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Commonplace books (or commonplaces) are a way to compile
knowledge Knowledge is an Declarative knowledge, awareness of facts, a Knowledge by acquaintance, familiarity with individuals and situations, or a Procedural knowledge, practical skill. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is oft ...
, usually by writing information into blank books. They have been kept from antiquity, and were kept particularly during the
Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...
and in the nineteenth century. Such books are similar to scrapbooks filled with items of many kinds: notes,
proverbs A proverb (from ) or an adage is a simple, traditional saying that expresses a perceived truth based on common sense or experience. Proverbs are often metaphorical and are an example of formulaic language. A proverbial phrase or a proverbial ...
,
adages A saying is any concise expression that is especially memorable because of its meaning or style. A saying often shows a wisdom or cultural standard, having different meanings than just the words themselves. Sayings are categorized as follows: * ...
,
aphorisms An aphorism (from Greek ἀφορισμός: ''aphorismos'', denoting 'delimitation', 'distinction', and 'definition') is a concise, terse, laconic, or memorable expression of a general truth or principle. Aphorisms are often handed down by tra ...
, maxims, quotes, letters, poems, tables of weights and measures, prayers, legal formulas, and recipes. Entries are most often organized under systematic
subject heading In information retrieval, an index term (also known as subject term, subject heading, descriptor, or keyword) is a term that captures the essence of the topic of a document. Index terms make up a controlled vocabulary for use in bibliographic recor ...
s and differ functionally from journals or
diaries Diaries may refer to: * the plural of diary A diary is a written or audiovisual memorable record, with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. Diaries have traditionally bee ...
, which are chronological and introspective.


Overview

"Commonplace" is a
translation Translation is the communication of the semantics, meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The English la ...
of the
Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
term ''locus communis'' (from Greek ''tópos koinós'', see
literary topos In classical Greek rhetoric, topos, ''pl.'' topoi, (from "place", elliptical for ''tópos koinós'', 'common place'), in Latin ''locus'' (from ''locus communis''), refers to a method for developing arguments (see ''topoi'' in classical rhetor ...
) which means "a general or common place", such as a statement of proverbial wisdom. In this original sense, commonplace books were collections of such sayings, such as
John Milton John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet, polemicist, and civil servant. His 1667 epic poem ''Paradise Lost'' was written in blank verse and included 12 books, written in a time of immense religious flux and politic ...
's example. "Commonplace book" is at times used with an expansive sense, referring to collections by an individual in one volume which have a common theme (e.g. ethics) or explores several themes. The term overlaps with aspects of the terms "
anthology In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs, or related fiction/non-fiction excerpts by different authors. There are also thematic and g ...
" or "mixed-manuscript" in these productions but most properly refers to a collection of sayings or excerpts by an individual, often collected under thematic headings. Commonplaces are a separate genre of writing from
diaries Diaries may refer to: * the plural of diary A diary is a written or audiovisual memorable record, with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. Diaries have traditionally bee ...
or travelogues. Commonplaces are used by readers, writers, students, and scholars as an aid for remembering useful concepts or facts; sometimes they were required of young women as evidence of their mastery of social roles and as demonstrations of the correctness of their upbringing. They became significant in
Early Modern Europe Early modern Europe, also referred to as the post-medieval period, is the period of European history between the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, roughly the mid 15th century to the late 18th century. Histori ...
. As a genre, commonplace books were generally private collections of information, but as the amount of information grew following the invention of
