There’s a place in one of Plato’s dialogues where he talks about the origin of writing and claims that the Egyptian god Thoth warned that once men put their thoughts into writing their ability to remember would deteriorate.
It's sad but true. When I was in school, I never took a single note, and my memory was great! Now I can't remember anything without looking it up/writing it down... Age might have a little to do with it, but I think the way we handle our information is a big part of it, too. Our brains get lazy.
The druids supposedly forbade their knowledge to be written down despite being exposed to various forms of writing. which they could have adopted They underwent training for 20 years, a large part of which was memorizing information in the form of verses. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for books and writing, but It's amazing to think that there was a time when people would ONLY compose, record, and recite things like the Iliad orally. It also makes me sad that most of those works are lost forever...
There are two books I read back-to-back nearly a quarter century ago about this phenomenon. One is THE ART OF MEMORY by Francis Yates and THE BOOK OF MEMORY by Mary Carruthers. Both of these are really insightful studies into this phenomenon. They both take a deep look into ancient and medieval practices. Yates was a Renaissance scholar and some of her books are fringe with a heavy reliance on Jungian theories of the collective subconsciou, but she’s still very rigorous when it comes to citing where’s she’s getting her sometimes loopy ideas.
Very interesting. I've been curious about these techniques because there has to be more to memorization than just the poetic forms they used and repetition. Sure, that probably helps, but I imagine there were other practices to go with it. Might check it out, thanks!
There’s a place in one of Plato’s dialogues where he talks about the origin of writing and claims that the Egyptian god Thoth warned that once men put their thoughts into writing their ability to remember would deteriorate.
It's sad but true. When I was in school, I never took a single note, and my memory was great! Now I can't remember anything without looking it up/writing it down... Age might have a little to do with it, but I think the way we handle our information is a big part of it, too. Our brains get lazy.
The druids supposedly forbade their knowledge to be written down despite being exposed to various forms of writing. which they could have adopted They underwent training for 20 years, a large part of which was memorizing information in the form of verses. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for books and writing, but It's amazing to think that there was a time when people would ONLY compose, record, and recite things like the Iliad orally. It also makes me sad that most of those works are lost forever...
There are two books I read back-to-back nearly a quarter century ago about this phenomenon. One is THE ART OF MEMORY by Francis Yates and THE BOOK OF MEMORY by Mary Carruthers. Both of these are really insightful studies into this phenomenon. They both take a deep look into ancient and medieval practices. Yates was a Renaissance scholar and some of her books are fringe with a heavy reliance on Jungian theories of the collective subconsciou, but she’s still very rigorous when it comes to citing where’s she’s getting her sometimes loopy ideas.
Very interesting. I've been curious about these techniques because there has to be more to memorization than just the poetic forms they used and repetition. Sure, that probably helps, but I imagine there were other practices to go with it. Might check it out, thanks!
🥶 cold just reading about it. Your dialogue is excellent. Reads so effortlessly. 👏
Thank you, Winston!