Ann Moss
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198159087
- eISBN:
- 9780191673474
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198159087.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
The prescriptions for commonplace-books to be found in the works of Desiderius Erasmus, Philipp Melanchthon, and Juan Luis Vives were published together as excerpts in manuals De ratione studii. ...
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The prescriptions for commonplace-books to be found in the works of Desiderius Erasmus, Philipp Melanchthon, and Juan Luis Vives were published together as excerpts in manuals De ratione studii. Their presence there, together with other examples of good practice in the matter of education, points us to the schoolroom environment within which boys were conditioned to think in ways determined by the instrument they used to probe material they were set to study, store in their memory, and retrieve for reproduction, that is to say, by their commonplace-book. From now on, the history of the commonplace-book becomes an integral part of the history of Renaissance culture in general, because it is the history of its technical support system, and consequently of one of the most important factors contributing to its intellectual paradigms. From now on, also, the documentation of the history of the commonplace-book becomes enormous.Less
The prescriptions for commonplace-books to be found in the works of Desiderius Erasmus, Philipp Melanchthon, and Juan Luis Vives were published together as excerpts in manuals De ratione studii. Their presence there, together with other examples of good practice in the matter of education, points us to the schoolroom environment within which boys were conditioned to think in ways determined by the instrument they used to probe material they were set to study, store in their memory, and retrieve for reproduction, that is to say, by their commonplace-book. From now on, the history of the commonplace-book becomes an integral part of the history of Renaissance culture in general, because it is the history of its technical support system, and consequently of one of the most important factors contributing to its intellectual paradigms. From now on, also, the documentation of the history of the commonplace-book becomes enormous.
Ann Moss
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198159087
- eISBN:
- 9780191673474
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198159087.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
For Latin vocabulary, phraseology, and style, the commonplace-book remained in the 17th century as important a source as ever it had been in the preceding century. However, some features in the ...
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For Latin vocabulary, phraseology, and style, the commonplace-book remained in the 17th century as important a source as ever it had been in the preceding century. However, some features in the procedure recommended by John Brinsley, though not necessarily new, indicated trends which would be consolidated in the ensuing period. Latin was taught not only in the vernacular, but through the vernacular. Translation was the key to understanding and the ‘natural’ medium through which pupils learnt to manipulate the phraseology of ‘rhetorically’ contrived Latin. Moreover, Brinsley's teaching of Latin by translation was aimed quite explicitly at bringing the English language within the scope of the verbal competence inculcated by the classroom method. However, his insistence on printed commonplace-books, in particular his choice of O. Mirandula, backed up by dictionaries of phrases, epithets, adages, and so on, opened the way to the much more eclectic Latin which, as Politian and many another had realized, was invariably produced by roaming through florilegia.Less
For Latin vocabulary, phraseology, and style, the commonplace-book remained in the 17th century as important a source as ever it had been in the preceding century. However, some features in the procedure recommended by John Brinsley, though not necessarily new, indicated trends which would be consolidated in the ensuing period. Latin was taught not only in the vernacular, but through the vernacular. Translation was the key to understanding and the ‘natural’ medium through which pupils learnt to manipulate the phraseology of ‘rhetorically’ contrived Latin. Moreover, Brinsley's teaching of Latin by translation was aimed quite explicitly at bringing the English language within the scope of the verbal competence inculcated by the classroom method. However, his insistence on printed commonplace-books, in particular his choice of O. Mirandula, backed up by dictionaries of phrases, epithets, adages, and so on, opened the way to the much more eclectic Latin which, as Politian and many another had realized, was invariably produced by roaming through florilegia.
Ann Moss
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198159087
- eISBN:
- 9780191673474
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198159087.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
In the years immediately after De copia was published, printers were quick to service Erasmian copia, as well as good grammar and good morals, at an elementary level of schooling. Its preface ...
