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Talk:One-hit wonders in classical music

This page was voted on for deletion at Votes for deletion/One-hit wonders in classical music. There was no consensus. dbenbenn | talk 23:26, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * (apologies for top-quoting but this comment really belongs to the vfd result) You listed one vote for merge, but actually the last block of comments shows a growing consensus for that option, and an acceptable compromise between some keepers and some deleters. It just wasn't recorded as a series of Merge votes. Where do we go from here? David Brooks 23:35, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * Sorry about that; I tend not to read the comments that closely when they're really long.

 * Given that the page wasn't deleted, anyone can perform a merge, regardless of what was said on VfD. Of course, others might disagree, and un-merge.  It's just editing as usual.  dbenbenn | talk 23:59, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * Dunno. I think what I'll do is keep tinkering with it, with the idea of making it more information-rich and less just a plain list. In cases where there's an identifiable reason why something became thrust into the spotlight, e.g. use as a TV theme, we should give the reason. In cases where we can quote someone authoritative, we should provide the quote, etc. If it eventually gets merged, that will make for more nutritious kernels of merge-grist. Dpbsmith (talk) 00:04, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * I think now that the VfD is over and no consensus was reached we should discuss a merge, as it seemed that idea was getting more support than the vote tally suggested. Is that an option people are still interested in? -R. fiend 23:37, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Deciding who is a one-hit wonder in classical music is more subjective than in popular music. After all, there is no Top-40 chart for classical music. Even though a particular composer may have more than one piece performed or recorded, perhaps only one is really a "hit". Also, a particular composer may have a single piece that has been performed or recorded, that doesn't necessarily make it a "hit". The former would qualify by "virtue" of having multiple pieces but only one hit. The latter would not qualify for this article because he had no hits.

 * Yes, there's a real problem here, because given any alleged "one-hit wonder" there will always be aficionados who know other works. Conversely, even for important composers, there may be one work that is so much more frequently heard by the general public than all the rest as to give the appearance of one-hit-wonderhood. For example, you could make a case for Dvořák being a "one-hit wonder" because the New World symphony must be a dozen times more frequently than anything else he ever wrote. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 00:59, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It seems there are several possible ways of looking at this, and it will probably be rather difficult to do it NPOV.

 * 1) Composers who wrote one piece that is significantly more popular than the rest of their work, or have a piece which is significantly more popular in some part of the world (the Lalo Symphonie Espagnole is a good example--his other stuff is done sometimes, especially the cello concerto--also Dpbsmith's idea of Dvorak's NWS is a good example)
 * 2) Composers who have only one work which is performed at all--other works are rarely if ever revived (this interprets the "one-hit wonders" a little more literally) (Mascagni is a good example);
 * 3) Composers who wrote one piece which has penetrated into popular culture, e.g. through a movie (Barber's Adagio for Strings, Ravel's Bolero)

It will be interesting to see if people from Europe or elsewhere have a different idea about what is a one-hit wonder, since if you listen to classical radio (especially commercial) in the U.S. you get a skewed perspective--skewed towards non-vocal, non-chamber, 18th or 19th century, or bland 20th. Antandrus 02:58, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

 * Am I the only one who thinks this list is insanely POV. I mean, I have heard of mostof these composers and several of their works.  Even Grofe. The page is already taking the POV of someone who hasn't!

 * Not only that, but we're not citing any outside source. Instead we are taking the opinions of Wikipedians as the source for the article contetns; that may be original research. I suggest we need a source citing all of the information on this page, get it NPOV or if that isn't possible to send it to VfD. :) --Sketchee 22:19, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)

 * Instinctively I agree, but the problem is that even within classical music circles, we often agree on a list of composers who are known for one hit. The trouble is, that list and the list here would be completely different, because the list here visualizes the somewhat-educated layman. For many of the composers here, I know and love lots of music. The aficianado's list would include, oh, I suppose Mascagni (Cav), Jarnefelt (Praeludium), Weinberger (Schwanda), people like that. I still would vote to delete. David Brooks 06:53, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * Any encyclopedia article about art, literature, music, etc. is either going to have an element of subjectivity to it or is going to be essentially meaningless. You can't be a Gradgrind, facts, facts, facts and say anything useful about music. I have enjoyed tinkering with the article and putting my fairly-defensible-but-not-fully-objective opinions into it. I think this article is borderline-encyclopedic but acceptable.

 * But, hey, it's a great big free country. Nominate the article for deletion or don't nominate it, but don't go on and on about it here, where by definition you're mostly talking to people who've contributed to the article and probably think it should exist. If you've never nominated an article for deletion before, for technical reasons the process involves several steps you need to follow, but they're well explained. It takes about five minutes. See WP:VFD. However, I suggest you read the deletion policy first and be fairly clear and explicit in articulating your reasons why it should be deleted. Also (warning: in-joke) I suggest that in your nomination, you avoid calling this article any kind of "cruft." Dpbsmith (talk) 13:56, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * I brought it up here because, like I said, if you think you can make it NPOV then do so or discuss how it can be done. (ie Cite sources and facts) If we reach a consensus on how to handle the article—move it, keep it here, check information, change types of information—a VfD can be avoided. If you're saying these are personal uncorroboratable opinions then I will list it on VfD and see what others think.  I think it's pretty fair to discuss with those of you who did work on the article, first, and see what you have to say about it.  I could agree with you after some discussion and, assuming good fath, the articles authors are probably open minded as well :)
 * See Verifiability: "An encyclopedia is not primary source material. Its authors do not conduct interviews nor perform original research. Hence, anything we include should have been covered in the records, reportage, research, or studies of others."
 * Yes, you can cite useful facts about music: "X said Y about piece Z." That would be verifiable.  An article about various music can be have subjective ideas while still being thoroughly referenced; that just lets us know who's opinions these are.  Music and art articles aren't an exception in that way.  Critics, composers, biographers, and others have written a lot about various works.  I don't think a straw poll of Wikipedians qualifies as a source is all.  If there are various magazine polls, books, tv programs, statistics, or whatnot that have discussed the level of popularity of works of music and someone wants to compile them, that would be encyclopedic IMHO.  This allows the reader to "consider the source" of the information.  There are certainly possible sources for this kind of information... I'm not sure if I'd put that under this title. --Sketchee 15:05, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC)
 * It's not a "hard fact". But pretending there is no distinction because the lines are fuzzy is also POV, if you want to take that tack. If you want to be more precise about it -- and I agree, that would be a good idea; what is Elgar doing on here, anyway? Surveys about classical pieces are far from hard science. But you *can* find out what has been frequently recorded, what shows up in concert and recital programs, what shows up in things like Classical Music for Dummies, for example. Look at Amazon results for Pachelbel recordings. As pointed out below, yes, we are up to our eyeballs in Pachelbel organ works. But the first hit for "Pachelbel" is "Pachelbel's Greatest Hit": a recording entirely of the Canon in D. You have to scroll down pages before you get to any Pachelbel that *isn't* the canon (only the canon is canon?). I know, Amazon test even worse than Google test, but it gives you a rough idea. This is not essential encyclopedia material, but I'd argue that it has a place here nonetheless. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 18:24, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it's true that a magazine survey isn't science; the fact in that case would be for example: "A Time Magazine survey said ____ about Pachelbel's Canon." That Time magazine said it would be verifiable and if the reader can decide whether they they trust the magazine as a source. We can all agree that there are certain works that are very popular compared to others. I think we can present information about classical music's popularity if we can find it. That would be encyclopedic. :)--Sketchee 19:28, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC)

 * I've used the words "borderline," "marginal," etc. I believe this page to be like (unfortunately) many Wikipedia pages.

 * In fact... it's classical fancruft.

 * It is an assemblage of very reasonable opinion by Wikipedia editors, based on their personal collective general knowledge, most of which could be referenced and made verifiable but hasn't been. When I say that Ethelbert Nevin is a "one-hit wonder" for Narcissus, I'm relying on my personal knowledge. Yes, I've been and will probably continue to be too lazy to take the twenty minutes it would take to find some music writer who could be quoted as saying the same thing. On my own unencyclopedic authority, I am totally confident that if I were to whistle the beginning of "Narcissus" most of the people reading this page could whistle the rest—and most of them would be utterly baffled to name or whistle anything else Nevin had ever written.

 * There is no doubt in my mind that a) this page does not pass even moderately strict criteria for verifiability, NPOV, or citation, b) that it theoretically could, but c) probably won't any time soon.

 * But there is also no doubt in my mind that the badly-referenced facts presented on this page are not seriously disputed That is: I think very few people would dispute that "The Dance of the Hours" is far, far, far better known than anything else Ponchielli ever wrote, and the same holds true for most of the items on the list.

 * The only real dispute on this page is where to draw the line, and whether it's possible to do so in any objective way. And the page itself acknowledges this. Nobody is going to read this page and come up with the idea that "classical one-hit wonders" is a recognized or well-defined concept and that this page is some kind of definitive list.

 * (Probably the biggest omission on this page is any mention of how some of these pieces got thrust into the spotlight. Doubtless many became hits as the result of a specific event and it would be interesting to have this researched....)