movable type Movable type (US English; moveable type in British English) is the system and technology of printing and typography that uses movable Sort (typesetting), components to reproduce the elements of a document (usually individual alphanumeric charac ...
and printing became less expensive, some were published for the general public. In 1685 the English Enlightenment philosopher
John Locke John Locke (; 29 August 1632 (Old Style and New Style dates, O.S.) – 28 October 1704 (Old Style and New Style dates, O.S.)) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of the Enlightenment thi ...
wrote a treatise in French on commonplace books, translated into English in 1706 as ''A New Method of Making Common-Place-Books'', "in which techniques for entering proverbs, quotations, ideas, speeches were formulated. Locke gave specific advice on how to arrange material by subject and category, using such key topics as love, politics, or religion. Following the publication of his work, publishers often printed empty commonplace books with space for headings and indices to be filled in by their users. An example is "Bell's Common-Place Book, Formed generally upon the Principles Recommended and Practised by Mr Locke" which was published by John Bell almost a century after Locke's treatise. A copy of this blank commonplace was used by
Erasmus Darwin Erasmus Robert Darwin (12 December 173118 April 1802) was an English physician. One of the key thinkers of the Midlands Enlightenment, he was also a natural philosophy, natural philosopher, physiology, physiologist, Society for Effecting the ...
from 1776 to 1787, and it was later used by
Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English Natural history#Before 1900, naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all speci ...
who called it "the great book" when composing his grandfather's biography. By the early eighteenth century, they had become an information management device in which a note-taker stored quotations, observations, and definitions. They were used in private households to collate ethical or informative texts, sometimes alongside recipes or medical formulae. For women, who were excluded from formal higher education, the commonplace book could be a repository of intellectual references. The gentlewoman Elizabeth Lyttelton kept one from the 1670s to 1713 and a typical example was published by Mrs Anna Jameson in 1855, including headings such as ''Ethical Fragments''; ''Theological''; ''Literature'' and ''Art''. Commonplace books were used by scientists and other thinkers in the same way that a database might now be used:
Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...
, for instance, used commonplacing techniques to invent and arrange the nomenclature of his ''
Systema Naturae ' (originally in Latin written ' with the Orthographic ligature, ligature æ) is one of the major works of the Sweden, Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy. Although the syste ...
'' (which is the basis for the system used by scientists today). The commonplace system of categorized note-keeping was not restricted to books. In the twentieth century,
Henri de Lubac Henri-Marie Joseph Sonier de Lubac (; 20 February 1896 – 4 September 1991), better known as Henri de Lubac, was a French Jesuit priest and Cardinal (Catholicism), cardinal who is considered one of the most influential Theology, theologia ...
traveled with his notes in a sack.
Erasmus Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus ( ; ; 28 October c. 1466 – 12 July 1536), commonly known in English as Erasmus of Rotterdam or simply Erasmus, was a Dutch Christian humanist, Catholic priest and Catholic theology, theologian, educationalist ...
of Rotterdam traveled with a chest of notes, including examples of well-written Latin that formed the basis of his ''Adagia''. In ''De Copia'' his ''Method of Collecting Examples'' (''Ratio collegendi exampla'') advocated a hierarchical but ''ad hoc'' breakdown of topics: for example, the top-level might be ''Piety'' and ''Impiety'', under Piety might come ''Gratitude'', and under these headings one puts example texts. The commonplace proper would be some simple aphorism or moral, possibly several, that can be drawn from the example, such as ''The crowd loves and hates thoughtlessly.'' As a result of the development of
information technology Information technology (IT) is a set of related fields within information and communications technology (ICT), that encompass computer systems, software, programming languages, data processing, data and information processing, and storage. Inf ...
, there exist various software applications that perform the functions that paper-based commonplace books served for previous generations of thinkers.