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In the years immediately after De copia was published, printers were quick to service Erasmian copia, as well as good grammar and good morals, at an elementary level of schooling. Its preface advertised it in the manner of J. Wimpheling and other contemporary German pedagogues as a linguistically pure and morally irreproachable collection of extracts to be substituted for ‘the sordid little phrases’ of the late medieval manuals from which schoolboys had had to learn their grammar. More consciously up to date, perhaps, is the announcement on the title-page that the extracts are not arranged in text order, but ‘by things and titles’, in other words, in clusters under what a reader of Desiderius Erasmus would have recognised as commonplace-heads. This embryonic commonplace-book, often reprinted in the following few years, notably at Leipzig and Cologne, clearly got itself a position on the grammar syllabus of Germany's schools.Less
In the years immediately after De copia was published, printers were quick to service Erasmian copia, as well as good grammar and good morals, at an elementary level of schooling. Its preface advertised it in the manner of J. Wimpheling and other contemporary German pedagogues as a linguistically pure and morally irreproachable collection of extracts to be substituted for ‘the sordid little phrases’ of the late medieval manuals from which schoolboys had had to learn their grammar. More consciously up to date, perhaps, is the announcement on the title-page that the extracts are not arranged in text order, but ‘by things and titles’, in other words, in clusters under what a reader of Desiderius Erasmus would have recognised as commonplace-heads. This embryonic commonplace-book, often reprinted in the following few years, notably at Leipzig and Cologne, clearly got itself a position on the grammar syllabus of Germany's schools.
Ann Moss
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198159087
- eISBN:
- 9780191673474
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198159087.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
J. Oudart de la Sourdière and J. Salabert demonstrated in their rather different ways that commonplace-books were deeply entrenched in pedagogical methodology well into the 17th century. When they ...
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J. Oudart de la Sourdière and J. Salabert demonstrated in their rather different ways that commonplace-books were deeply entrenched in pedagogical methodology well into the 17th century. When they took it upon themselves to export the rhetoric course extramurally, they assumed that the commonplace-book was a necessary part of the package. In neither instance does the commonplace-book quite fit in the programme. Oudart puts it into a detachable preface, before devoting the whole of his Methode des orateurs to an exposition of how to use the places of argument long associated with commonplace-book methods of composition, but in this case only tenuously linked to the quotations which were the commonplace-book's core. Salabert puts it in a sort of epilogue, quite separate from his Rhetoric, and is singularly reticent about how it is to be made to function rhetorically. These are signs of an impending redundancy, the causes of which are examined in this chapter.Less
J. Oudart de la Sourdière and J. Salabert demonstrated in their rather different ways that commonplace-books were deeply entrenched in pedagogical methodology well into the 17th century. When they took it upon themselves to export the rhetoric course extramurally, they assumed that the commonplace-book was a necessary part of the package. In neither instance does the commonplace-book quite fit in the programme. Oudart puts it into a detachable preface, before devoting the whole of his Methode des orateurs to an exposition of how to use the places of argument long associated with commonplace-book methods of composition, but in this case only tenuously linked to the quotations which were the commonplace-book's core. Salabert puts it in a sort of epilogue, quite separate from his Rhetoric, and is singularly reticent about how it is to be made to function rhetorically. These are signs of an impending redundancy, the causes of which are examined in this chapter.
Karen Harvey
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199533848
- eISBN:
- 9780191740978
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199533848.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, Cultural History
This chapter examines the domestic objects and spaces that were meaningful for men and explores how men's domestic engagement and domestic authority was legitimized by the material culture of the ...
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This chapter examines the domestic objects and spaces that were meaningful for men and explores how men's domestic engagement and domestic authority was legitimized by the material culture of the house. In ‘keeping house’, men managed goods and people over which they exercised proprietorship, even if legally they did not own them. In doing so, the chapter shows, men rooted themselves and their authority in the physical body of the house. Men engaged with objects as property, inheritance, symbols, makers of memory and relationships, as well as commodities. They consumed low‐value and mundane items alongside larger and intermittent purchases, and the possession and management of these domestic objects created and maintained authority. In their careful management of property and personal investment in meaningful domestic things, the chapter argues, men of the middling‐sorts grounded their identities in the material culture of their domestic lives.Less
This chapter examines the domestic objects and spaces that were meaningful for men and explores how men's domestic engagement and domestic authority was legitimized by the material culture of the house. In ‘keeping house’, men managed goods and people over which they exercised proprietorship, even if legally they did not own them. In doing so, the chapter shows, men rooted themselves and their authority in the physical body of the house. Men engaged with objects as property, inheritance, symbols, makers of memory and relationships, as well as commodities. They consumed low‐value and mundane items alongside larger and intermittent purchases, and the possession and management of these domestic objects created and maintained authority. In their careful management of property and personal investment in meaningful domestic things, the chapter argues, men of the middling‐sorts grounded their identities in the material culture of their domestic lives.