 * Anyway, I repeat: it's up to Sketchee. Nominate it for VfD, mark it for cleanup, slap an NPOV notice on it, whatever. I won't do it myself, though, because... I kind of like the page. (And if it Sketchee nominated it for VfD, my vote would be "Keep, although everything you say is perfectly true, because I kind of like the page.") So sue me. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:39, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * Nominated on VfD. Anyway, I have no problem with the actual opinions presented... I'm not disputing the information, but that it's sources are internal rather than external.  I know it's not disputed but we shoud present who says what even when "even when the information is currently undisputed".  In my personal opinion, I agree with you on the pieces you mention.  I like the hearing about what the Wikipedia users have experienced a lot in regards to classical music, but just not as a general Wikipedia article. Don't worry, no lawsuits here. :D--Sketchee 20:47, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC)

 * Well, I have a problem with the opinions being presented.  Wikipedia is not for personal essays, even group personal essays in which everybody throws in their opinions and votes.  The articles are not fun little forums for people to bullshit with each other.   It is an encyclopedia.   The concept of "one hit wonder" has no definition, so it is going to be defined by some kind of "consensus" of the people participating, although what people will think they are achieving consensus about beats me.  Have the editors heard more than one piece on the radio by the composer?   I see we have little votes going on this Talk page about who is a "one hit wonder": the article is basically going to be about the outcome of votes on its Talk page.    It is as if I started an article List of sexy classical music.   There is no definition of what "sexy" means in relation to classic music, but people might think they subjectively can tell whether a piece is "sexy" or not.    If there is any disagreement, we vote on the Talk page, and the article is the sum of the votes.   We could create any number of articles like this -- they would be great fun for the editors writing them to write.   Is that what the Wikipedia is all about?  This is complete stupidity, and the lot of you should be ashamed of yourselves for using the Wikipedia for your own amusement in this way.  --BM 06:51, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

If this article survives, would it be worth re-emphasizing that we are listing composers who have one work that has become more noted than any other, relative to their own corpus? It isn't intended to be a comparison among the works. For example I've heard the Elgar Cello Concerto (his second "hit") many times in the US and UK, and I've heard the d'Indy symphony...never.

But by that token we would list Mozart for the Elvira Madigan slow movement (lots of people have also heard the Confutatis without realizing it; does that count?). Like I said in vfd, it's out of control.

Bizet
I'm not sure Bizet qualifies as a one-hit wonder. I've heard his symphony in C and L'Arlesienne Suites played many times over the years on classical radio stations. Performed in the symphony myself. Rsduhamel 07:56, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Oh, I'm sorry. I'll take it out. Quop 07:59, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Maybe we don't need to be too hasty to remove Bizet, I just thought it needed some discussion. "Carmen" is enormously popular and parts are well known outside classical circles. The question is, do the symphony and L'Arlesienne qualify as hits. I used to hear them on the radio frequently so I think they do. Other opinions are perfectly welcome. I'm putting Bizet back in the article with an asterisk to refer to this discussion. I'm also putting a place to leave votes to qualify or disqualify him to be in the article below. Rsduhamel 00:34, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Votes to include Bizet
 * Yes - Quop (based on originally adding Bizet to article)
 * No - I've heard one or both of the L'Arlesienne Suites (or parts of them) on the radio frequently. Rsduhamel 00:34, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * No. Don't his operas count? Specifically, Carmen... and the Carmen suite?
 * "Carmen" is Bizet's hit. The question is, do any of his other works qualify as hits?
 * Oh, I thought we were discussing whether the L'Arlesienne Suite was his one "hit." I'd think the duet from The Pearl Fishers ought to count, too. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 01:14, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * No. Not only are lots of his works in the standard repertory (muddy concept that) but they are in the standard pops concert repertory.  The two L'Arlesienne Suites are perfect examples. Antandrus 02:41, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'm removing Carmen. It has occurred to me that given that Carmen Jones was a great big Broadway hit and movie that it is very likely that Bizet may have even had more than one song on the pop charts. Dpbsmith (talk) 23:57, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Franck
Ditto Franck. His—what did he call his piano concerto?—"Symphonic Variations"—is wonderful and considered a staple of the repertoire as well as his Symphony in D Minor. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 21:02, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

 * Some of his other music gets quite a bit of air-time, at least here in the U.S. The Variations symphoniques, as you say, as well as Le chasseur maudit ("the accursed huntsman"), Psyche, the F minor piano quintet, and above all the great A major violin sonata (we used to call it the "Frank Sinatra" for violin and piano...) I've played the string quartet, which gets programmed once in a while, and his organ music shows up on recitals pretty often.  Happy editing,  Antandrus 21:24, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Votes to include Franck
 * No - Dpbsmith (see above)
 * No - Antandrus (see above)
 * Yes - Never heard anything by Franck except the symphony. (probably missing out) Rsduhamel 00:34, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * You may think that's all you've heard, but I betcha a nickel that if you listen to "Symphonic Variations" you'll experience a shock of recognition. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 01:01, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Smetana
Votes to include Smetana
 * No - I've heard "The Bartered Bride", the suite or portions frequently on classical radio. Rsduhamel 00:50, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Good point. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]]

Ravel
I'm putting this here on the talk page because I expect it to be shot down. And I have to admit that he has at least two hits: Bolero, and "Pavane for a Dead Princess." Still... [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 01:16, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

 * I think Ravel deserves an "honorable mention" because "Bolero" is so well known outside classical circles. Perhaps a composer with such a "superhit" should qualify by virtue of having a single "superhit". However, Ravel is quite popular within classical circles, i.e. "Concerto for the Left Hand", "daphne et chloe", not to mention his definitive orchestration of "Pictures at an Exhibition", just off the top of my head. Rsduhamel 02:17, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

 * Actually, I was wondering about "Pictures at an Exhibition" for Mussorgsky, but I think "Night on Bald Mountain" is another Mussorgsky hit, disqualifying him...

 * Not to mention La Valse, surely the best known piece of Ravel... What a lot of nonsense this article is! 80.255 22:43, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Borodin
Does "In the Steppes of Central Asia" qualify as a hit also? Rsduhamel 02:18, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

 * Actually I think Borodin is more widely known (in the U.S. anyway--can't speak for the rest of the world) for the tunes in the musical Kismet, which came (mostly) from the 2nd String Quartet and the Polovtsian Dances than for any other single piece. The Prince Igor overture is pretty well known (not the whole opera, though), as is the 2nd Symphony (there's two others I don't know).  Hard to say.  It may actually be that "In the Steppes of Central Asia" is more often programmed on U.S. classical radio stations than any other single piece, though I'd be willing to bet the Polovtsian Dances are a close second.  He wrote a lot of piano music and songs that are unjustly neglected, IMHO.  Antandrus 02:29, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Boccherini
Even though at least one of his cello concertos may qualify as a hit, his minuet is quite familiar outside classical circles. This gives him a popular one-hit. Rsduhamel 02:47, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Rimsky-Korsakov
He should qualify because his "Flight of the Bumblebee" has transcended classical circles to become a popular one-hit.

 * I think Scheherzade and Capriccio Espagnole should also count as Rimsky-Korsakov "hits." I don't think we should base this on crossover because the interest is composers who had only one significant achievement, not composers who had many significant achievements in classical circles but got popularized because they were used as theme music for a movie, radio, or TV show ("The Green Hornet," I think, in this case). See also List of popular songs based on classical_music. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 13:33, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Elgar
His "Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1" certainly qualifys as a popular one-hit. However, his Enigma Variations are somewhat populer in classical circles, a frgment of which was used in IBM commercials in the 1980s.

 * Actually, I thought about adding this myself, but decided not to. His Enigma Variations are fairly well-known and so is his cello concerto. The latter was sort of a signature piece for Jacqueline du Pré. One of the problems I have with this page is: where do you draw the line? So much depends on how much familiarity one has with classical music.

 * Is Beethoven a one-hit wonder for the "Ode to Joy" section from the Ninth Symphony? It is certainly the only Beethoven piece many people know. Ditto Rossini and the ''William Tell" overture.

 * Is Colin McPhee a "one-hit wonder" for Tabu-Tabuhan or is he a zero-hit non-wonder?

 * Henryk Gorecki: one-hit wonder for Symphony 3, "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs," or zero-hits?

 * Scriabine: one-hit wonder for Poème de l'extase, or many hits?

 * Saint-Saens: one-hit wonder for "Carnival of the Animals," or does Danse Macabre bring it up to two? Or the Organ Symphony (parts of which were used by some Olympic figure skaters as dance music) to three?

 * Gorecki is an excellent example of a huge one-hit wonder--the sales totals for the Symphony No. 3 were astonishing. He's the only one of these several above that I think qualifies.  As far as I know he's still alive, so hopefully there will be more "hits" --IMHO the symphony deserves its reputation, it's an amazing piece.  Antandrus 00:33, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

 * OK, in it goes... [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 00:56, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Suppé
I think Suppé definitely qualifies because "Light Cavalry" is such a hit outside classical circles. However, I have to mention that there is a memorable "Popeye" cartoon where Popeye and Bluto battle over conducting an orchestra playing Suppé's "Poet and Peasant Overture". Rsduhamel 17:48, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Pachelbel
Pachelbel is really not a one hit wonder. While the "canon in D" has achieved a sort of iconic status, it has only done so in the last few decades; it certainly was not a "hit" in Pachelbel's day nor in the coming two centuries. Further, the "canon in D" has only achieved popularity because of modern stylings of it. During Pachelbel's lifetime, he was best known as an organist and composer of keyboard music. The repertoire he left behind was extensive, and much of it survivies to this day. This music is still heard regularly and considered part of the standard baroque organ repertoire. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 16:55, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

 * You might be interested in this section which I just added to the Pachelbel article... Dpbsmith (talk) 02:19, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Villa-Lobos
Just added: "Bachianas Brasilieras by Heitor Villa-Lobos". But which one? Aren't there several? There's the little train, the cello orchestra, the soprano song. I wonder whether the entry is meant to encompass all of them or one in particular? David Brooks

 * There are several of the pieces that Villa-Lobos wrote for guitar that are regularly played and are considered part of the standard repertoire for classical guitar. I know that I've heard at least two of them on the local classical music station recently (KUSC), so I really do not think that Villa-Lobos counts as a one-hit wonder. BlankVerse 14:46, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Ibert
If Ibert belongs here at all (and I think of him as a no-hit wonder), I'd vote for Divertissement, not Escales. At least the waltz was turned into some intro music for some radio show many years ago on the BBC. Any arguments?

Holst
Ethan Mordden is quite entitled to an opinion, but having an opinion is not ground from it to be reported as fact.