History


Philosophical origins

Beginning in '' Topica'',
Aristotle Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...
distinguished between forms of argumentation and referred to them as commonplaces. He extended the idea in ''
Rhetoric Rhetoric is the art of persuasion. It is one of the three ancient arts of discourse ( trivium) along with grammar and logic/ dialectic. As an academic discipline within the humanities, rhetoric aims to study the techniques that speakers or w ...
'' where he suggested that they also be used to explore the validity of propositions through
rhetoric Rhetoric is the art of persuasion. It is one of the three ancient arts of discourse ( trivium) along with grammar and logic/ dialectic. As an academic discipline within the humanities, rhetoric aims to study the techniques that speakers or w ...
.
Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, orator, writer and Academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises tha ...
in his own '' Topica'' and ''
De Oratore ''De Oratore'' (''On the Orator'') is a dialogue written by Cicero in 55 BC. It is set in 91 BC, when Lucius Licinius Crassus dies, just before the Social War and the civil war between Marius and Sulla, during which Marcus Antonius, the oth ...
'' further clarified the idea of commonplaces and applied them to public speaking. He also created a list of commonplaces which included
sententia ''Sententiae'', the nominative plural of the Latin word ''sententia'', are brief moral sayings, such as proverbs, adages, aphorisms, maxims, or apophthegms taken from ancient or popular or other sources, often quoted without context. ''Sententi ...
e or wise sayings or quotations by philosophers, statesmen, and poets.
Quintilian Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (; 35 – 100 AD) was a Roman educator and rhetorician born in Hispania, widely referred to in medieval schools of rhetoric and in Renaissance writing. In English translation, he is usually referred to as Quin ...
further expanded these ideas in ''
Institutio Oratoria ''Institutio Oratoria'' ( English: Institutes of Oratory) is a twelve-volume textbook on the theory and practice of rhetoric by Roman rhetorician Quintilian. It was published around year 95 AD. The work deals also with the foundational education ...
'', a treatise on rhetoric education, and asked his readers to commit their commonplaces to memory. He also framed these commonplaces in moral and ethical overtones. While there are ancient compilations by writers including Pliny and
Diogenes Laertius Diogenes Laërtius ( ; , ; ) was a biographer of the Greek philosophers. Little is definitively known about his life, but his surviving book ''Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers'' is a principal source for the history of ancient Greek phi ...
, many authors in the Renaissance credited
Aulus Gellius Aulus Gellius (c. 125after 180 AD) was a Roman author and grammarian, who was probably born and certainly brought up in Rome. He was educated in Athens, after which he returned to Rome. He is famous for his ''Attic Nights'', a commonplace book, ...
as the founder of the genre with his commonplace ''Attic Nights''. In the first century AD,
Seneca the Younger Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger ( ; AD 65), usually known mononymously as Seneca, was a Stoicism, Stoic philosopher of Ancient Rome, a statesman, a dramatist, and in one work, a satirist, from the post-Augustan age of Latin literature. Seneca ...
suggested that readers collect commonplace ideas and sententiae as a bee collects pollen, and by imitation turn them into their own honey-like words. By
late antiquity Late antiquity marks the period that comes after the end of classical antiquity and stretches into the onset of the Early Middle Ages. Late antiquity as a period was popularized by Peter Brown (historian), Peter Brown in 1971, and this periodiza ...
, the idea of employing commonplaces in rhetorical settings was well established.
Stobaeus Joannes Stobaeus (; ; 5th-century AD), from Stobi in Macedonia (Roman province), Macedonia, was the compiler of a valuable series of extracts from Greek authors. The work was originally divided into two volumes containing two books each. The tw ...
, a writer usually placed in the fifth century, compiled an extensive two volume manuscript commonly known as ''The Anthologies'', containing excerpts from 1,430 works of poetry and prose; all but 315 of these works are lost except for Stobaeus's quotations. In the sixth century
Boethius Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, commonly known simply as Boethius (; Latin: ''Boetius''; 480–524 AD), was a Roman Roman Senate, senator, Roman consul, consul, ''magister officiorum'', polymath, historian, and philosopher of the Early Middl ...
had translated both Aristotle and Cicero's work and created his own account of commonplaces in '' De topicis differentiis''.


Florilegium

By the eighth century, the idea of commonplaces was used, primarily in religious contexts, by preachers and theologians, to collect excerpted passages from the Bible or from approved
Church Fathers The Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, Christian Fathers, or Fathers of the Church were ancient and influential Christian theologians and writers who established the intellectual and doctrinal foundations of Christianity. The historical peri ...
. Early in this time period passages were collected and arranged in the order of their appearance in the works from which they were taken, but by the thirteenth century they were more commonly arranged under thematic headings. These religious anthologies were referred to as ''
florilegia In medieval Latin, a ' (plural ') was a compilation of excerpts or sententia from other writings and is an offshoot of the commonplacing tradition. The word is from the Latin '' flos'' (flower) and '' legere'' (to gather): literally a gathering ...
'' which translates as ''gatherings of flowers''. Often these collections were used by their creators to compose sermons.


Early examples

Precursors to the commonplace book were the records kept by Roman and Greek philosophers of their thoughts and daily meditations, often including quotations from other thinkers. The practice of keeping a journal such as this was particularly recommended by Stoics such as Seneca and
Marcus Aurelius Marcus Aurelius Antoninus ( ; ; 26 April 121 – 17 March 180) was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 and a Stoicism, Stoic philosopher. He was a member of the Nerva–Antonine dynasty, the last of the rulers later known as the Five Good Emperors ...
, whose own work
Meditations ''Meditations'' () is a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor from 161–180 AD, recording his private notes to himself and ideas on Stoic philosophy. Composition Marcus Aurelius wrote the 12 books of the ''Meditations'' i ...
(second century AD) was originally a private record of thoughts and quotations. ''
The Pillow Book is a book of observations and musings recorded by Sei Shōnagon during her time as court lady to Fujiwara no Teishi, Empress Consort Teishi during the 990s and early 1000s in Heian-period Japan. The book was completed in the year 1002. The wor ...
'' of Sei Shonagon, a courtier of the tenth or eleventh-century Japan is likewise a private book of anecdote and poetry, daily thoughts and lists. However, none of these include the wider range of sources usually associated with commonplace books. A number of renaissance scholars kept something resembling a commonplace book for example
Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 1452 - 2 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested o ...
, who described his notebook exactly as a commonplace book is structured: "A collection without order, drawn from many papers, which I have copied here, hoping to arrange them later each in its place, according to the subjects of which they treat." French encyclopediast
Jean Bodin Jean Bodin (; ; – 1596) was a French jurist and political philosopher, member of the Parlement of Paris and professor of law in Toulouse. Bodin lived during the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation and wrote against the background of reli ...
used the commonplace book as "''an arsenal of 'factoids'.''"


