The internet: a salutary lesson

[french frank]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-22971225

Not the authorship of a rather obscure poem, but the role the internet plays in disseminating false information as well as useful stuff. How, one wonders, did this false attribution ever start? It's not as if this is a 19th-c. poem discovered in some ancient library: it was written in the 1980s!

Some years ago our local branch library removed (whither I know not) the Encyclopedia Britannica (then the latest edition) because much of it was 'already out of date' and schools were encouraging students to use the latest information on the internet for their 'research'.

I expressed the view that a very large percentage of the EB was not 'out of date'.

[amateur51]

An interesting item, french frank

However, had the poem been slipped into a printed book, would the fraud have been noticed earlier, later or not at all?

One problem with books is of course that they hang around and get out of date sometimes. I remember being boggled to find a book in the school library that was getting very excited about the discovery of the alpha particle recently

As those who have ever used the Citizens' Advice information system will know, the internet saves many hours of tedious work when it comes to up-dating a paper-based system.

There are several examples of literary hoaxes of course ... and presumably there are a few in circulation that have yet to be discovered

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ern_Malley

[eighthobstruction]

Is it a 'good' poem....??

[mercia]

no disrespect to anyone but I don't think it's either a fraud or a hoax - it's a genuine poem by a genuine poet in a genuine anthology of poems

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Visit_to_William_Blake%27s_Inn

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Willard

[Sir Velo]

Of course, literary hoaxes never occurred before the Web...

[french frank]

no disrespect to anyone but I don't think it's either a fraud or a hoax - it's a genuine poem by a genuine poet in a genuine anthology of poems

I wasn't suggesting that it was either a fraud or a hoax: merely that the attribution of the poem as found on the internet was false.

That was the point of the thread: the fact that false information is circulated so widely that the various sources 'validate' each other.

I wondered at what point this poem became misattributed - the note in Nancy Willard's Wikipedia article was added today.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

How did the Exam. Boards get the idea that the poem was a Blake original? Did none of them think to consult, say, a "Complete Blake" edition when choosing which poems they wanted to be studied? And is there really no one around in all the many Exam Boards who might have noticed that the poem wasn't in any of their editions of Blake poems? As frenchie says in the OP, it's William Blake, not some obscure 19th Century writer. We wouldn't expect the powers that be at R3 to broadcast a piece that they announced as being by Schumann but which was actually by Robin Holloway. (Irony weighing heavily on my shoulders at this point.)

[Pabmusic]

How did the Exam. Boards get the idea that the poem was a Blake original? Did none of them think to consult, say, a "Complete Blake" edition when choosing which poems they wanted to be studied? And is there really no one around in all the many Exam Boards who might have noticed that the poem wasn't in any of their editions of Blake poems? As frenchie says in the OP, it's William Blake, not some obscure 19th Century writer. We wouldn't expect the powers that be at R3 to broadcast a piece that they announced as being by Schumann but which was actually by Robin Holloway. (Irony weighing heavily on my shoulders at this point.)

Absolutely. Perhaps this is the point, that the internet is seen as being just so convenient that the old protocols don't count any more.

[french frank]

Absolutely. Perhaps this is the point, that the internet is seen as being just so convenient that the old protocols don't count any more.

Hence the widespread referring (usually - always? - unacknowledged) to Wikipedia for presenters' information. Indeed the R3 website links to it for added information.

[mercia]

I wasn't suggesting that it was either a fraud or a hoax

sorry, somebody did

[Serial_Apologist]

Perhaps it is the exponential spread of misinformation encouraged by aspects of the internet, and loss of a default point in time and history that can be returned to for checking purposes, that people fear in the event that all paper records be destroyed?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Having just heard the R4 news report on this story, it turns out that this wasn't an "Exam. Board" error, as I'd thought, but a "Teachers' Online Resource" site. There are many of these, particularly aimed at the many schoolteachers required to teach subjects for which they haven't been trained/qualified at Secondary level - a state of affairs to which English is susceptible as some Headteachers take the view that "anyone can teach it".

[Padraig]

Having just heard the R4 news report on this story, it turns out that this wasn't an "Exam. Board" error, as I'd thought, but a "Teachers' Online Resource" site. There are many of these, particularly aimed at the many schoolteachers required to teach subjects for which they haven't been trained/qualified at Secondary level - a state of affairs to which English is susceptible as some Headteachers take the view that "anyone can teach it".

I've heard a few stories about headmasters, ferneyhougheliebte, but not that one! Could you be thinking of one of the more pleasant and positive stories about teaching English? It may have come from a headmaster, but no harm in that, and refers to the exhortation that every teacher is a teacher of English. Well, I always thought it was a good try.

PS For your information:

Two Sunflowers
Move in the Yellow Room.

"Ah, William, we're weary of weather,"
said the sunflowers, shining with dew.
"Our traveling habits have tired us.
Can you give us a room with a view?"

They arranged themselves at the window
and counted the steps of the sun,
and they both took root in the carpet
where the topaz tortoises run.

[french frank]

PS For your information:

Two Sunflowers
Move in the Yellow Room.

http://library.thinkquest.org/J0112392/personificationclassics.html

'traveling' ???

[Padraig]

http://library.thinkquest.org/J0112392/personificationclassics.html

'traveling' ???

I know, ff, but are we not now in the realm of 'usage'?

It's a pretty poem, interesting images, sly allusions, correct punctuation (!)
What the L? I think the kids would love it.