"Outside of Britain, Holst's hold on the repertory depends almost exclusively on The Planets."

 * 1) the validity of this fact is disputable. The likes of, for instance, the St. Pauls Suite or the Somerset Rhapsody are hardly obscure works.
 * 2) the title of this article is One-hit wonders in classical music, not One-hit wonders in classical music outside of Britain
 * 3) simply being Holst's most well-known large-scale work doesn't make the Planets Suite a 'one-hit wonder'; moreover, as a suite, it isn't so popularly well-known as the short excerpt incorporated into the hymn I vow to thee my Country.

This list seems to be using all manner of different yardsticks to determine what qualifies for the silly (and encyclopaedically worthless) lable of 'one-hit wonder'. Being 'in the repetory' does not equate to 'being popular' or 'popularly well-known'. Anyone who is reasonably knowlegable on his genre will know of many works by Holst; someone who isn't won't--I suspect that many people, even if played extracts from The Planets Suite, wouldn't be able to identify the composer. The fact that people's musical interests and knowlege vary is not reasonable grounds for an encyclopaedia article. You may as well create a page called List of pieces of music I've heard of!

At least with the popular music 'one-hit wonders' list there is actually an objective yardstick for measuring popularity--record sales. This article, on the other hand, is a POV mish-mash seemingly comprising a mixture of pieces that different contributor's happen to know best from various composers, or, in Holst's case, Ethan Mordden's opinion. Someone's opinion alone does not justify the inclusion of anything in an ostensibly objective list. And if this list is not objective then it's pretty worthless. 80.255 00:06, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

imminent merge
I'm going to soon start merging this article into the One hit wonder article, and I'd like to get some input on how this should best be done. I was going to have a separate large section at the end of the page which would start by mentioning that the term has unofficially been applied to classical artists at times, then going in to the problems of doing so. The real issue will likely be the list, and who's included on who isn't. I'm thinking of breaking the list into sections, and pointing out that the criteria is slightly subjective. Sections will be based on the criteria, as discussed on the VfD: whether the composers has a single "hit" far above his other music, or if he really has only one piece that is known at all, etc. I'm not familiar with some of the peopl on the list, and may need substantial help. -R. fiend 18:40, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

 * We have many lists on Wikipedia where inclusion or exclusion is done on the basis of consensus opinion, such as List of major flops, List of unusual personal names, List of movies that have been considered among the worst ever. All are considered borderline "listcruft" but they are amusing, people like them, and the survive VfD.. This really isn't any better or worse than many others.

 * I think part of the problem with this list is that it tempts people to show off their personal knowledgability by demonstrating personal familiarity with some relatively-less-well-known composer. So far, nobody's challenged the inclusion of Ethelbert Nevin, but I am sure there are those that could reel off the names of dozens of compositions by him and imply that you must be an ignorant fool if the only Nevin piece you know is Narcissus.

 * I had thought that I could help by slowly nibbling away at providing sources for assertions, but, as you will see above, 80.255 knows all about Holst's many choral works and therefore will not accept the inclusion of Holst on the list, despite the fact that a very well-known guide to classical music says "Outside of Britain, Holst's hold on the repertory depends almost exclusively on The Planets."

 * Maybe it is possible to do it as a narrative, rather than a list, with specific names and works being mentioned as examples. "There are composers with a body of work that is well-known to serious musicians, but have only a single piece familiar to the general public, often as a result of its use as a movie, radio or television theme; for example..." Dpbsmith (talk) 21:55, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

 * I think I might prefer a narrative to a list, as it explains as it goes, which is important in cases like this, and it encourages less of the "hey I think they forgot Mendelsson, I'll slap his name on there, after all he only wrote that bridal march thing as far as I know" mentality that was the bane of the Jumping the shark article. The downside of a narrative to a list is that many of the names would have to go, as it would be far too tedious to mention them all in such a format. -R. fiend 00:06, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

title: Talk:One-hit wonders in classical music


text:
Louise Fitzhugh

Louise Perkins Fitzhugh (October 5, 1928 – November 19, 1974) was an American writer and illustrator of children's books. Fitzhugh is best known for her 1964 novel Harriet the Spy, a fiction work about an adolescent girl's predisposition with a journal covering the foibles of her friends, her classmates, and the strangers she is captivated by. The novel was later adapted into a live action film in 1996. The sequel novel, The Long Secret, was published in 1965, and its follow-up book, Sport, was published posthumously in 1979. Fitzhugh also wrote Nobody's Family Is Going to Change, which was later adapted into a short film and a play.

Fitzhugh died at age 46 from a brain aneurysm on November 19, 1974.

Early life and family
Louise Fitzhugh was born in Memphis, Tennessee, on October 5, 1928 as the only child of Louise and Millsaps Fitzhugh, a lawyer. Her father came from a wealthy family in Memphis, and she is a descendant of Reuben Millsaps, the founder of Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi. He graduated from Emory University and met Louise Perkins, an aspiring tap dancer, in 1926 on a boat traveling from New York to England. They married, but his family disapproved of the marriage due to her lower social standing and they divorced after a year, shortly following Fitzhugh's birth in 1928. Her father gained custody of her after a publicized legal battle while her mother moved to Hollywood. She grew up in Memphis with her father and stepmother, Sally Taylor, and was told that her mother was dead. Her father went on to become a U.S. district attorney. When Fitzhugh was a teenager, she discovered the truth while working at the Memphis newspaper, The Commercial Appeal and finding coverage of the divorce proceedings in the archive. She began writing at the age of 11.

She graduated in 1946 from Miss Hutchison's School where she had been popular, but felt out of place as a debutante in upper-class society, and was appalled by her peers' racist attitudes. Fitzhugh had a series of romantic relationships as teenager, beginning with a boy named Charles McNutt. After dating for two years, she fell in love with a photojournalist named Amelia Brent, her first love affair with another woman. While still seeing Amelia, she also dated a local boy named Ed Thompson, and eloped with him in 1947, at the age of nineteen. The marriage went unconsumated and her father had it annulled from Memphis.

Education
Fitzhugh briefly attended Southwestern College (now Rhodes College) after graduating from Miss Hutchison's, and transferred to Florida Southern College in 1947. In 1948, she transferred again, this time to Bard College, after her uncle, novelist Peter Taylor, recommended its writing program. She studied child psychology and literature under poet James Merrill at Bard, but left in 1951, six months before her graduation.

Using money inherited after her grandmother's death in 1949, Fitzhugh moved to New York City to study art. She lived in Greenwich Village and studied at the Art Students League and Cooper Union starting in 1952. She also traveled to study art in France in 1954, and Bologna in 1957.

Career
In 1961, Fitzhugh published her first children's book, Suzuki Beane, coauthored with Sandra Scoppettone, which was a parody of Eloise; while Eloise lived in the Plaza Hotel, Suzuki was the daughter of beatnik parents and slept on a mattress on the floor of a Bleecker Street pad in Greenwich Village. Fitzhugh worked closely with Scoppettone on the production of the book, which incorporated typewriter font and line drawings in an original way. Although a parody of both Eloise and beatnik conceit, the book sprang to life as a genuine work of literature and was immediately popular with both adults and children.

Fitzhugh continued to be a successful painter in New York, showing her work, primarily realistic portraits, nudes, and city scenes, alongside artists like Jacob Lawrence, Ad Reinhardt, and Louise Nevelson. She had a particularly successful solo exhibition at Banfer Gallery in 1963, but also wrote profically, penning several plays and adult novels that were never published. Around this time, Fitzhugh attempted to publish Amelia, a novel about two teenage girls falling in love, in remembrance of her first love Amelia Brent, who had died apparently by suicide in 1956. The manuscript was rejected by an agent for its lesbian subject matter, and later disappeared.

Harriet the Spy
After the success of Suzuki Beane, Fitzhugh began working with editor Ursula Nordstrom, who helped publish her most successful work, Harriet the Spy, through Harper and Row. It was published in 1964 to some controversy, since its characters were flawed and engaged in behavior that many felt weren't suitable for children. Although it received many negative reviews at the time of its publication, It was hugely popular with young girls, and has since become a classic. It is also considered a milestone book for introducing "a new realism to children's fiction.  Harriet is the daughter of affluent New Yorkers who leave her in the care of her nanny, Ole Golly, in their Manhattan townhouse. A curious and solitary child, she spends her time spying on other people, often her friends and neighbors, recording her cynical and bluntly rude observations in a notebook.

The book has been adapted three times, starting in 1996 with a film starring Michelle Trachtenberg and Rosie O'Donnell. In 2010, it was adapted as the Disney movie, Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars and in 2021 as an animated series.

She wrote two other books in the same universe, The Long Secret and Sport.

Fitzhugh was a lesbian. "Although Harriet's sexuality is never touched on in the book, her boy's clothes and bravado sent a message to some kids who felt different and didn't know why."

Her 1974 novel Nobody's Family Is Going to Change was adapted into the short film The Tap Dance Kid for Special Treat in 1978. It was also adapted into the 1983 Tony-nominated musical The Tap Dance Kid.

Personal life
According to a biography published in 2020, Fitzhugh was romantically linked to actress Constance Ford and casting director Alixe Gordin.

Death
Fitzhugh died on November 19, 1974, at a New Milford, Connecticut, hospital of a brain aneurysm, eight days before the publication of Nobody's Family Is Going to Change.