Zibaldone

During the course of the fifteenth century, the Italian peninsula was the site of the development of two new forms of book production: the deluxe registry book and the zibaldone (or hodgepodge book). What differentiated these two forms was their language of composition: a vernacular. Giovanni Rucellai, the compiler of one of the most sophisticated examples of the genre, defined it as a "salad of many herbs". Zibaldone were always paper
codices The codex (: codices ) was the historical ancestor format of the modern book. Technically, the vast majority of modern books use the codex format of a stack of pages bound at one edge, along the side of the text. But the term ''codex'' is now r ...
of small or medium format never the large desk copies of registry books or other display texts. They also lacked the lining and extensive ornamentation of other deluxe copies. Rather than miniatures, a zibaldone often incorporates the author's sketches. Zibaldone were in cursive scripts (first chancery minuscule and later mercantile minuscule) and contained what palaeographer Armando Petrucci describes as "an astonishing variety of poetic and prose texts". Devotional, technical, documentary, and literary texts appear side by side in no discernible order. The juxtaposition of taxes paid, currency exchange rates, medicinal remedies, recipes, and favourite quotations from
Augustine Augustine of Hippo ( , ; ; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430) was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Africa. His writings deeply influenced the development of Western philosop ...
and
Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; 15 October 70 BC21 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Rome, ancient Roman poet of the Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Augustan period. He composed three of the most fa ...
portrays a developing secular, literate culture. By far the most popular literary selections were the works of
Dante Alighieri Dante Alighieri (; most likely baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri; – September 14, 1321), widely known mononymously as Dante, was an Italian Italian poetry, poet, writer, and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called ...
, Francesco Petrarca, and
Giovanni Boccaccio Giovanni Boccaccio ( , ; ; 16 June 1313 – 21 December 1375) was an Italian people, Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanism, Renaissance humanist. Born in the town of Certaldo, he became so ...
: the "Three Crowns" of the Florentine vernacular traditions. These collections have been used by modern scholars as a source for interpreting how merchants and artisans interacted with the literature and visual arts of the Florentine Renaissance. The best-known zibaldone is
Giacomo Leopardi Count Giacomo Taldegardo Francesco di Sales Saverio Pietro Leopardi (29 June 1798 – 14 June 1837) was an Italian philosopher, poet, essayist, and philologist. Considered the greatest Italian poet of the 19th century and one of the greatest a ...
's nineteenth-century '' Zibaldone di pensieri''. It significantly departs, however, from the early modern genre of commonplace books comparable rather to the intellectual diary which was practiced by, for example, by
Lichtenberg Lichtenberg may refer to: Places * Lichtenberg, Austria * Lichtenberg, Bas-Rhin, France * Lichtenberg, Bavaria, Germany * Lichtenberg, Berlin, Germany * Lichtenberg, Mittelsachsen, Saxony, Germany * Lichtenberg (Lausitz), Saxony, Germany * Lichte ...
, Joubert, Coleridge, and Valéry, amongst others.