Alexandra Socarides
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199858088
- eISBN:
- 9780199950300
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199858088.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 19th Century Literature, Poetry
This chapter describes Dickinson’s practice of making her fascicles and situates this act within conventions of nineteenth-century verse-copying and homemade book-making practices. It does so in ...
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This chapter describes Dickinson’s practice of making her fascicles and situates this act within conventions of nineteenth-century verse-copying and homemade book-making practices. It does so in order to question current critical readings of the fascicles and to suggest that attending to the objects themselves can help us rethink the generic expectations we bring to Dickinson’s poetry. I argue that the material differences between Dickinson’s fascicles and other types of books—commonplace books, autograph albums, scrapbooks, diaries, and collections of sermons—reveal how, in making the fascicles, Dickinson’s primary unit of composition was the individual folded fascicle sheet, a material object that highlights both her desire for formal play between clusters of poems and her fascination with and resistance to print.Less
This chapter describes Dickinson’s practice of making her fascicles and situates this act within conventions of nineteenth-century verse-copying and homemade book-making practices. It does so in order to question current critical readings of the fascicles and to suggest that attending to the objects themselves can help us rethink the generic expectations we bring to Dickinson’s poetry. I argue that the material differences between Dickinson’s fascicles and other types of books—commonplace books, autograph albums, scrapbooks, diaries, and collections of sermons—reveal how, in making the fascicles, Dickinson’s primary unit of composition was the individual folded fascicle sheet, a material object that highlights both her desire for formal play between clusters of poems and her fascination with and resistance to print.
Ann Moss
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198159087
- eISBN:
- 9780191673474
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198159087.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This book is concerned with commonplace-books during the Renaissance in Early Modern Europe. While it is certainly be part of the book's brief to point to factors which explain the eventual disgrace ...
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This book is concerned with commonplace-books during the Renaissance in Early Modern Europe. While it is certainly be part of the book's brief to point to factors which explain the eventual disgrace of the commonplace, its understanding of the commonplace encompasses the understanding of those who compiled, promoted, and employed commonplace-books before the great change in ideas about knowledge and verbal expression took them off the cultural map. The use of the word will, therefore, be the ancient and the archaic use, and our sense of the commonplace anything but trivial. The rest of the book describes the wide variety of the senses of the word ‘commonplace’ (or simply ‘place’) which were already available at the beginning of the 16th century and the potential for future development which its already long history had built into it.Less
This book is concerned with commonplace-books during the Renaissance in Early Modern Europe. While it is certainly be part of the book's brief to point to factors which explain the eventual disgrace of the commonplace, its understanding of the commonplace encompasses the understanding of those who compiled, promoted, and employed commonplace-books before the great change in ideas about knowledge and verbal expression took them off the cultural map. The use of the word will, therefore, be the ancient and the archaic use, and our sense of the commonplace anything but trivial. The rest of the book describes the wide variety of the senses of the word ‘commonplace’ (or simply ‘place’) which were already available at the beginning of the 16th century and the potential for future development which its already long history had built into it.
Ann Moss
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198159087
- eISBN:
- 9780191673474
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198159087.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
The name ‘commonplace-book’ does not seem to have been used before the 16th century, but the thing itself had been evolving at least since the time of John of Salisbury. It is not to the genealogy of ...