Novels

 * Harriet the Spy (Harper & Row, 1964)
 * The Long Secret (Harper & Row, 1965) – sequel to Harriet the Spy
 * Nobody's Family Is Going to Change (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1974),
 * Sport (Delacorte, 1979) – posthumously published quasi-sequel to Harriet,

Children's books

 * Bang, Bang, You're Dead, (co-written with Sandra Scoppettone), illus. Fitzhugh (Harper & Row, 1969),
 * I Am Five, written and illus. by Fitzhugh (Delacorte Press, 1978),
 * I Am Four, illus. Susan Bonners (Delacorte, 1982),
 * I Am Three, illus. Susanna Natti (Delacorte, 1982),

As illustrator only

 * Suzuki Beane, written by Sandra Scoppettone, (Doubleday, 1961),

Awards

 * New York Times Outstanding Books of the Year citation, 1964
 * Oklahoma Sequoyah Book Award, 1967 (Harriet the Spy)
 * Posthumous
 * Children's Book Bulletin, 1976 (Nobody's Family Is Going to Change)
 * Children's Workshop Other Award, 1976 (Nobody's Family Is Going to Change)
 * Emmy Award for children's entertainment special (The Tap Dance Kid, based on Nobody's Family Is Going to Change).

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Louise Fitzhugh


text: Category:Fauvism

title: Category:Fauvism


text:
World Food Prize

The World Food Prize is an international award recognizing the achievements of individuals who have advanced human development by improving the quality, quantity, or availability of food in the world. Conceived by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Norman Borlaug and established in 1986 through the support of General Foods, the prize is envisioned and promoted as the Nobel or the highest honors in the field of food and agriculture. It is now administered by the World Food Prize Foundation with support from numerous sponsors. Since 1987, the prize has been awarded annually to recognize contributions in any field involved in the world food supply, such as animal science, aquaculture, soil science, water conservation, nutrition, health, plant science, seed science, plant pathology, crop protection, food technology, food safety, policy, research, infrastructure, emergency relief, and poverty alleviation and hunger.

Laureates are honored and officially awarded their prize in Des Moines, Iowa, in an award ceremony held at Iowa State Capitol. Laureates are presented with a diploma, a commemorative sculpture designed by Saul Bass and a monetary award of $ 250,000. The Foundation also has the aim of "inspiring exceptional achievement in assuring adequate food and nutrition for all". A number of associated events and honors include the World Food Prize Symposium or the Borlaug Dialogue, the Iowa Hunger Summit and youth programs such as the Borlaug-Ruan International Internships.

History
Norman Borlaug (1914–2009) was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for contributions that resulted in the extensive increase in global food production. Chairperson of the Nobel Committee Aase Lionæs gave the rationale that the committee had linked providing much needed food to the world as a path for peace. Further, the increase in food production has given policy planners across the world more years in figuring out how to feed the growing population. 12 years later, Borlaug approached the Nobel Foundation to include a prize for food and agriculture. However, the Foundation was bound by Alfred Nobel's will which did not allow for the creation of such a new prize. Borlaug continued his search for a sponsor elsewhere.

In 1986, General Foods Corporation, under Vice President A. S. Clausi's leadership, agreed to establish the prize and be the founding sponsor. The amount they agreed to, US$ 200,000, was equivalent to the value of the Nobel Prizes at the time. In 1990, the sponsorship was taken over by businessman and philanthropist John Ruan and his family. The Ruan family established the World Food Prize Foundation backed by an endowment of $ 10 million. In 2000, Kenneth M. Quinn was made the president. Borlaug, Ruan, and Quinn were all from the US state of Iowa. Barbara Stinson succeeded Quinn as the second president in 2019. The former Des Moines Library was acquired and the Ruan family gave $ 5 million to renovate the building into the headquarters for the World Food Prize Foundation. A number of sponsors would go on to contribute over US$20 million in a campaign to transform the building into a public museum, the Hall of Laureates, to honor Borlaug and the work of the World Food Prize laureates. Other sponsors have included over 100 charitable foundations, corporations and individuals, who have helped sustain the prize and the Foundation's associated events. The Founder's Boardroom in the Hall of Laureates commemorates 27 individuals who played an important part in the foundation of the prize.

The first chairperson of the World Food Prize laureate selection committee was Norman Borlaug. Borlaug appointed the first laureate M. S. Swaminathan as his successor in 2009. Currently, Gebisa Ejeta, the 2009 laureate, is the chairperson. Apart from the chairperson who is a non-voting member, other members of the selection committee remain anonymous.

On January 24, 2023, the Foundation announced that former Iowa Governor and U.S. Ambassador to China Terry Branstad would take over as President, replacing outgoing former president Barbara Stinson.

Associated events
The Foundation has expanded into a number of associated events including the Norman E. Borlaug International Symposium, also known as the World Food Prize Symposium or the Borlaug Dialogue. A Youth Institute was established in 1994 to motivate youngsters in agriculture, food, population and connected sciences. Youth Institutes have been set up in 24 states of the United States, and three other countries. On the basis of essays, high school students are selected to take part in the activities of these institutes. Participation in these institutes also makes one eligible for an eight-week internship program.

The Borlaug-Ruan International Internship provides high school students an eight-week opportunity for a hands-on experience, working with world-renowned scientists and policy makers in the area of hunger and nutrition at leading research centres around the world. The internship was founded in 1998 and has funded over 350 Borlaug-Ruan interns who have travelled to 34 agricultural research centres around the world. The Iowa Hunger Summit has taken place during the week of the World Food Prize events since 2007. The event is open to the public and celebrates the role Iowans play in fighting hunger and advancing food security each year.

title: World Food Prize


text:
Golden, British Columbia

Golden is a town in southeastern British Columbia, Canada, 262 km west of Calgary, Alberta, and 713 km east of Vancouver.

History
In 1807, David Thompson – renowned fur trader, surveyor, and map maker – was tasked by the North West Company to open a trading route to the lucrative trading territories of the Pacific Northwest. He first crossed over the Rocky Mountains and travelled along the Blaeberry River to the future site of Golden.

In 1881, the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) hired surveyor A. B. Rogers to find a rail route through the Selkirk and Rocky Mountains, and in 1882, he found the pass now named for him. Rogers established a base camp for his survey crew led by a man named McMillan. Initially known as McMillan's Camp, the settlement was the beginning of the town of Golden. By 1884, in response to a nearby lumber camp naming itself Silver City, the residents of McMillan's Camp, headed by Baptiste Morigeau, decided not to be outdone and renamed the settlement Golden City. The word city was later dropped.

In the late 1890s, the CPR began importing Swiss mountain guides to assist travellers attracted to the area to explore the surrounding mountains, Glacier National Park, Yoho National Park and the Rogers Pass region, as part of their efforts to promote tourism to the mountain parks area. The railway built a group of chalet-style house in a section that became known as Edelweiss, some of them still standing, to encourage the guide to bring their families to Canada and remain year-round. The men made many of the first ascents of area mountains and helped pioneer the ski industry in the region.

Golden is also the site of notable South Asian Canadian history, after Sikh settlers first arrived in Golden in 1902 to work at the Columbia River Lumber Company. These early settlers built the first gurdwara (Sikh temple) in North America in 1905, which burned down in 1926.

Much of the town's history is tied into the CPR and the logging industry. The town's economy still relies heavily on those two influences, but the development of Kicking Horse Mountain Resort, along with other outdoor adventure companies, has allowed the town to diversify into tourism. Mount 7, which is just southeast of town, is also an outdoor activity destination. The town forms part of the Golden Triangle cycle route.

Kicking Horse Pedestrian Bridge is the longest freestanding timber-framed bridge in Canada. Planned as a community project by the Timber Framers Guild, volunteers from Golden were joined by carpenters and timber framers from the United States and from Europe. The bridge structure is 150 ft long, with a 210,000 lb Burr arch structure. The bridge was completed in September 2001.

In June 2021, the Golden Skybridge opened. The bridge is the highest suspension bridge in Canada.

The Golden meteorites fell there on October 4, 2021.

Geography
Golden is nestled in the Rocky Mountain Trench, built around the confluence of the Columbia and Kicking Horse rivers, surrounded by three different mountain ranges (most notably the Purcell Mountains and Rocky Mountains) and five national parks: Yoho National Park, Banff National Park, Jasper National Park, Glacier National Park, and Kootenay National Park.

Golden is on Highway 1 (the Trans-Canada Highway), and it is the northern terminus of Highway 95, connecting it to the United States via the rest of the East Kootenay region and the city of Cranbrook, British Columbia (B.C. Highway 95 is a continuation of U.S. Route 95, which runs north-to-south through the U.S. and into Mexico). The Trans-Canada Highway east of Golden has numerous upgrade projects ongoing to greatly improve the roadway west of the Yoho National Park boundary. The Ten Mile Hill section of the project was recently completed and is a major upgrade to the old highway.

Climate
Golden has a climate with influences of the humid continental (Dfb) and semi-arid (BSk) varieties. Summers are warm but rarely hot, with winters being somewhat moderated in comparison to areas east of the Rockies. Annual snowfall is heavy, averaging 184 cm.

Demographics
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Golden had a population of 3,986 living in 1,734 of its 1,892 total private dwellings, a change of NaN% from its 2016 population of 3,708. With a land area of 11.33 km2, it had a population density of in 2021.

Religion
According to the 2021 census, religious groups in Golden included:
 * Irreligion (2,430 persons or 62.3%)
 * Christianity (1,225 persons or 31.4%)
 * Sikhism (115 persons or 2.9%)
 * Hinduism (40 persons or 1.0%)
 * Buddhism (15 persons or 0.4%)
 * Other (55 persons or 1.4%)

Economy
Golden has a service-based economy, relying heavily on tourism and services for tourists. Golden also features shops and other businesses, and a large number of hotels.

Education
Public education is provided by School District 6 Rocky Mountain which operates 3 primary schools and one secondary school. Community College education is offered by the Golden Campus of the College of the Rockies.