English

By the seventeenth century, commonplacing had become a recognized practice that was formally taught to college students in such institutions as
Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...
.
John Locke John Locke (; 29 August 1632 (Old Style and New Style dates, O.S.) – 28 October 1704 (Old Style and New Style dates, O.S.)) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of the Enlightenment thi ...
appended his indexing scheme for commonplace books to a printing of his ''
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding ''An Essay Concerning Human Understanding'' is a work by John Locke concerning the foundation of human knowledge and understanding. It first appeared in 1689 (although dated 1690) with the printed title ''An Essay Concerning Humane Understand ...
''. The commonplace tradition in which
Francis Bacon Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626) was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England under King James I. Bacon argued for the importance of nat ...
and
John Milton John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet, polemicist, and civil servant. His 1667 epic poem ''Paradise Lost'' was written in blank verse and included 12 books, written in a time of immense religious flux and politic ...
were educated had its roots in the pedagogy of classical
rhetoric Rhetoric is the art of persuasion. It is one of the three ancient arts of discourse ( trivium) along with grammar and logic/ dialectic. As an academic discipline within the humanities, rhetoric aims to study the techniques that speakers or w ...
, and "commonplacing" persisted as a popular study technique until the early twentieth century. Commonplace books were used by many key thinkers of
the Enlightenment The Age of Enlightenment (also the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment) was a European intellectual and philosophical movement active from the late 17th to early 19th century. Chiefly valuing knowledge gained through rationalism and empirici ...
, with authors like the philosopher and theologian
William Paley William Paley (July 174325 May 1805) was an English Anglican clergyman, Christian apologetics, Christian apologist, philosopher, and Utilitarianism, utilitarian. He is best known for his natural theology exposition of the teleological argument ...
using them to write books. Both
Ralph Waldo Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, minister, abolitionism, abolitionist, and poet who led the Transcendentalism, Transcendentalist movement of th ...
and
Henry David Thoreau Henry David Thoreau (born David Henry Thoreau; July 12, 1817May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading Transcendentalism, transcendentalist, he is best known for his book ''Walden'', a reflection upon sim ...
were taught to keep commonplace books at
Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
(their commonplace books survive in published form). However, it was also a domestic and private practice that was particularly attractive to authors. Some, such as
Samuel Taylor Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge ( ; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets with his friend William Wordsworth ...
,
Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Fau ...
, and
Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer and one of the most influential 20th-century modernist authors. She helped to pioneer the use of stream of consciousness narration as a literary device. Vir ...
kept messy reading notes that were intermixed with other quite various material; others, such as
Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Literary realism, Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry ...
, followed a more formal reading-notes method that mirrored the original
Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...
practice more closely. The older, "clearinghouse" function of the commonplace book, to condense and centralize useful and even "model" ideas and expressions, became less popular over time.


Examples


Manuscripts

*Adelaide Horatio Seymour Spencer, nineteenth-century gentlewoman. Held in Van Pelt Library,
University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...
. *Glastonbury Miscellany. (Trinity College, Cambridge, MS 0.9.38). Originally designed as an account book. *
Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton () was an English polymath active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author. Newton was a key figure in the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment that followed ...
(1643–1727), mathematician and physicist. Held at the University of Cambridge, with a digitised version freely available to view online. He developed the
calculus Calculus is the mathematics, mathematical study of continuous change, in the same way that geometry is the study of shape, and algebra is the study of generalizations of arithmetic operations. Originally called infinitesimal calculus or "the ...
in a commonplace which he called his
waste book A waste book was one of the traditional books used in bookkeeping, consisting of a diary of all transactions in chronological order. It differs from a Bookkeeping#Daybooks, daybook in that only a single waste book is maintained, rather than separ ...
. * Jean Miélot, fifteenth-century Burgundian translator and author. His book is in the
Bibliothèque nationale de France The (; BnF) is the national library of France, located in Paris on two main sites, ''Richelieu'' and ''François-Mitterrand''. It is the national repository of all that is published in France. Some of its extensive collections, including bo ...
, and the main sources for his verses, many written for court occasions. * Loci communes (Pseudo-Maximus), a late ninth- or early tenth-century
florilegium In medieval Latin, a ' (plural ') was a compilation of excerpts or sententia from other writings and is an offshoot of the commonplacing tradition. The word is from the Latin '' flos'' (flower) and '' legere'' (to gather): literally a gathering ...
*Richard Hill, a London grocer ( Oxford, Balliol College, MS 354). *Robert Reynes of Acle, Norfolk (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Tanner 407). *
Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer and one of the most influential 20th-century modernist authors. She helped to pioneer the use of stream of consciousness narration as a literary device. Vir ...
, twentieth-century novelist. Some of her notebooks are held in Smith College, Massachusetts. *''Zibaldone da Canal'' merchant's commonplace book (New Haven, CT, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, MS 327)