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The name ‘commonplace-book’ does not seem to have been used before the 16th century, but the thing itself had been evolving at least since the time of John of Salisbury. It is not to the genealogy of ‘places’ that one must first look for the ancestors of commonplace-books, but to the other line of descent, the path of flower-gathering. The collections of quotations from classical authors which begin to proliferate in the 12th century were generally entitled ‘flowers’. The larger medieval florilegia, even if they originated as private collections like the one mentioned, soon entered the public domain. Like the future commonplace-book, the florilegium had an ambivalent status, and functioned in both a private and a public context. In the case of commonplace-books, this duality is more visible because the advent of printing made a clear distinction in their means of production and in their methods of circulation.Less
The name ‘commonplace-book’ does not seem to have been used before the 16th century, but the thing itself had been evolving at least since the time of John of Salisbury. It is not to the genealogy of ‘places’ that one must first look for the ancestors of commonplace-books, but to the other line of descent, the path of flower-gathering. The collections of quotations from classical authors which begin to proliferate in the 12th century were generally entitled ‘flowers’. The larger medieval florilegia, even if they originated as private collections like the one mentioned, soon entered the public domain. Like the future commonplace-book, the florilegium had an ambivalent status, and functioned in both a private and a public context. In the case of commonplace-books, this duality is more visible because the advent of printing made a clear distinction in their means of production and in their methods of circulation.
Ann Moss
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198159087
- eISBN:
- 9780191673474
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198159087.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
Nearly thirty years separate the writing of Rodolphus Agricola's De formando studio from its first appearance in print, which almost coincides with the publication of the first edition of a work ...
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Nearly thirty years separate the writing of Rodolphus Agricola's De formando studio from its first appearance in print, which almost coincides with the publication of the first edition of a work which was to be crucial for the development of the commonplace-book. The recipient of Agricola's letter detailing his blueprint for study and composition was assumed to be someone working on his own. Desiderius Erasmus was to set an agenda for schools all over northern Europe. Within the interval between these two works pedagogic practice in northern Europe had changed in such a way as to make it receptive to the instruction in rhetoric and dialectic mediated by Erasmus and Agricola and to their prescriptions for the commonplace-book, which was to become its primary working tool. The change which had occurred was led by a change in language-teaching at its most elementary level, in the grammar class.Less
Nearly thirty years separate the writing of Rodolphus Agricola's De formando studio from its first appearance in print, which almost coincides with the publication of the first edition of a work which was to be crucial for the development of the commonplace-book. The recipient of Agricola's letter detailing his blueprint for study and composition was assumed to be someone working on his own. Desiderius Erasmus was to set an agenda for schools all over northern Europe. Within the interval between these two works pedagogic practice in northern Europe had changed in such a way as to make it receptive to the instruction in rhetoric and dialectic mediated by Erasmus and Agricola and to their prescriptions for the commonplace-book, which was to become its primary working tool. The change which had occurred was led by a change in language-teaching at its most elementary level, in the grammar class.
Paul J. Griffiths
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195125771
- eISBN:
- 9780199853335
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195125771.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Literature
This chapter analyzes two of the literary genres in which religious readers are most likely to compose and that they will most happily use: the commentary and the anthology. Topics covered include ...
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This chapter analyzes two of the literary genres in which religious readers are most likely to compose and that they will most happily use: the commentary and the anthology. Topics covered include commentaries as metaworks, commentary's purposes, commentary's formal features and ideal readers, anthology's formal features and purposes, and commonplace books.Less
This chapter analyzes two of the literary genres in which religious readers are most likely to compose and that they will most happily use: the commentary and the anthology. Topics covered include commentaries as metaworks, commentary's purposes, commentary's formal features and ideal readers, anthology's formal features and purposes, and commonplace books.
Nigel Leask
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199572618
- eISBN:
- 9780191722974
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199572618.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry, 18th-century Literature
This chapter argues that Burns's poetic self-fashioning was a successful attempt to achieve sentimental and cultural credit in the face of the practical financial difficulties that he faces as an ...