Notable people

 * Doug Barrault, retired hockey player
 * Dillon Dubé, NHL player with the Calgary Flames
 * David Duncan, freestyle skier
 * Curtis McKenzie, NHL player with the Dallas Stars
 * Patricia Owens, actress
 * Sara Renner, Olympic medal-winning cross country skier

title: Golden, British Columbia


text: User talk:61.145.136.171

title: User talk:61.145.136.171


text:
Talk:Le Morte d'Arthur

Title: less or more obscure?
If you asked, "Which is the Wikipedia entry, " Le Morte Darthur" or "Le Morte d'Arthur,"' I could have told you it would be the more obscure one. This is consistent throughout Wikipedia. It's a little streak of affectation we seem to have. Wetman 08:08, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I changed it back, after checking with Google. Seems that there is a slight proponderance for the apostrophe version in titling of modern editions and a very great proponderance in Google counts for citing the title with the apostrophe, probably because it feels better grammatically in modern English (which isn't a bad reason). I still slightly prefer the form "Le Morte Darthur", because it is the original and because it looks more wrong while being more pedantically correct and because it is used for the recent excellent Norton Critical Edition which blows away a lot of Vinaver's nonsense and inspired me to fiddle with the article, originally just to include a reference to that edition in the bibliography. Jallan 17:34, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I agree that the original is the original. Besides, if we're in the business of correcting titles, the title should really be La Morte d'Arthur. Why correct the apostrophe but not the article? 49giantsharks (talk) 18:21, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Is it really in Middle English?
Surely "Le Morte Darthur" as published by Caxton in 1485 is in Early Modern English, not Middle English? -Zac.
 * The hoole booke of kyng Arthur & of his noble knyghtes of the rounde table.
 * at least the title looks like Early English and not Middle English.. in Middle English they still used that runic which I dont know how to write in this stupid japanese keyboard instead of th right? I talk from my reading of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. And another thing
 * "Many modern editions update the spelling and some of the pronouns from Malory's original Middle English, repunctuate and reparagraph, but otherwise leave the text as it was written."
 * if they update spelling, pronouns, punctuation, and paragraphing.. what is that is "left as it was written"?--Lacrymology 03:14:58, 2005-08-04 (UTC)
 * :-) Everything else. The story is still told in the same words without rephrasing anything.
 * I'm not sure that the use of the thorn character Þ (does Alt-0222 work on your keyboard?) determines the language - I think what counts is the content. If after getting used to the spelling, the typeface and the odd unfamiliar word you can read the book without any extra help, then it must be in your language. -Zac
 * which means nothing, really.. I could pretty much read Sir Gawain and english is not my language, actually =). Anyways, I heard that Tolkien has an unfinished translation of this book, so I take it it's not as "transparent" as Shakespeare --Lacrymology 05:09:38, 2005-08-05 (UTC)
 * I'm a bit puzzled by your response. According to the linguists I've spoken to, the definition of a common language is mutual intelligibility.  If, after allowing yourself a short period of adjustment, you're able to read a text or understand a person without assistance, then by definition you must be using the same language as it or them.  Even highly literate native English speakers are not usually able to properly understand Sir Gawain or Chaucer without assistance, therefore those texts are considered to be in a different language from ours, hence the need for translations, as you yourself mention.  I'm suggesting that "Morte Darthur", by contrast, is just as comprehensible to the modern reader as Shakespeare or the King James Bible, and therefore belongs to the same language as them.
 * This all seems quite reasonable to me so I don't understand what it is that you find meaningless. As for English not being your language, according to your page it is one of your languages!  -Zac
 * By "not my language" I meant not my mother language, and I could speak it even less when read Sir Gawain, althought I must accept that even if I understood the most general meaning of the story, I didn't get it in detail. I shouldn't be surprised if I tried to read it again and I didn't understand it, not because my english has got worse, but because my standards to consider that I understood a text have grown. Anyways, so hereby you're telling me that while Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is not generally understandable by the average english reader, La Morte Darthur is, and therefore, "Middle English" should be changed to "Early Modern English", and I say that since that was what you said to begin with and no one has come to say otherwise.. why haven't you changed that yet =). What I said was "meaningless" was the "same language" thing, because I didn't know Middle English was considered a different language. --Lacrymology 17:22, August 5, 2005 (UTC)
 * As I'm not an expert I thought I would post a question first and wait for someone more knowledgeable than me to come along and provide an answer. Since no such person has yet done so and since it has been a week or two perhaps I should go ahead and change the page myself. -Zac
 * I am not an expert either (yet), but I have never heard of a scholar who did not consider Malory Middle English. Bear in mind that modernized spelling and annotations will make this a somewhat easy text, but most people would not want to ponder the original.  As for thorn, its use does not define Middle English but Malory did use my favorite letter - all modern editions have replaced þ with th (read the preface to the Norton Critical Edition).  Middle English began its transition to Modern English with Caxton's printing press in 1476, seven years after Le Morte Darthur's completion.  Most definitely Middle English.
 * On the contrary, Malory's writing is quite readable without annotations. Much more readable than Shakespeare's, for example, whose works are pretty universally classified as Modern English. In time frame, Le Morte Darthur is on the border between Middle and Modern English, and I don't think it matters one way or another which you call it (I'd go with Middle English, per the citation below). This does not mean Malory's writing is difficult, however. Standardized spelling and punctuation make any text more readable, whether printed 500 years ago by Caxton or typed 5 minutes ago in a chatroom, but it cannot conceal differences in syntax or vocabulary. No spelling updates will remake Chaucer into modern English, but Malory's short sentences and simple word choice make Le Morte Darthur remarkably comprehensible over half a millennium later.
 * Malory wrote in Middle English. Source: Oxford English Anthology of English Literature page 445.Cariel 23:05, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Hello, I decided to be bold and made the change from Early Modern English to Middle English. Languages don't change overnight, but Malory completed the text in 1469, so it seems that to consider it Middle English is more accurate, and I haven't read any critical articles which suggest otherwise. Although it might be more understandable than Sir Gawain and the Green Knight to a modern reader, the difference is largely to do with the dialect the Gawain poet uses. If anyone can find anything contradicting this, feel free to change it back, or if there does turn out to be any controversy among experts concerning the language, that could be mentioned in the article. Amphy (talk) 18:51, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Best known work of Arthurian literature - in English
Just added the words "English-language" to the introduction. Many would argue that the most prominent piece of Arthurian literature is that authored by Chretien de Troyes, which introduced much of the mythos used by Malory. BTW, would someone care to enlighten us about why Malory used (or tried to use) a French title for an English-language book ?
 * Because in 15th century England, French was still the language of "Shyvalerie" and the knights and lords descended from Breton, Norman, and Flemish immigrants of the 11th-12th centuries were expected to be conversant with it. Not too conversant, of course, or Malory's book would have been unnecessary; but as late as 1408 at least one English poet was still writing with equal ease in both English and Norman-French.  Moreover, though French skills among the English upper classes seem to have diminished from about 1400 on, down to 1453 the English still held French lands and the soldiers who went over to France had an opportunity to pick up some French.  One of those soldiers was Thomas Malory.  He was obviously proud of his French skills and took the occasional opportunity to show them off.
 * Ditto to the above, except that so far as we know, the title isn't Malory's. Caxton's editions were published as Le Morte Darthur; the Winchester Manuscript doesn't have that title, which is one of the things that led Vinaver to think of this as the "collected works" of Malory.
 * Also, why "tried to use"? It's not as if he failed to use a French title. 130.184.114.23 13:08, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Written in Prison
'Malory likely started work on it while he was in prison' I'd like to seem a citation for this. According to Kaeuper's Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe, the only thing one can mention about Malory without stirring up controversy is that he admired prowess. Unless I see substantial evidence about Malory's imprisonment, I opt for removing that line. Cariel 16:14, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

 * William Caxton is the one who said Malory was a prisoner in his introduction to the book. We shouldn't remove the line, as the prison thing shows up in every discussion of Malory, but maybe we should clarify why people think he started the book in prison.--Cúchullain t/ c 19:10, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

 * There are several explicits in the Winchester manuscript that mention the author's being in prison. The debate over which Sir Thomas Malory wrote the work was cleared up AFAIK in the mid-ninties; recent scholarship (post 1996 or so) should be helpful in this. 130.184.114.23 13:11, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Kaeuper's book was written in 2001, so that would be POST 1996 ;) I still opt for removing reference to him being in prison.Cariel 23:08, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Where is discussion about the necessity of merging, Cuchullain?

 * Why can there be discussion about merging, User:Cuchullain? When do you explain about your necessity of merging, User:Cuchullain? --NPThomas 18:42, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

 * "The Book of King Arthur and His Noble Knights of the Round Table" ( "The hoole booke of kyng Arthur & of his noble knyghtes of the rounde table" ) indicates, first, the true original version written and compiled by Thomas Malory, and second, the ones respecting this true original one mostly, not "Le Morte d'Arthur" editted and published later by William Caxton. Apparently both should be distinguished clearly. And Malory's (supposed) original version contains more stories than Caxton's. This means that Caxton cuts Malory's many original stories and puts the others into his favorite style "Le Morte d'Arthur". So, Malory get angry or disappointed if he saw Caxton's "Le Morte d'Arthur". Merging both works in question into one article, therefore, is obviously inappropriate. Caxton has troubled many scholars and writers because he has not fully respect Malory's original version "The Book of King Arthur and His Noble Knights of the Round Table" ( "The hoole booke of kyng Arthur & of his noble knyghtes of the rounde table" ) and lost it (probably) for ever. So, unless the proof that completely indicates Thomas Malory is the same person as William Caxton is discovered, there is absolutely no necessity to merge "The Book of King Arthur and His Noble Knights of the Round Table" into "Le Morte d'Arthur". The former has many main character and many various stories, but the latter dumps supporting player's stories and makes only the King of Arthur the main character. --NPThomas 18:42, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

 * I think, therefore, The Winchester Manuscript should be moved, or copied and pasted to a new section of "The Book of King Arthur and His Noble Knights of the Round Table". In fact, "The Book of King Arthur and His Noble Knights of the Round Table" ( "The hoole booke of kyng Arthur & of his noble knyghtes of the rounde table" ) has directly the closest relations with The Winchester Manuscript. So, "The Book of King Arthur and His Noble Knights of the Round Table" is apparently preferable to "Le Morte d'Arthur". --NPThomas 18:42, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