Published examples

*Mrs. Anna Anderson, '' A Common Place Book of Thoughts, Memories and Fancies (''Longman, Brown, Green and Longman, 1855'')'' * W. Ross Ashby (1903–1972) started a commonplace book in a journal in May 1928 as a medical student. He kept it for 44 years until his death at which point it occupied 25 volumes comprising 7,189 pages and was indexed with 1,600 index cards. The
British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...
created a digital archive of his commonplace which has been published online with extensive cross-linking based on his original index. https://ashby.info/ Old site: * W.H. Auden, '' A Certain World'' (New York: The Viking Press, 1970). *
Francis Bacon Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626) was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England under King James I. Bacon argued for the importance of nat ...
, ''The Promus of Formularies and Elegancies'', Longman, Greens and Company, London, 1883. Bacon's Promus was a rough list of elegant and useful phrases gleaned from reading and conversation that Bacon used as a sourcebook in writing and probably also as a promptbook for oral practice in public speaking. *
Robert Burns Robert Burns (25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the List of national poets, national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the be ...
, '' Robert Burns's Commonplace Book. 1783–1785''. James Cameron Ewing and Davidson Cook. Glasgow : Gowans and Gray Ltd., 1938. * E.M. Forster, ''Commonplace Book'', ed. Philip Gardner (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1985). * The Houghton Club, which holds the fishing rights to more than a dozen miles of the river Test, kept a club commonplace book from 1827 - 1902, filled with manuscript text and drawings, with numerous letters and drawings by members tipped in. A limited edition facsimile was printed for members (London: Atelier Press, 2019). *Thomas Jefferson,
Literary Commonplace Book
' (D.L. Wilson, ed., Princeton University Press, 1989) *Thomas Jefferson,
Legal Commonplace Book
' (David Thomas Konig and Michael P. Zuckert, eds., Princeton University Press, 2019) *
Ben Jonson Benjamin Jonson ( 11 June 1572 – ) was an English playwright, poet and actor. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence on English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for the satire, satirical ...
, ''Timber; or, Discoveries, made upon men and matter, as they have flow'd out of his daily Readings, or had their reflux to his peculiar Notion of the Times'' (London, 1641). * Transcribed by
Bruce Sterling Michael Bruce Sterling (born April 14, 1954) is an American science fiction author known for his novels and short fiction and editorship of the ''Mirrorshades'' anthology. In particular, he is linked to the cyberpunk subgenre. Sterling's first ...
. * ''The Commonplace Book of Elizabeth Lyttelton'' (Cambridge University Press, 1919) * John Man, ''Commonplaces of Christian Religion'' (London, 1578) * John Marbeck, ''A book of notes and commonplaces…collected and gathered out of the works of diverse singular writers and brought alphabetically into order'' (London, 1581). *
Philip Melanchthon Philip Melanchthon (born Philipp Schwartzerdt; 16 February 1497 – 19 April 1560) was a German Lutheran reformer, collaborator with Martin Luther, the first systematic theologian of the Protestant Reformation, an intellectual leader of the L ...
, '' Loci communes'', 1512 (
Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...
) *
John Milton John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet, polemicist, and civil servant. His 1667 epic poem ''Paradise Lost'' was written in blank verse and included 12 books, written in a time of immense religious flux and politic ...
, ''Milton's Commonplace Book'', in ''John Milton: Complete Prose Works'', gen. ed. Don M. Wolfe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953). Milton kept scholarly notes from his reading, complete with page citations to use in writing his tracts and poems. *
Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He was a member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party a ...
(1911–2004) kept a commonplace book with traditional commonplace headings and using index cards which "were kept in the plastic sleeves of a black photo album". They are held at the
Ronald Reagan Presidential Library The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library is the presidential library and burial site of Ronald Reagan, the 40th president of the United States (1981–1989), and his wife Nancy Reagan. Located in Simi Valley, California, the library is administere ...
. Edited by his biographer
Douglas Brinkley Douglas Brinkley (born December 14, 1960) is an American author, Katherine Tsanoff Brown Chair in Humanities, and professor of history at Rice University. Brinkley is a history commentator for CNN, Presidential Historian for the New York Historica ...
, his notes were published as the book ''The Notes: Ronald Reagan's Private Collection of Stories and Wisdom'' (Harper Collins, 2011).