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This chapter argues that Burns's poetic self-fashioning was a successful attempt to achieve sentimental and cultural credit in the face of the practical financial difficulties that he faces as an Ayrshire farmer. Like others of his class, he was inculcated with the ideology of improvement but found it impossible to make practical headway due to undercapitalization and high rentals. Burns's alternative vocation as a poet is discussed in relation to his Commonplace Book, the Verse Epistles in the Kilmarnock Volume, and his most ambitious poem, ‘The Vision’. The chapter also analyses his relationship to patronage and his creation of a virtual community of upper class Ayrshire patrons, with reference to the social geography and the 18th-century cartography of Ayrshire.Less
This chapter argues that Burns's poetic self-fashioning was a successful attempt to achieve sentimental and cultural credit in the face of the practical financial difficulties that he faces as an Ayrshire farmer. Like others of his class, he was inculcated with the ideology of improvement but found it impossible to make practical headway due to undercapitalization and high rentals. Burns's alternative vocation as a poet is discussed in relation to his Commonplace Book, the Verse Epistles in the Kilmarnock Volume, and his most ambitious poem, ‘The Vision’. The chapter also analyses his relationship to patronage and his creation of a virtual community of upper class Ayrshire patrons, with reference to the social geography and the 18th-century cartography of Ayrshire.
Margaret Connolly and Raluca Radulescu (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780197265833
- eISBN:
- 9780191771996
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197265833.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
This volume aims to rethink critical assumptions about a particular type of medieval manuscript: the miscellany. A miscellany is a multi-text manuscript, made up of mixed contents, often in a mixture ...
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This volume aims to rethink critical assumptions about a particular type of medieval manuscript: the miscellany. A miscellany is a multi-text manuscript, made up of mixed contents, often in a mixture of languages; such a volume might be the work of one compiler or several, and might have been put together over a short period of time or over many years (even over several generations). Such variety proves problematic when attempting to form critical judgements, particularly in terms of terminology and definitions. These issues are explored in the introduction, and the fifteen essays that follow discuss a great number of manuscript miscellanies produced in Britain in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. Some of the chapters offer new insights into very well-known miscellanies, whilst others draw attention to little-known volumes. Whilst previous studies of the miscellany have restricted themselves to disciplinary or linguistic boundaries, this collection uniquely draws on the expertise of specialists in the rich range of vernacular languages used in Britain in the later Middle Ages (Anglo-French, Middle English, Older Scots, Middle Welsh). As a result, illuminating comparisons are drawn between miscellany manuscripts that were the products of different geographical areas and cultures. Collectively the chapters in Insular Books explore the wide range of heterogeneous manuscripts that may be defined as miscellanies, and model approaches to their study that will permit a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the production of these assemblages, as well as their circulation and reception in their own age and beyond.Less
This volume aims to rethink critical assumptions about a particular type of medieval manuscript: the miscellany. A miscellany is a multi-text manuscript, made up of mixed contents, often in a mixture of languages; such a volume might be the work of one compiler or several, and might have been put together over a short period of time or over many years (even over several generations). Such variety proves problematic when attempting to form critical judgements, particularly in terms of terminology and definitions. These issues are explored in the introduction, and the fifteen essays that follow discuss a great number of manuscript miscellanies produced in Britain in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. Some of the chapters offer new insights into very well-known miscellanies, whilst others draw attention to little-known volumes. Whilst previous studies of the miscellany have restricted themselves to disciplinary or linguistic boundaries, this collection uniquely draws on the expertise of specialists in the rich range of vernacular languages used in Britain in the later Middle Ages (Anglo-French, Middle English, Older Scots, Middle Welsh). As a result, illuminating comparisons are drawn between miscellany manuscripts that were the products of different geographical areas and cultures. Collectively the chapters in Insular Books explore the wide range of heterogeneous manuscripts that may be defined as miscellanies, and model approaches to their study that will permit a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the production of these assemblages, as well as their circulation and reception in their own age and beyond.
William Poole
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199698707
- eISBN:
- 9780191740756
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199698707.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Milton Studies, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
Milton's research activities in the 1630s involved book buying, book reading, note taking, and libraries. The book collections at Oxford and Cambridge, Sion and Eton Colleges, and the Kedermister ...