 * What we're talking about here is two editions of the same book. The Whole Book was originally written by Malory. The Winchester Manuscript is likely the closest extant thing to Malory's original work. Then William Caxton got a hold of it, edited it, and printed it under the title Le Morte d'Arthur. And I don't know where you're getting the idea that Caxton severelly cut stories and characters from Malory's book; Caxton kept the many main characters and many various stories. The only major changes Caxton made that I can recall are dividing Le Morte into the 21 books and rewriting the section about the war with Emperor Lucius (but this might have been done by Malory himself!). At any rate, the differences between the two versions have never been resolved, and are best discussed in a single article.--Cúchullain t/ c 21:04, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Yes, I see no reason to keep the information in different articles. We're talking about different versions of the same book. As such, the articles should be merged into the most well known title, which is Le Morte d'Arthur. -Phoenixrod 19:27, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

 * I'll try to get on it.--Cúchullain t/ c 21:46, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

 * Well looks like it didn't get done... So I went ahead and did it. --ShakataGaNai (talk) 06:34, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Winchester v. Caxton
While I realize that there has been scholarship that suggests the Winchester manuscript is "more original" than the Caxton manuscript, should this article discriminate so thoroughly against the latter in its presentation of the storyline? I believe that it's fairly well established that Malory was not an author in the traditional sense (creating original work through his own imagination), but rather a compiler, principally of the French Vulgate tradition; thus, I would think that the argument about "originality" is purely academic and, while certainly meriting mention in the article, should not be sided on by the article. In a sense, Caxton and Malory did the same kind of work on this text (organizing the work of others, which may have been based on the work of still others ad infinitum, for publication in English). This leads me to my ultimate point, should more work be done to organize an article that is equally accessible to readers of both the Winchester and Caxton editions? For example, Elizabeth J. Bryan's edition of the work follows the pattern of the Caxton edition (complete with Caxton's chapter descriptions and 21 book/507 chapter divisions), and is fairly common in American universities (I know that it is used at several different schools, or has been in the recent past). Yet, despite this, this article does not provide an easily accessible point of entry for those better seeking information on a particular section of the Caxton edition, because the description of the book is described from the 8-book division of the Winchester Manuscript. Could we somehow combine this information? Indicate which sections of Caxton's edition correspond to those of the Winchester Manuscript? I would make these changes myself, but this is precisely the problem that I had upon trying to use this site to find a particular section in my Caxton-based edition.204.52.215.69 21:07, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

 * Good inquiry - I am just sitting over a copy text of the Caxton edition I'll try to make available to my students - if you had the chapter, I'd be happy to include it in this free-use edition... --Olaf Simons 08:11, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

 * Thanks Olaf, but I'd managed to find it (Tor's adventures with the dwarf, white hart, etc.) through the old-fashioned method of rereading the early sections. All the same, I think that it would be great if someone more comfortable with both editions of the text could work to combine them. 204.52.215.69 (talk) 02:30, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Middle English
First, Id like to say that sometimes I have trouble considering this to be Middle English - but I cannot consider it "Early Modern English" either. Morte d'Arthur is a transisionary piece anyhow (bridging late medieval and early Renaissance) so we should pretty much expect that its language will be as hard to categorize as the piece on the whole can be. I agree that the Corpus Christi Cycles, or the Morality plays ("Mankind" or "Everyman") are a slightly less intelligibale middle english. But having said that, here is why you are "less correct" to call this early modern english, and more correct to call the work middle english.

Here is an excerpt from a something Malory wrote which has not been modernized in spelling (and remember, it ought to be in beffuddling calligraphy):

"fo in many persones there ys no stabylite; for e may se all day, for a lytyll blaste of wyntres rasure, anone we shall deface and lay aparte trew love, for lytyll or nowght, that coste muche thynge. Thys ys no wysedome nother no stabylite, but hit ys fyeblenes of nature and grete disworshyp, whosomever usyth thys."

I think that most current english speakers may be able to come up with some working definition of the individual words, but would have great difficulty getting a coherent sentence out of that. Note that most Morte d'Arthur has updated spelling but not syntax, so the original text would appear similar to what ive recorded here.

Here are some random words which occur in Morte d'Arthur, and seem very much to be middle english, or at least incomprehensible to us: MALORY / (TODAY)

awke / (backhanded) abode / (withstood) cream / (chrism - damn, I dont know what the chrism means either!) cedle / (letter) handsel / (gift) medley / (conflict) loos / (renoun) sib / (related) shower / (misfortune)

There are a few hundred words like this. There is no congnative connection, and they are therefore unintelligible to the uninitiated. Enough to throw you a loop when they are key words surounded by words which are only half familiar. At any rate, it should be clear that this is not "early modern english" since we can prett ymuch undersantd all of that. Eric Forest (talk) 05:44, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
 * See the discussion in the "Is it Middle English" section above. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.30.8.122 (talk) 03:29, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

the title D or d'
I just wonder, If the original publication used D, does anybody know why? The correct spelling - in French - is d apostrophe. We all know the title means "The Death of Arthur". I dont tihnk i need to explain this, but it may save me doing it later. The D is really "de", French for "of", but when it comes before a vowel (as in Arthur) you can use a contraction (d'). So it contracts from "Le Morte de Arthur" to "Le Morte d'Arthur" (If it was the death of, say Billy, it would have to remain "Le Mort de Billy).

Anyhow, as you an see, the correct (if not original) arrangment is d'. Anybody know why they used the wrong one? I thought that either Malory or Caxton's French was lacking, or maybe Caxton's early printing press just wasnt equipped? And a beter question still - regardless of why they printed it D, should we persist in their mistake? Eric Forest (talk) 05:44, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Jim Dunning | talk  18:49, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The 1485 Caxton printing does not have a cover (so its title is missing), but "le Morte Darthur" is what appears in the colophon. E. K. Chambers, in his Malory essay (in Oxford History of English Literature [Vol. 2, part 2]), seems to think the fault doesn't lie with Malory. This seems to say that he's certain Malory would have correctly translated it into French from his sources and he's laying the blame with Caxton. However, since the original Malory manuscript cannot be consulted, then we must go with what we have (missing cover and all).

Alfred Tennyson's - Morte D'Arthur
Why no ref to the Tennyson poem? I can't even see a footnote. Surely a external context, influences and impacts section is needed. Spanglej (talk) 21:39, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

 * There's no reference because it is an article still very much under construction. There should be one, of course - perhaps you would like to add it? Hadrian89 (talk) 21:47, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Oakeshott
Since Oakeshott now has his own entry the redirect here is inappropriate.--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 06:31, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

The synopsis
is, quite frankly, crap. It is absolutely chock-full of "some say", "feminists say", "most literary criticism" without one damn source. Each assertion needs to be sourced or gutted.98.223.111.14 (talk) 07:15, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

 * I agree. This reads like the first draft of someone's term paper.  It would probably be best to take all of those paragraphs out of the synopsis and write a "themes and interpretation" section.Hal 10000.0 (talk) 06:16, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

 * Are there any specific examples in the article? Hyacinth (talk) 21:51, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

 * It's a total mess. The summary is full of individual analysis, when the main purpose of a summary is to state the facts of what happens in the plot. There's no need for the author to be mentioned at all, but every other sentence is 'Malory does this' and 'Malory does that'.--ImizuCIR (talk) 01:33, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

 * I also noticed that all of the book numbers and titles are extremely different from the version I have, and was hoping to get some clarification. Specifically, I have the 2015 Canterbury Classics edition with an introduction by Stephanie L. Budin, PhD, and illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley. In this edition, Book VII is the story of Beaumains/Sir Gareth, whereas this article lists Book VII as Sir Lancelot and Guinevere. I just wanted to know if the synopsis is wrong or if it is due to different versions of the manuscript? Sasgandurra (talk) 19:46, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Weasel
What, where, and how does this article contain weasel words and how should it be cleaned up? Hyacinth (talk) 21:28, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

 * I don't know about weasel words, but the section about Book VIII: "The Death of Arthur" has been compromised by someone inserting inappropriate comments IN CAPITAL LETTERS contradicting a previous writer's statements. I've tagged that section accordingly.

Muzilon (talk) 08:58, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Title spelling
It seems unlikely that the title is actually Middle French, as claimed in the lead. Although other words have changed their gender in French, as far as I can tell, mort has always been feminine (i.e., "la mort"; see the Trésor de la langue française). A discussion on WordReference brings up two theories: one, that Malory or Caxton made a mistake; two, that they were following a tradition in English of calling such books "le morte". If someone has one of the modern editions handy, it would be interesting to see if they address this. Lesgles (talk) 20:46, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, I added a reference from a footnote in the Norton edition. Lesgles (talk) 18:40, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Inexperienced editor?
It looked to me like an inexperienced Wikipedia editor had been at work here. The editor obviously disagreed with many statements in the article but instead of changing them, added the words "not the case" or "actually" in capital letters before saying why the text was wrong. This created an article that disagreed with itself several times.

I have left the "not the case" and "actually" comments in the source text but modified it so that they can only be seen during editing.

Although I read and enjoyed Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Idylls of the King and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and absolutely loved History of the Kings of Britain in the Penguin Classics translation, I never got beyond the first chapter of Le Morte d'Arthur, so, I don't know which statements are true. I'll leave it to other editors to sort it out. --Simon Peter Hughes (talk) 11:11, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Edited opinion
The following seems to be unreferenced opinion. There are likely scholarly articles that back up some of these assertions, yet these are interpretive comments more akin to "Original Research" or personal opinion than a digest of the plot. I have removed them from the article, but kept them here for discussion.

