Talk:Hebrew Melodies

Latest comment: 3 years ago by Doops in topic Reception section

Reception section

edit

Here's the sentence I tried to improve as currently written:

In October 1814 Byron wrote to his fiancée Annabella Milbanke (whom he was to marry in January 1815, and was a strict Christian) on his writing on this unlikely topic. "It is odd enough that this should have fallen to my lot - who have been abused as an "infidel" - Augusta says they will call me a Jew next" - and indeed that came to pass in street ballads, with comments from reviewers of the Melodies such as "A young Lord is seldom the better for meddling with Jews".

Note that there is no citation given for the quotation from the letter, no citation for the street ballads, and no citation for the quotation from the review. I've added tags.

I assume the citations will be easy to find. But there are two bigger problems: 1) the street ballads are mentioned so briefly and casually in passing that it would be easy for the reader to miss the point — why not quote from one directly? 2) As written, the sentence conflates a) Byron's line that 'they will call me a Jew next', b) the street ballads (which presumably do actually call him a Jew), and c) the comments from reviewers which do not call him a Jew, but rather make a joke about young lords borrowing money.

I presume the reversion was due to my explanation of the money-lender joke. I won't put that back in now, but I'll try to address the other problems as best I can. Doops | talk 16:58, 19 February 2021 (UTC)Reply