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Milton's research activities in the 1630s involved book buying, book reading, note taking, and libraries. The book collections at Oxford and Cambridge, Sion and Eton Colleges, and the Kedermister Library contained resources essential to Milton's self‐study plan, but whether he had access to any of them is not clear. His meeting in early 1638 with Sir Henry Wotton, almost certainly brokered through the scholar John Hales, suggests the additional possibility that Milton became acquainted with Hales's private library, one of the best in the kingdom. A shelf‐list of it as it existed in 1621 has recently been found in the Eton College archives, and its discovery indicates how much remains to be examined regarding Milton's activities in the 1630s.Less
Milton's research activities in the 1630s involved book buying, book reading, note taking, and libraries. The book collections at Oxford and Cambridge, Sion and Eton Colleges, and the Kedermister Library contained resources essential to Milton's self‐study plan, but whether he had access to any of them is not clear. His meeting in early 1638 with Sir Henry Wotton, almost certainly brokered through the scholar John Hales, suggests the additional possibility that Milton became acquainted with Hales's private library, one of the best in the kingdom. A shelf‐list of it as it existed in 1621 has recently been found in the Eton College archives, and its discovery indicates how much remains to be examined regarding Milton's activities in the 1630s.
Richard Yeo
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780226106564
- eISBN:
- 9780226106731
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226106731.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter discusses the humanist and Jesuit traditions of note-taking against the legacy of ancient arts of memory and the suspicion that reliance on writing weakens memory. John Aubrey's Brief ...
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This chapter discusses the humanist and Jesuit traditions of note-taking against the legacy of ancient arts of memory and the suspicion that reliance on writing weakens memory. John Aubrey's Brief Lives offers a snapshot of seventeenth-century attitudes concerning the value of a capacious memory, some continuing preferences for rote learning and performance ‘without book’, as well as growing doubts about the ability of memory to retain exact details. It examines advice from university tutors such as Richard Holdsworth and James Duport about the use of commonplace books. It shows how the methodical use of notes was affirmed as a support, rather than as a substitute, for memory and recollection; and how the gathering of detailed ‘particulars’, in Francis Bacon's terms, focussed attention on ways of retrieving material via indexes. The challenge of managing very large notebooks is discussed with reference to the practices of John Evelyn and Robert Southwell.Less
This chapter discusses the humanist and Jesuit traditions of note-taking against the legacy of ancient arts of memory and the suspicion that reliance on writing weakens memory. John Aubrey's Brief Lives offers a snapshot of seventeenth-century attitudes concerning the value of a capacious memory, some continuing preferences for rote learning and performance ‘without book’, as well as growing doubts about the ability of memory to retain exact details. It examines advice from university tutors such as Richard Holdsworth and James Duport about the use of commonplace books. It shows how the methodical use of notes was affirmed as a support, rather than as a substitute, for memory and recollection; and how the gathering of detailed ‘particulars’, in Francis Bacon's terms, focussed attention on ways of retrieving material via indexes. The challenge of managing very large notebooks is discussed with reference to the practices of John Evelyn and Robert Southwell.
Christopher Reid
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199581092
- eISBN:
- 9780191745621
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199581092.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature, European Literature
This chapter discusses the practice of quotation in the eighteenth-century House, against a background of shifting opinions about the usefulness of commonplaces and conflicting views about ...
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This chapter discusses the practice of quotation in the eighteenth-century House, against a background of shifting opinions about the usefulness of commonplaces and conflicting views about quotation's value and prestige. With reference to the thinking of contemporary commentators such as James Boswell and Samuel Johnson, it assesses the extent to which quotation helped the House to maintain its cultural identity and difference from the world outside. As well as looking closely at evidence of the extent of quotation (especially from the classical heritage) in parliamentary speeches, the chapter makes reference to a wide range of theories of quotation. It shows how speakers used quotation as a means of appealing to the passions of the House (pathos) and of achieving distinction in debate.Less
This chapter discusses the practice of quotation in the eighteenth-century House, against a background of shifting opinions about the usefulness of commonplaces and conflicting views about quotation's value and prestige. With reference to the thinking of contemporary commentators such as James Boswell and Samuel Johnson, it assesses the extent to which quotation helped the House to maintain its cultural identity and difference from the world outside. As well as looking closely at evidence of the extent of quotation (especially from the classical heritage) in parliamentary speeches, the chapter makes reference to a wide range of theories of quotation. It shows how speakers used quotation as a means of appealing to the passions of the House (pathos) and of achieving distinction in debate.
