Course:LIBR548F/2009WT1/Commonplace book

Definition

A commonplace book is a personal notebook of literary excerpts: a personal notebook used for copying down quotations and memorable passages from other books.

The commonplace book as we know it today evolved over a long period of time. Its pedigree came from diverse sources such as Greek education and philosophy, Roman oratorical practices, the Sophists and the scholastic traditions from the Medieval Age down to the Renaissance. Commonplace books evolved over time to transform itself into a method by which Renaissance students of the humanities attempted to learn their academic materials. This was eventually to be known as the method of commonplaces. Commonplacing is the act of selecting important phrases, lines, and/or passages from texts and writing them down; the commonplace book is the notebook in which a reader has collected quotations from works s/he has read. .

The term “commonplace” is derived from two words, “common” and “places”. The Ancient Greeks believed in a doctrine called (koinos) topoi (common) place. Since ancient times the notion of commonalities, those things shared among a community of like minded individuals became the source of identity, and a way to build a community. The community however, had to be situated in what the Greeks called a “topoi”, or place. As such topos, as time and place, developed into the notion that common identities and preferences are to be grounded within a place, and the notion of a commonplace came into being. Any discussion of commonplacing has to take into account the use of the metaphor of the honeycomb in order to demonstrate how bees are the ideal models for organizing commonplace notebooks. For a clear exposition of the role of the honeycomb in literary productions, see Anthony Grafton's webinar, “Literary Honeycombs: Storage and Retrieval of Texts Before Modern Times”. .

The evolution of the commonplace book

Page from Zibaldone da Canal Merchant's commonplace book (Venice, 1312). Source: Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University

Ancient

In Aristotle's Topica he developed the thesis that the art of rhetoric rests on propositions based on commonly-held opinions with the topos (place) being the seat of the argument. Thus in early times the idea of the place always played an important role in situating the locus of arguments as grounded and resting on valid premises or solid ground. As the natural course of development of the commonplace book progressed, later authors such as Virgil and Seneca used the metaphor of the bees to advocate how students should emulate and copy the tried and tested ways of ancient authors. Seneca taught that by copying and writing down the words of learned authors, a kind of transmutation occurred whereby the words became part of oneself. Thus commonplacing as a method became an integral part of all students who learned by reading the masters and writing down their reflections on commonplace notebooks.

Renaissance

The name 'commonplace-book' does not occur before the sixteenth century, but it stems from 'flower-gathering': collections of quotations from classical authors were generally entitled 'flowers' (flores philosophorum). The commonplace book came to its finest and most refined formulation in the works of Erasmus. It was also during the Renaissance that the study of the ancient texts proved most efficient in teaching values. Commonplace texts emphasized teaching the moral or ethical values that ancient writers such as Cicero and Virgil passed on to the succeeding generations. One of the reasons why the commonplace book became an integral part of renaissance culture, was that it became the primary school method of learning. The way students were taught to think was guided by the way they were instructed to construct, arrange and categorize subjects in their commonplace notebooks.

Decline

A New Method of a Commonplace-Book by John Locke, made revisions to the accepted form of commonplaces. Thanks to that essay the practice of commonplacing was momentarily revived.

The practice spread everywhere in early modern England, among ordinary readers as well as famous writers like Francis Bacon, Ben Jonson, John Milton, and John Locke. It involved a special way of taking in the printed word. Unlike modern readers, who follow the flow of a narrative from beginning to end, early modern Englishmen read in fits and starts and jumped from book to book. They broke texts into fragments and assembled them into new patterns by transcribing them in different sections of their notebooks. Then they reread the copies and rearranged the patterns while adding more excerpts. Reading and writing were therefore inseparable activities. They belonged to a continuous effort to make sense of things, for the world was full of signs: you could read your way through it; and by keeping an account of your readings, you made a book of your own, one stamped with your personality. . . . The era of the commonplace book reached its peak in the late Renaissance, although commonplacing as a practice probably began in the twelfth century and remained widespread among the Victorians. It disappeared long before the advent of the sound bite.