Literary references to commonplacing

*
Amos Bronson Alcott Amos Bronson Alcott (; November 29, 1799 – March 4, 1888) was an American teacher, writer, philosopher, and reformer. As an educator, Alcott pioneered new ways of interacting with young students, focusing on a conversational style, and av ...
, 1877: "The habit of journalizing becomes a life-long lesson in the art of composition, an informal schooling for authorship. And were the process of preparing their works for publication faithfully detailed by distinguished writers, it would appear how large were their indebtedness to their diary and commonplaces. How carefully should we peruse Shakespeare's notes used in compiling his plays—what was his, what another's—showing how these were fashioned into the shapely whole we read, how Milton composed, Montaigne, Goethe: by what happy strokes of thought, flashes of wit, apt figures, fit quotations snatched from vast fields of learning, their rich pages were wrought forth! This were to give the keys of great authorship!" * In
Arthur Conan Doyle Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Hol ...
's
Sherlock Holmes Sherlock Holmes () is a Detective fiction, fictional detective created by British author Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a "Private investigator, consulting detective" in his stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with obser ...
stories, Holmes keeps numerous commonplace books, which he sometimes uses when doing research. For example, in " The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger", he researches the newspaper reports of an old murder in a commonplace book. * In
Alan Moore Alan Moore (born 18 November 1953) is an English author known primarily for his work in comic books including ''Watchmen'', ''V for Vendetta'', ''The Ballad of Halo Jones'', Swamp Thing (comic book), ''Swamp Thing'', ''Batman: The Killing Joke' ...
's graphic novel '' Providence,'' the protagonist Robert Black keeps a commonplace book; his entries into this book make up the second halves of the novel's chapters, contrasting with the graphic sections. * In
Lemony Snicket Lemony Snicket is the pen name of American author Daniel Handler and a fictional character of his creation. Handler has published various children's books under the name, including ''A Series of Unfortunate Events'', which has sold over 60 millio ...
's ''
A Series of Unfortunate Events ''A Series of Unfortunate Events'' is a series of thirteen Children's literature, children's novels written by American author Daniel Handler under the pen name Lemony Snicket. The books follow the turbulent lives of orphaned siblings List of A ...
'' a number of characters including Klaus Baudelaire and the Quagmire triplets keep commonplace books. * In
Michael Ondaatje Philip Michael Ondaatje (; born 12 September 1943) is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian poet, fiction writer and essayist. Ondaatje's literary career began with his poetry in 1967, publishing ''The Dainty Monsters'', and then in 1970 the critically a ...
's '' The English Patient'', Count Almásy uses his copy of
Herodotus Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histori ...
's '' Histories'' as a commonplace book. *
Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer and one of the most influential 20th-century modernist authors. She helped to pioneer the use of stream of consciousness narration as a literary device. Vir ...
, mid-twentieth century: " t us take down one of those old notebooks which we have all, at one time or another, had a passion for beginning. Most of the pages are blank, it is true; but at the beginning we shall find a certain number very beautifully covered with a strikingly legible hand-writing. Here we have written down the names of great writers in their order of merit; here we have copied out fine passages from the classics; here are lists of books to be read; and here, most interesting of all, lists of books that have actually been read, as the reader testifies with some youthful vanity by a dash of red ink."


See also

* '' Attic Nights'' *
Biji (Chinese literature) ''Biji'' () is a special literary genre in classical Chinese literature. Literally "Notebook (style), notebook" or "written notes". There is no strict writing mode for ''biji,'' it is a literary form mainly based on recording personal insights, expe ...
, a similar Chinese genre * Book of Shadows *
Bullet journal A bullet journal (sometimes known as a BuJo) is a method of Personal organizer, personal organization developed by digital product designer Ryder Carroll. The bullet journal system organizes Schedule, scheduling, reminders, to-do lists, bra ...
*
Card file A (German language, German: 'slipbox', plural ) or card file consists of small items of information stored on (German: 'slips'), paper slips or cards, that may be linked to each other through Index term, subject headings or other metadata such ...
* Commentarii *
Family cookbooks Family cookbooks are books which contain a variety of recipes collected by specific families. Whilst these cookbooks are sometimes later published, the concept is of a commonplace book Commonplace books (or commonplaces) are a way to compil ...
* Hypomnema *
Knowledge organization Knowledge organization (KO), organization of knowledge, organization of information, or information organization is an intellectual discipline concerned with activities such as document description, indexing, and classification that serve to ...
*
Memex A memex (from "memory expansion") is a hypothetical electromechanical device for interacting with microform documents and described in Vannevar Bush's 1945 article " As We May Think". Bush envisioned the memex as a device in which individuals w ...
*
Memoranda A memorandum (: memorandums or memoranda; from the Latin ''memorandum'', "(that) which is to be remembered"), also known as a briefing note, is a Writing, written message that is typically used in a professional setting. Commonly abbreviation, ...
books *
Miscellany A miscellany (, ) is a collection of various pieces of writing by different authors. Meaning a mixture, medley, or assortment, a miscellany can include pieces on many subjects and in a variety of different forms. In contrast to anthologies, w ...
*
Notebook (style) {{one source , date=May 2024 Notebook is a style of writing where people jot down what they have thought or heard at the spur of moment. The contents of a notebook are unorganized, and the number of subjects covered in a notebook are unlimited: a p ...
*
Notetaking Note-taking (sometimes written as notetaking or note taking) is the practice of recording information from different sources and platforms. By taking notes, the writer records the essence of the information, freeing their mind from having to rec ...
** Comparison of notetaking software *
Personal information management Personal information management (PIM) is the study and implementation of the activities that people perform in order to acquire or create, store, organize, maintain, retrieve, and use informational items such as documents (paper-based and digital ...
**
List of personal information managers The following is a list of personal information managers (Personal information manager, PIMs) and online organizers. Applications Discontinued applications See also Comparisons * Comparison of email clients * Comparison of file manager ...
*
Personal knowledge base A personal knowledge base (PKB) is an electronic tool used by an individual to express, capture, and later retrieve personal knowledge. It differs from a traditional database in that it contains subjective material particular to the owner, that o ...
*
Personal knowledge management Personal knowledge management (PKM) is a process of collecting information that a person uses to gather, classify, store, search, retrieve and share knowledge in their daily activities and the way in which these processes support work activit ...
* Personal wiki ** * Reference management software * Sammelband * Silva rerum (aka sylvae ("forests")) * Sudelbücher * Swipe file * Table-book * *
Thesaurus A thesaurus (: thesauri or thesauruses), sometimes called a synonym dictionary or dictionary of synonyms, is a reference work which arranges words by their meanings (or in simpler terms, a book where one can find different words with similar me ...
("treasure chests") * Vade mecum ("go with me") or handbook