Andrew Taylor
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780197265833
- eISBN:
- 9780191771996
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197265833.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
A chivalric miscellany, such as the ‘Grete Booke’ commissioned by Sir John Paston II in the 1460s, can be classified according to the likely use its owner made of it, or intended to make of it, even ...
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A chivalric miscellany, such as the ‘Grete Booke’ commissioned by Sir John Paston II in the 1460s, can be classified according to the likely use its owner made of it, or intended to make of it, even though this will be very difficult to determine. One complication is that people who wish to acquire prestige by associating themselves with a book, whether a contemporary fanbook or a medieval miscellany, may themselves be uncertain as to the socially acceptable limits of the codicological category. Medievalists have sometimes referred to highly personal miscellanies as ‘commonplace books’, but this term is best reserved for books that actually were composed of commonplaces, short pieces of widely accepted wisdom. There were many kinds of chivalric miscellanies, and the terms we employ offer tentative judgements on the purpose and control of the original patron or owner.Less
A chivalric miscellany, such as the ‘Grete Booke’ commissioned by Sir John Paston II in the 1460s, can be classified according to the likely use its owner made of it, or intended to make of it, even though this will be very difficult to determine. One complication is that people who wish to acquire prestige by associating themselves with a book, whether a contemporary fanbook or a medieval miscellany, may themselves be uncertain as to the socially acceptable limits of the codicological category. Medievalists have sometimes referred to highly personal miscellanies as ‘commonplace books’, but this term is best reserved for books that actually were composed of commonplaces, short pieces of widely accepted wisdom. There were many kinds of chivalric miscellanies, and the terms we employ offer tentative judgements on the purpose and control of the original patron or owner.
William M. Hamlin
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199684113
- eISBN:
- 9780191764677
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199684113.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature, European Literature
This chapter addresses the seventeenth-century vogue of distilling Montaigne's Essays into aphoristic form, assimilating Montaignian thought into vernacular-wisdom literature. It relies not only on ...
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This chapter addresses the seventeenth-century vogue of distilling Montaigne's Essays into aphoristic form, assimilating Montaignian thought into vernacular-wisdom literature. It relies not only on early modern commonplace books and study notes which extract and condense ideas from Montaigne's Essays as translated by Florio, but also upon a previously-unknown anonymous English translation of portions of Montaigne which dates from the mid-seventeenth century. Aphoristic adaptation provides an exceptionally clear instance of Montaignian reception among early modern English readers. But the impulse toward compressed extraction also helps significantly to explain the gradual demise of Florio's translation and the appearance, in 1685, of Cotton's tighter, plainer, more thoroughly censored, and far less exuberant rendering of the Essays.Less
This chapter addresses the seventeenth-century vogue of distilling Montaigne's Essays into aphoristic form, assimilating Montaignian thought into vernacular-wisdom literature. It relies not only on early modern commonplace books and study notes which extract and condense ideas from Montaigne's Essays as translated by Florio, but also upon a previously-unknown anonymous English translation of portions of Montaigne which dates from the mid-seventeenth century. Aphoristic adaptation provides an exceptionally clear instance of Montaignian reception among early modern English readers. But the impulse toward compressed extraction also helps significantly to explain the gradual demise of Florio's translation and the appearance, in 1685, of Cotton's tighter, plainer, more thoroughly censored, and far less exuberant rendering of the Essays.
