" as "an early and interesting example of a story which hinges on a limiting situation" but has whole sections discussing other stories or topics. From this I deduce that "Millie" has no outstanding literary significance in its own right, and thus should not be a stand-alone article. (For an idea of what to expect, I also had a look at "The Birds" by Daphne du Maurier: it is clear that this, the only one of her short stories with its own article as far as I can see, is only an article because of Hitchcock's film, since it too makes no claim to literary significance and has no review sources.) --Mirokado (talk) 13:55, 20 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy keep Apparently some of you have evidently missed Janet Wilson; Susan Reid; Gerri Kimber, eds. (May 5, 2011). Katherine Mansfield and Literary Modernism. London New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, Continuum. p. 38. ISBN 9781441151544. And there is more at Google books and Google Scholar. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 14:01, 20 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. A helpful soul at the Humanities Reference Desk has suggested the following as all helpful to the Style section at least:
- Critical essays on Katherine Mansfield by Rhoda B. Nathan. G.K. Hall, 1993
- The Development of a Consistent Structural Pattern in Katherine Mansfield's Short Stories, Volume 1. By Fred Stanley Madden. University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1978
- MANSFIELD, MISOGYNY AND MURDER: 'OLE UNDERWOOD', 'THE WOMAN AT THE STORE' AND 'MILLIE' REVISITED. By Bruce Harding. Journal of New Zealand Literature (JNZL). No. 6 (1988), pp. 119-136
- Kimber, G. (2010) “An art that strikes deeper”: Katherine Mansfield and Rhythm. Paper presented to: Poznon 2010: Second Bi-annual Conference of the European Network for Avant-Garde and Modernism Studies (EAM): High & Low, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland, 09-11 September 2010.
- Katherine Mansfield and the (Post)colonial by Gerri Kimber, Edinburgh University Press, Sep. 16, 2013. Some quotes from this one below:
  - "Mansfield's early experimental, New Zealand regional stories - 'Millie', 'Ole Underwood'..."
  - "In essence, she forged the soul of her own race by exploring the dialectic between home and not-home, between New Zealand and England. Perhaps the most obvious contrast can be found in her story 'Millie' (1913), in which Mansfield contrasts an English print of Windsor Castle which depicts..."
  - "I suggest that among Mansfield's aims in stories like 'Millie' and 'The Woman at the Store', was to re-envision a nineteenth-century European settler society in crisis through the lens of modernist writing."
  - "...tier of the masculine outdoors (a form of landscape primitivism), and the feminised genteel interior (a morally civilising presence). These are compared to Mansfield's exhibition of take genteel interiors and imported artefacts in stories about the primitive frontier enfironment like 'Millie'..."
  - "What distinguishes Mansfield's literary evocations of New Zealand society and the world of middle-class childhood more specifically from the colonial text is her use of symbolism through which pioneer vulnerability and inherited social and cultural norms are delicately balanced, yet also deliberately exposed. In'Millie' this symbolism of an empire, dense with cultural artefacts, is represented in the language of the displaced, and in cultivation of the narrative moment."

I’m willing to follow-up and get copies of these if no one else is, WP:RX can provide these to anyone. Gleeanon409 (talk) 19:05, 20 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. See WP:Before, section C1: "Consider whether the article could be improved rather than deleted. If the article can be fixed through normal editing, then it is not a candidate for AfD". Seems fairly clear, given the availability of the sources mentioned above . MichaelMaggs (talk) 21:38, 20 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, meets WP:NBOOK, i may be going out on a limb here ("dont worry coola, the branch is strong enough!:)), but i reckon mansfield may be one of the writers where no. 5 applies ie. "5.The book's author is so historically significant that any of the author's written works may be considered notable.", sources mentioned above show that article can be expanded, as for "This article as it stands is a disgrace. ... the sooner the content is deleted the better..." (as well as "run little stubbies, before the big bad editors destroy you!), just a small reminder from WP:CONTN - "Notability is a property of a subject and not of a Wikipedia article.". Coolabahapple (talk) 04:38, 22 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Comment And WP:Preserve 7&6=thirteen (☎) 11:17, 22 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per the excellent research into sources by Gleeanon409 and their Humanities librarian - if not per WP:NBOOK#5 as Coolabahapple suggests. (And, as I seem to find reason to comment too often, "google results" are not the way to assess notability of subjects which predate the internet - or even some which postdate it, if they're not the focus of online media.) RebeccaGreen (talk) 12:14, 24 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per everyone above. Her stature as an author makes her works pass WP:NBOOK#5.4meter4 (talk) 12:34, 26 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.