Notes


Further reading

* Allen, Roland (2023). ''The Notebook: a history of thinking on paper''. Profile Books. * Burke, Victoria E. ''Recent Studies in Commonplace Books''. English Literary Renaissance. The University of Chicago Press. 43 (1 (Winter 2013)): 153–177. . Retrieved 3 August 2021. A thorough bibliography of research and writing on commonplace books with associated notes. * Havens, Earle (2001). ''Commonplace Books: A History of Manuscripts and Printed Books from Antiquity to the Twentieth Century''. Yale University.


Handbooks

Influential treatises, handbooks, and books in the history of the commonplace tradition. * Rodolphus Agricola, ''De formando studio''. Antwerp, 1532; composed 1484. * John Brinsley, '. London, 1612. * Joachim Camerarius, ''Elementa rhetoricae''. Basel, 545 *
Desiderius Erasmus Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus ( ; ; 28 October c. 1466 – 12 July 1536), commonly known in English as Erasmus of Rotterdam or simply Erasmus, was a Dutch Christian humanist, Catholic priest and Catholic theology, theologian, educationalist ...
, '. Cologne, 1540. *
Desiderius Erasmus Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus ( ; ; 28 October c. 1466 – 12 July 1536), commonly known in English as Erasmus of Rotterdam or simply Erasmus, was a Dutch Christian humanist, Catholic priest and Catholic theology, theologian, educationalist ...
, ''De ratione studii et instituendi pueros comentarii totidem''. aris, 1512 *
John Locke John Locke (; 29 August 1632 (Old Style and New Style dates, O.S.) – 28 October 1704 (Old Style and New Style dates, O.S.)) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of the Enlightenment thi ...
, '. London, 1706. Introduced a popular method for creating an index for commonplaces. *
Philip Melanchthon Philip Melanchthon (born Philipp Schwartzerdt; 16 February 1497 – 19 April 1560) was a German Lutheran reformer, collaborator with Martin Luther, the first systematic theologian of the Protestant Reformation, an intellectual leader of the L ...
, ''Institutiones rhetoricae''. Wittenberg 536 *
Philip Melanchthon Philip Melanchthon (born Philipp Schwartzerdt; 16 February 1497 – 19 April 1560) was a German Lutheran reformer, collaborator with Martin Luther, the first systematic theologian of the Protestant Reformation, an intellectual leader of the L ...
, ''Rhetorices elementa''. Lyon, 1537. *
Philip Melanchthon Philip Melanchthon (born Philipp Schwartzerdt; 16 February 1497 – 19 April 1560) was a German Lutheran reformer, collaborator with Martin Luther, the first systematic theologian of the Protestant Reformation, an intellectual leader of the L ...
, ''De locis communibus ratio''. Augsburg 593 * Petrus Mosellanus, ''Tabulae de schematibus et tropis.... In Rhetroica Philippi Melanchthonis. In Erasmi Roterdami libellum De duplici copia''. Paris, 1542. * Henry Peacham, ''The garden of eloquence: conteyning the figures of grammar and rhetorick''. London, 1577. One of the first handbooks in English. * Obadiah Walker, '. Oxford, 1673.


External links

* *Cameron Louis, ed. (1980). ''The Commonplace Book of Robert Reynes of Acle''
Commonplace Books
by Prof. Lucia Knoles, Assumption College.
Commonplace Books, Harvard Open Collections
– digitized commonplace books
Extraordinary Commonplaces
New York Review of Books New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 ** "New" (Paul McCartney song), 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, 1995 * "New" (Daya song), 2017 * "New" (No Doubt song), 1 ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Commonplace Book Medieval literature Books by type Publishing Books of quotations Note-taking