"Guinevere is portrayed as a scapegoat for violence without developing her perspective or motivation. Despite this unsympathetic portrayal, the growth of Morgan le Fay as a character through her reconciliation with Arthur on the barge could call these interpretations of misogyny into question. Malory’s portrayal of Lancelot is more sympathetic than that of Guinevere and tries to redeem him as the most honorable knight. The portrayals are equally unflattering because Guinevere is Lancelot’s impetus for action. Lancelot cannot satisfy Gawain by explaining that, in the tumult to save the queen, and with their helmets being on, he did not know that he had slain Gawain's brothers; nor did he know that they were unarmed. Lancelot later claims that due to his great love of Gareth, who he had made a knight, he would never have killed him intentionally. General interpretations find the Pope’s failure to settle Lancelot and Gawain’s feud as characteristic of the failure of the institution of religion to provide ethical guidance throughout the text, echoing “The Noble Tale of the Sankgreal.” However, in the book, the papal bull is actually accepted. But while Gawain respects the pope's bull, he also perhaps sees that there is a loophole in that while the bull stops the fighting for now, it does not prevent future warfare. Thus, Gawain tells Lancelot that within a period of time, the war will resume. With the failure of institutions and the collapse of the Round Table, the only hope Malory can offer the reader is in Arthur’s second coming to recover the throne, a hope fostered by the inscription on Arthur’s grave: HIC JACET ARTURUS REX QUONDAM REXQUE FUTURUS, or 'Here lies Arthur, the Once and Future King'"

I did keep a bit of the "Guinevere as scapegoat" commentary, but put it into the section regarding her retiring to a nunnery. --Petercorless (talk) 17:32, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Remove tags at top of article?
I would like to suggest the four tags about quality standards, personal essay, tone and weasel words can all be removed. This article (as of March 5 2013) seems acceptable as is, although two of the tags were added three months ago. The article has many sources and it has an accurate description of the story and historiography. Other thoughts?Princetoniac (talk) 19:10, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
 * We could move the tags to the sections with the issues. Certainly there are tone issues, and the lack of inline sourcing does not help determine how to rewrite those. Since December 2012 only one citation was added, but nothing else was done. Also, the first section has a quote that is far too long and should be introduced and summarised to avoid surprising the reader. -84user (talk) 07:18, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Style Problems
The Summary sections go beyond encyclopedia-style summary and into literary analysis. Take, for example, the following:

''"The Pentecostal Oath (the Oath of the Round Table) counterbalances a lack of moral centre exemplified in the fratricide in "The Tale of Balyn and Balan". Also, once in power, Arthur becomes a king of dubious morals even while he is held up as a beacon of hope. Arthur's most immoral acts are the begetting of Mordred since Arthur had lain with a woman whom he did not know was his half-sister and to whom he was not married and the following mass infanticide, which only add to Arthur's shaky morality and cast Merlin in a negative light from which he never emerges. There is even the notion of being overly moral, in that Arthur on two occasions is prepared to burn Guinevere at the stake (reminiscent of King Saul's willingness to sacrifice even his son, Jonathan, if he had done wrong). Arthur's unique notion of morality plagues him for the whole of his reign. The attempt to kill off the infants harks to the tale of Herod seeking to kill the infant Jesus. Thus there is a mixture of splendid, David-like, kingship, and low, Herod-like royalty, that both find their place in Arthur.

In the end, the book still holds out for hope even while the questions of legitimacy and morality continue in the books to follow. Arthur and his knights continually try and fail to live up to their chivalric codes, yet remain figures invested with Malory’s desperate optimism."''

While perhaps more interesting for a certain subset of readers, such commentary is not helpful in this context. Proposing trimming these sections. — Preceding unsigned comment added by St ethereal (talk • contribs) 20:40, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Winchester Manuscript section
In March, an IP partially, then completely removed this entire section without explanation (their only edits, as far as I can tell), but no one in the past 7 months seems to have noticed this rather dramatic act of vandalism. Does anyone have this article watchlisted? Chuck Entz (talk) 02:36, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Substantial Changes
We are a group of five students working on a project for Professor Cyrus Mulready's Introduction to British Literature class at Suny New Paltz. We are working on making significant improvements to this page and some things we would like to accomplish include: adding a section about the style and language of Le Morte D'Arthur, and another about the personal life of Mallory. We would also like to fact check a few problems addressed on talk page, and edit out some irrelevant information. We will be working on this for the next couple of weeks and if there any questions feel free to let me know Krissc89 (talk) 00:23, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

The link to...
"Lugodoc's Guide to Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur," doesn't seem to work any more.

albabe -  The Writer /Artist Formally Known as  Al Gordon

Publication history?
Is there any other information about publication history? How did Caxton get Mallory's manuscript? I know there was no copyright law at the time, but was there any commercial transaction with Mallory's estate?--Jack Upland (talk) 04:01, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Later publications
What is the criteria for inclusion here? It seems to include later editions and later works that have some connection to Mallory's work...--Jack Upland (talk) 07:04, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Regarding the "You have a New Message" Template
The "You have a New Message" Template is not allowed on Wikipedia articles, so whoever put it on this article needs to take it down ASAP. Vincentupsdellred (talk) 21:16, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

"Reception" section
It just feels weird and seems to be misnamed. I moved it here in the entirity (it's all quotes) after moving the prose parts elsewhere:

"The Arthurian characters and tales act like litmus, responding to the issues, aspirations, and anxieties of readerships in every different time and place that they touch. But Arthurian narratives can also act on the cultures that reproduce them, whether expressing an idealizing national wish about the "Camelot" Kennedy administration in the early 1960s, or articulating English King Edward I's symbolic kinship with the Welsh in hopes of military advantage in the late 1200s..."

- Bryan (1994), p.x

"These and other controversies [providential historiography vs. Christian penance, courtly love vs. adultery] operating within the accumulation of tales and genres lend some force, ironically, to Caxton's claim that readers should look to this text for moral example. Caxton instructed readers of this narrative of knights' adventures to "Doo after the good and leve the evyl, and it shal brynge you to good fame and renommee." It is ultimately the enormous complexity of conflicting demands that will engage moral sensibilities of readers of this text."

- Bryan, p.xii.

"I think my sense of right and wrong, my feeling of noblesse oblige, and any thought I may have against the oppressor and for the oppressed came from [Le Morte d'Arthur]... It did not seem strange to me that Uther Pendragon wanted the wife of his vassal and took her by trickery. I was not frightened to find that there were evil knights, as well as noble ones. In my own town there were men who wore the clothes of virtue whom I knew to be bad... If I could not choose my way at the crossroads of love and loyalty, neither could Lancelot. I could understand the darkness of Mordred because he was in me too; and there was some Galahad in me, but perhaps not enough. The Grail feeling was there, however, deep-planted, and perhaps always will be."

- John Steinbeck

A list of characters (with what they do) would come in handy
Many of them have their own articles but their roles precisely here are usually not told very well and sometimes even at all. --94.246.150.68 (talk) 22:53, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Succession
I have made a small change to the Book VIII section to show Constantine as the son of Sir Cador, as per the text on Wikisource: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Le_Morte_d%27Arthur/Volume_II Was previously saying him to be the son of King Carados of Scotland, but since Carados and Cador are both listed in book XIX chapter XI as separate chartacters, there is no reason to think them the same. Nickpheas (talk) 09:41, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

External links modified
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Replace image
The present image is entirely useless. The 1906 edition isn't special in any way, and it would make much more sense to do as we do with Shakespeare and use an image of the title page of the earliest available copy. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:25, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Malory's title
The article at present states confidently that Malory titled the book "The Whole Book of King Arthur and of His Noble Knights of the Round Table". However, this assertion is quite unwarranted. "The whole book of..." is not a usual title for a book. It is necessary to consider the context of the phrase above. The fact is that at the end of each section Malory wrote an endnote of the kind "Thus endeth the tale of Balyn and Balan...", and at the end of the final chapter he wrote "Here is the ende of the hoole book of King Arthur and his noble knyghtes of the Rounde Table ... And here is the ende of the deth of Arthur..."; in other words, "This is the end of the whole book, and also the end of the chapter describing Arthur's death." It therefore seems improbable that "the whole" was part of the original title.

It is more likely, as [Robert Lumiansky] (1987) argues, that Malory's title was the same as Caxton's, i.e. "Le Morte Darthur". Lumiansky cites three works which Malory used as sources, which had the titles: Morte Arthure, Le Morte Arthur, and La Mort le Rois Artu, all of which contained material other than the actual death of Arthur.

At the end of his edition, Caxton writes: "Thus endyth this noble and joyous book entitled Le Morte Darthur, notwithstondyng it treateth of the byrth, lyf, and actes of the sayd Kyng Arthur...", which implies that the book was originally called "Le Morte Darthur", even though, as Caxton says, it is not really an accurate description of the book's contents. The present article needs to be altered to take this into account. Kanjuzi (talk) 23:35, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Le Morte
The article at present says "Le Morte Darthur; Middle French for "The Death of Arthur"". This is not correct. The Middle French for "the death" is "la mort", never "le", which appears to be a spelling mistakenly used by Malory himself. I have therefore changed it. That Malory's original title was le morte Darthur seems fairly clear from the fact that Caxton tells us so, expressing his surprise that this title was used even though the stories describe Arthur's birth, life, and acts as well has his death. Kanjuzi (talk) 11:55, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

 * As pointed out in the footnote immidiatly after, "le" and "la" was often collapsed into just "le" in Anglo-Norman French from the 13th centuary onward. 2001:4650:8170:0:8D0A:284C:5BF2:315 (talk) 02:52, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

What is marriage of king uther all about?
Plss answer 112.198.200.220 (talk) 23:54, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Le Morte d'Arthur


text:
Rifled breech loader

A rifled breech loader (RBL) is an artillery piece which, unlike the smoothbore cannon and rifled muzzle loader which preceded it, has rifling in the barrel and is loaded from the breech at the rear of the gun.