Richard Yeo
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780226106564
- eISBN:
- 9780226106731
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226106731.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter introduces the English virtuosi and their views on reading, learning, and science. It shows how the anti-bookish rhetoric of some members of the Royal Society coexisted with intensive ...
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This chapter introduces the English virtuosi and their views on reading, learning, and science. It shows how the anti-bookish rhetoric of some members of the Royal Society coexisted with intensive use of commonplace books, journals, and lists; and with an awareness of the need to register empirical observations. By considering the concepts of ‘extended mind’ and ‘externalised memory’ in modern cognitive psychology, the chapter examines the ways in which the relationships between memory, recollection, and notebooks were conceived in early modern Europe.Less
This chapter introduces the English virtuosi and their views on reading, learning, and science. It shows how the anti-bookish rhetoric of some members of the Royal Society coexisted with intensive use of commonplace books, journals, and lists; and with an awareness of the need to register empirical observations. By considering the concepts of ‘extended mind’ and ‘externalised memory’ in modern cognitive psychology, the chapter examines the ways in which the relationships between memory, recollection, and notebooks were conceived in early modern Europe.
Katrin Ettenhuber
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199609109
- eISBN:
- 9780191729553
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199609109.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter outlines some of the most characteristic ways in which Donne absorbs, digests, and reworks Augustine's texts by presenting a series of case studies. It falls into two halves. The first ...
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This chapter outlines some of the most characteristic ways in which Donne absorbs, digests, and reworks Augustine's texts by presenting a series of case studies. It falls into two halves. The first part focuses on citations probably gleaned directly from Augustine's works: the chapter summarizes the evidence for Donne's first-hand knowledge of Augustine's texts and presents examples designed to showcase his Augustinian expertise in different ways. The second part devotes itself to the medieval and early modern mediators of Augustine that were available to Donne. It is organized according to textual genre and category, and surveys patristic handbooks, Scripture commentaries, and various types of excerpt collections, among others, to track the sources and mediating channels of Donne's Augustinian citations. The chapter reconstructs Donne's reading in detail, demonstrates his recourse to sixty different Augustinian texts, and excavates a whole spectrum of sources that have been completely neglected in literary scholarship of the early modern period.Less
This chapter outlines some of the most characteristic ways in which Donne absorbs, digests, and reworks Augustine's texts by presenting a series of case studies. It falls into two halves. The first part focuses on citations probably gleaned directly from Augustine's works: the chapter summarizes the evidence for Donne's first-hand knowledge of Augustine's texts and presents examples designed to showcase his Augustinian expertise in different ways. The second part devotes itself to the medieval and early modern mediators of Augustine that were available to Donne. It is organized according to textual genre and category, and surveys patristic handbooks, Scripture commentaries, and various types of excerpt collections, among others, to track the sources and mediating channels of Donne's Augustinian citations. The chapter reconstructs Donne's reading in detail, demonstrates his recourse to sixty different Augustinian texts, and excavates a whole spectrum of sources that have been completely neglected in literary scholarship of the early modern period.
Heather James
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780719085536
- eISBN:
- 9781781707173
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719085536.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
Heather James examines late-sixteenth- and early- seventeenth-century printed commonplace books, a form which played a vital role in elevating the status of English vernacular literature. James ...
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Heather James examines late-sixteenth- and early- seventeenth-century printed commonplace books, a form which played a vital role in elevating the status of English vernacular literature. James shifts our focus from this form’s place in English literary history to its impact on political subjectivity. For James, late-Elizabethan printed commonplace books enabled innovations in the ‘politics of reading’ through their organization of decontextualised sentences grouped together by topic, modelling a form of political conversation on even the most incendiary of subjects (i.e., tyranny)Less
Heather James examines late-sixteenth- and early- seventeenth-century printed commonplace books, a form which played a vital role in elevating the status of English vernacular literature. James shifts our focus from this form’s place in English literary history to its impact on political subjectivity. For James, late-Elizabethan printed commonplace books enabled innovations in the ‘politics of reading’ through their organization of decontextualised sentences grouped together by topic, modelling a form of political conversation on even the most incendiary of subjects (i.e., tyranny)