For the longest time, the commonplace book was the chosen or preferred method of imparting knowledge and as the way of educating students in the arts of rhetoric and composition. However several developments during the last quarter of the 18th century sounded the death knell of the commonplace book. One reason for its decline was the waning use of Latin as the main language for scholarly discourse. Latin, as the main language used in the study of the ancient texts was, by the latter part of the 18th century, superseded by French as the dominant language of influence through most of Western Europe. (Moss) Another more insidious development was the ascendancy of the scientific method and logic as the dominant cognitive method for academic discourse. With the rise of the scientific method, the commonplace book, with its emphasis on teaching moral values espoused by the ancient writers, was relegated to the margins of academic discourse.

Present

With the advent of the Internet, the personal computer and the changes brought about by the introduction of digital technologies, the idea of social networking has come of age . In a strange way perhaps the commonplace book will become the new commons. Some argue that the blog is a form of commonplacing. Here is an excerpt from Alec Guiness's commonplace book. It captures the spirit of how commonplacing has become a personal reflection of one person's approach to life and what it is that captures the imagination at a singular point in modern times:

... Later on I took to buying, when funds allowed, rather nice-looking large notebooks into which I copied, in my best italic script, poems I intended to learn – but rarely did – or pieces of prose that pleased me. I doubt if I ever filled more than ten pages of any of these commonplace books before a new and more handsome caught my eye; and I would start all over again. Almost all of them have been lost, abandoned or destroyed. But a few years ago I struck out on a slightly different line; instead of attractive, expensive books of paper (and some of the modern Italian ones are very tempting) I took to buying the cheapest school exercise books, feint rules, and scribbling in my now nearly illegible hand the odds and ends that have caught my eye – much of it, I expect, familiar to you – and it is from these exercise books that I have culled these pages. There is no theme or shape to all of this, but now and then I have placed a few things side by side, as the contrast or similarity amused me, and I have interjected a few one-liners – just for the hell of it.

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Notes

The Thomas Jefferson Papers Series 8. Virginia Records Manuscripts. 1606-1737.

External Links

• Commonplace Books, Exhibition, Beinecke Rare Books & Manuscript Library, Yale University
• Knoles, Lucia, Commonplace Books
• Jacobs, Alan A Commonplace Book
• Commonplace Books, Notes About Notes

• For examples of printed commonplaces see Internet Archive: The lounger's common-place book; or, Miscellaneous collections, in history, criticism, biography, poetry, [and romance by Newman, Jeremiah Whitaker] and A commonplace book of thoughts, memories, and fancies; original and selected (1855) by Jameson, Ms. (Anna)

Annotated Resources

• Grafton, Anthony. Literary Honeycombs: Storage and Retrieval of Texts Before Modern Times. Slought Foundation. Accessed 12 Sep. 2009. http://www.slought.org/content/11266.

The Slought Foundation sponsored this lecture by Grafton, a Princeton History Professor whose grasp of literary production entails an encyclopedic knowledge far unsurpassed in today's academe. In this lecture he offers a lively account of the rise and fall of the practice of commonplacing. Tracing the development of the commonplace book from its origins in Greek antiquities to its blossoming during the Renaissance and ultimate decline in the 18th century, Grafton illuminates and illustrates the virtues of commonplacing, perhaps to encourage those who might still benefit from a humanist outlook on life and education. Giving profuse examples of commonplace books and notebooks throughout the ages, the dominant theme in this lecture centres on the metaphor of the bees' production of honey as the source of a labile and creative force that ought to inspire both readers and writers in their pursuit of literary excellence.

• Guinness, Alec. A Commonplace Book. London: Hamish Hamilton, 2001.

Alec Guinness' commonplace book illustrates the spirit of the commonplace book. In page after page he quotes directly from the many poets, playwrights, novelists, actors and friends that struck him as significant. True to the form of commonplace books, these are sometimes random quotes, sometimes with his reflections and commentaries on what he had quoted, sometimes none. Reading this book can encourage the more intrepid to strike out and start a commonplace book of one's own.

• Lechner, Joan Marie. Renaissance Concepts of the Commonplaces: An Historical Investigation of the General and Universal Ideas Used in All Argumentation and Persuasion with Special Emphasis on the Educational and Literary Tradition of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. New York: Pageant Prss, 1962.

Lechner gives a historical perspective of the development of the commonplace book from the age of antiquities, to its medieval form and its ultimate development and pedagogical maturation during the Renaissance. As she ably demonstrates commonplace books became popular repositories as material aids to memory, a structure that can be shared by many users, even beyond the educational elite of those days.