The spin imparted by the gun's rifling gives projectiles directional stability and increased range. Loading from the rear of the gun leaves the crew less exposed to enemy fire, allows smaller gun emplacements or turrets, and allows a faster rate of fire.

These rapidly improving breech systems and the powerful new guns they facilitated led to an arms race in fortification and ironclad warship design that led to the battleship class of HMS Dreadnought and continued until the start of World War I.

Overview
The major problem to be solved with breechloading artillery was obturation: the sealing of the breech after firing to ensure that none of the gases generated by the burning of the propellant (initially gunpowder) escaped rearwards through the breech. This was both a safety issue and one of gun performance – all the propellant gas was needed to accelerate the projectile along the barrel.

The second problem was speed of operation – how to close the breech before firing and open it after firing as quickly as possible consistent with safety.

Two solutions were developed more or less in parallel, the "screw breech" block and "sliding wedge" or "sliding block".

At the time of development of the first modern breechloaders in the mid-19th century, gunpowder propellant charges for artillery were typically loaded in cloth bags, which combusted totally on firing. Hence, unlike with a metal rifle cartridge, the breech mechanism itself somehow needed to provide obturation.

The early "screw" mechanisms for sealing the breech consisted of threaded blocks which were screwed tightly into the breech after loading, but the threads themselves were insufficient to provide a gas-tight seal. This was further complicated by the need to screw and unscrew the breech as quickly as possible; this was met by the "interrupted thread" breech block, where the block circumference was alternately threaded and left unthreaded at a slightly smaller diameter to allow the whole block to be fully inserted and rotated a fraction to lock it. Hence if the block circumference was divided into two sets of threads and gaps, the block only needed to be rotated ¼ turn to lock it instead of several turns. The tradeoff was that only ½ the block's circumference was threaded, reducing the security accordingly.

The other possibility of sealing the breech was to enclose the propellant charge in a metal cartridge case which expanded on firing and hence sealed the breech, leaving the breech-block merely needing to lock the cartridge case in place. This was more easily accomplished by sliding the block in behind the cartridge case through a vertical or horizontal slot cut through the rear of the breech : the "sliding wedge" or "sliding block" breech.

Early breechloaders
The very first cannons of the Middle Ages were breech loaded, with gunpowder and shot contained in pots dropped at the back of the barrel, but the poor seals made them dangerous, and they wore quickly and could not be scaled to larger weapons. Until the 19th century, only muzzle-loaders were used.

In 1837, Martin von Wahrendorff patented a design for a breech-loader with a cylindrical breech plug secured by a horizontal wedge; it was adopted by Sweden in 1854. Independently, Giovanni Cavalli first proposed a breech-loader gun in 1832 to the Sardinian Army, and first tested such a gun in 1845.

Armstrong screw breech
Advances in metallurgy in the industrial era allowed for the construction of rifled breech-loading guns that could fire at a much greater muzzle velocity. After the British artillery was shown up in the Crimean War as having barely changed since the Napoleonic Wars the industrialist William Armstrong was awarded a contract by the government to design a new piece of artillery. Production started in 1855 at the Elswick Ordnance Company and the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich.

His "Armstrong screw" breech involved loading the shell and gunpowder propellant charge in a cloth bag through the hollow breech screw, lowering a heavy block into a slot behind the powder chamber and screwing the breech screw tightly against the block to lock it in place. A degree of obturation was achieved via a cup on the face of the block being forced into a recessed ring on the chamber face. The system was in effect a vertical sliding block such as later used by Krupp in both horizontal and vertical form, with the crucial difference that Armstrong failed to make the progression to loading the powder charge in a metal cartridge, with the result that complete obturation was impossible.

Whatever obturation that was achieved relied on manual labour rather than the power of the gun's firing, and was hence both uncertain, based on an unsound principle and unsuited to large guns. Armstrong screw-breech guns were initially adopted by the British Army and Royal Navy, but concerns about limited armour penetration of the shells due to limited maximum velocity, safety concerns with the breech blocks blowing out of guns, and higher skill levels demanded of gunners led the British Government to revert to rifled muzzle-loaders from 1865 to 1880, when Britain finally deployed reliable screw breech mechanisms.

The Imperial Japanese Army used Armstrong cannon during the Boshin War to devastate the Aizu castle town and force its inhabitants to surrender quickly, and British Armstrong light field guns proved deadly against Chinese forces in the Second Opium War. However, the British Army and Navy preferred to revert to muzzle-loaders until larger high-powered breech-loaders with secure obturation systems that were relatively simple to operate were developed.

Broadwell ring
American engineer Lewis Wells Broadwell who worked as sales agent for the Gatling Gun Company in Europe replaced a papier-mache obturating cup in bag-loaded RBLs with a metallic gas ring and patented his invention in 1861, later perfecting it in 1864 and 1866; most countries paid royalties to Broadwell for the design, but in Germany the Krupp company stole it and used it for free.

French efforts
In the meantime the French persevered with trying to develop breechloaders which combined faster loading than muzzle-loaders, high power, safety and solved the problem of obturation. The Lahitolle 95 mm cannon of 1875 with an interrupted screw breech met the first three requirements to a great extent and partially solved the obturation problem.

Finally the de Bange system introduced in 1877 solved the obturation problem with an asbestos pad impregnated with grease which expanded and sealed the breech on firing. The de Bange system formed the obturation system for all subsequent screw breeches to the present day. Britain adopted the de Bange breech when it returned to breechloaders in the early 1880s after some initial experiments with the inferior "Armstrong cup" obturation system.

Britain, France, and the United States preferred screw breeches for most calibres, but the major drawback of the de Bange interrupted screw as first implemented was that only half of the circumference of the breech block could be threaded, and hence it needed to be fairly long to achieve safe locking of the breech, which required three separate motions to open after firing; rotate to unscrew, retract the screw and swing to the side. Loading required the 3 operations in reverse. This was hence termed a "three motion block" and was slow to operate.

Welin breech block
While working as a weapons designer for Thorsten Nordenfelt in London, Axel Welin solved this problem in 1889–1890 with his stepped interrupted screw Welin breech block. This had threads in sets of steps of increasing diameter so that instead of only half of the screw being threaded, the fraction threaded was number of steps / (1 + number of steps): i.e. if the block of a large gun had four steps of threads, 80% of the screw was threaded, allowing a much shorter screw and hence breech block. This allowed the block to be unscrewed and swung out in two motions – the "two motion interrupted screw" breech.

Bofors ogival screw
Also in the early 1890s, Arent Silfversparre of Bofors invented an ogival screw breech, similar to the Armstrong model in the way it eliminated the need to withdraw the screw before swinging it to the side. Bofors continued to use this in medium artillery into the 20th century. The Elswick conical screw breech is very similar in concept.

The sliding block

The German company Krupp in contrast, adopted "Horizontal sliding block" breeches, rather than screw breeches, for all artillery calibres up to 16 in naval guns. This was similar in some ways to the original "Armstrong screw"; the shot and powder cartridge were inserted through the open rear end of the breech into the gun bore, and a steel block was slid home into a horizontal slot cut through the breech to close the rear end of the breech.

However, unlike Armstrong, Krupp loaded the powder propellant in a metal cartridge case much like a large rifle cartridge, which expanded against the chamber wall on firing and effectively sealed the breech. The sliding block, in both horizontal and vertical forms, and metal cartridge case continued to be the preferred German breech system until after World War II (e.g. 7.5 cm Pak 40), and is still used by some modern artillery.

Quickfiring guns
The first quick-firing light gun was the 1-inch Nordenfelt gun, built in Britain from 1880. The gun was expressly designed to defend larger warships against the new small fast-moving torpedo boats in the late 1870s to the early 1880s and was an enlarged version of the successful rifle-calibre Nordenfelt hand-cranked "machine gun" designed by Helge Palmcrantz. The gun fired a solid steel bullet with hardened tip and brass jacket.

It was superseded for anti-torpedo boat defence in the mid-1880s by the new generation of Hotchkiss and Nordenfelt "QF" guns of 47-mm and 57-mm calibre firing exploding "common pointed" shells weighing 3–6 lb.

The French firm Hotchkiss produced the QF 3 pounder as a light 47-mm naval gun from 1886. The gun was ideal for defending against small fast vessels such as torpedo boats and was immediately adopted by the RN as the "Ordnance QF 3 pounder Hotchkiss". It was built under licence by Elswick Ordnance Company.

Both the Hotchkiss and Nordenfelt guns loaded ammunition as a single cartridge with projectile, cartridge case and primer in a single unit. The cartridge case sealed the breech on firing and a vertical sliding wedge (block) locked it in place. These new guns incorporated recoil control devices which facilitated consistency of aim, allowed single-motion loading and could be fired as soon as the cartridge was inserted, and then ejected it after firing, these properties denoting a "quick-firing" gun. This set a new standard for artillery, and made firing cycles measured in seconds rather than minutes possible.

Britain used brass cartridge cases for all calibres up to 6 inches in the late 1880s and early 1890s. However, British-designed quickfiring ("QF" in British terminology, which became synonymous with charges in metal cartridge cases) continued to use screw breech blocks, but with their function merely to lock the cartridge in place rather than provide obturation. The powerful backward force generated by 6-inch QF guns still required a strongly seated breech screw with as much thread as possible. However, a basic interrupted-thread screw sufficiently long enough to have enough thread to secure the cartridge on firing still required three separate motions to operate – rotate, withdraw, swing aside after firing, and repeated in reverse before firing.

Elswick Ordnance Company (Armstrong's ordnance arm) developed a coned version of the interrupted-thread screw, with a decreasing rather than constant diameter towards the front. This eliminated the second "withdrawal" motion, with just two motions now necessary, rotate and swing aside. This proved short-lived, with Britain adopting charges in bags using the Welin stepped interrupted screw for all guns 5 in and up within several years of it becoming available.

title: Rifled breech loader