\[ **BT: [[knowledge#note-taking|note-taking]]** ] --- # commonplace books [[Personally gathered collections of quotes (commonplace books) were popular in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.]][^1] [[Commonplace books would often ‘result in a wonderfully tangled mixture of reading and writing, where disparate ideas could be fruitfully thrown together onto the same pages.’]][^2] Also known as *commonplaces*.[^3] --- ## a brief history The form has existed, under various names, since antiquity. [[Aulus Gellius|Aulus Gellius]]’s *[[Aulus Gellius, The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius, trans. Rolfe, 1927|Attic Nights]]*, for example, can be considered a commonplace book. ![[Eagan, ‘The Commonplace Book as a Thinker’s Journal’, 2016#^0de68c]][^4] ### 1500s Commonplace books became more popular in the 1500s, as ‘books became more common in society’.[^5] ### 1600s Re. the commonplace book, [[Swift, Jonathan|Jonathan Swift]] wrote: ‘a provident poet cannot subsist without, for this proverbial reason, that great wits have short memories.’[^6] He called the system of ‘commonplacing’ a ‘supplemental memory’.[^7] In 1689, John Locke wrote about [[John Locke ‘attempted to simulate Pascal’s “hyperthymesia” … upon the page.’|attempting to simulate Blaise Pascal’s ‘hyperthymesia’ in written form—via the commonplace book]].[^8] --- ## methodologies **Jean Le Clerc (c. 1706):** 1. Only write out those extracts ‘which are Choice and Excellent, either for the Matter itself, or else for the Elegancy of the Expression’, and nothing more—after all, if one’s extracting habit is too over-extended, ‘that Labour would abate our Desire to go on with our Reading’[^9] 2. *Cite your sources* 3. Do not write out your extracts during your first read (‘for that will make the Reading both Tedious and Unpleasant’[^10]) but rather, instead, during your second read. > [['It’s not a coincidence that almost all ancient, Medieval and early modern students, when they started a new commonplace book, always began by copying Seneca’s quotation down first.']][^11] Seneca’s *Letter 84, On gathering ideas*, says: > [[‘We also, I say, ought to copy these bees, and sift whatever we have gathered from a varied course of reading …’|‘We should follow, men say, the example of the bees, who flit about and cull the flowers that are suitable for producing honey, and then arrange and assort in their cells all that they have brought in; these bees, as our Vergil says, “pack close the flowing honey, And swell their cells with nectar sweet.” … We also, I say, ought to copy these bees, and sift whatever we have gathered from a varied course of reading, for such things are better preserved if they are kept separate; then, by applying the supervising care with which our nature has endowed us,—in other words, our natural gifts,—we should so blend those several flavours into one delicious compound that, even though it betrays its origin, yet it nevertheless is clearly a different thing from that whence it came.’]][^12] --- ## ↬ external resources - [A Commonplace Book](https://3stages.org/quotes/_) - [Whiki](https://whitneyannetrettien.com/whiki/index.php/Main_Page) [^1]: Sam Dolbear, ‘[[Dolbear, ‘John Locke’s Method for Common-Place Books’, 2019|John Locke's Method for Common-Place Books (1685)]]’, *The Public Domain Review*, 8 May 2019, https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/john-lockes-method-for-common-place-books-1685/. [^2]: Dolbear, ‘[[Dolbear, ‘John Locke’s Method for Common-Place Books’, 2019|John Locke’s Method for Common-Place Books]]’. [^3]: ‘Commonplace book’, IndieWeb, last edited 6 November 2024, https://indieweb.org/commonplace_book. [^4]: Kevin Eagan, ‘[[Eagan, ‘The Commonplace Book as a Thinker’s Journal’, 2016|The Commonplace Book as a Thinker’s Journal]]’, *Critical Margins* (Medium blog), 14 April 2016, https://criticalmargins.com/the-commonplace-book-as-a-thinkers-journal-4d65231f30ec. [^5]: ‘Commonplace book’. [^6]: Dolbear, ‘[[Dolbear, ‘John Locke’s Method for Common-Place Books’, 2019|John Locke’s Method for Common-Place Books]]’. [^7]: Dolbear, ‘[[Dolbear, ‘John Locke’s Method for Common-Place Books’, 2019|John Locke’s Method for Common-Place Books]]’. [^8]: Dolbear, ‘[[Dolbear, ‘John Locke’s Method for Common-Place Books’, 2019|John Locke’s Method for Common-Place Books]]’. [^9]: Jean Le Clerc, ‘Monsieur Le Clerc’s Character of Mr. Lock’s Method, with His Advice About the Use of Common-Places’, in *[[Locke, New Method of Making Common-Place-Books, 1706|A New Method of Making Common-Place-Books ; Written by the Late Learned Mr. John Lock, Author of the Essay Concerning Humane Understanding. Translated from the French. To Which Is Added Something from Monsieur Le Clerc, Relating to the Same Subject. A Treatise Necessary for All Gentlemen, Especially Students of Divinity, Physick, and Law.]]*, unknown translator (J. Greenwood, 1706), p. ii. https://archive.org/embed/gu_newmethodmaki00lock. [^10]: Jean Le Clerc, ‘Monsieur Le Clerc’s Character of Mr. Lock’s Method, with His Advice About the Use of Common-Places’, in *[[Locke, New Method of Making Common-Place-Books, 1706|A New Method]]*, p. iv. [^11]: John Ahern, ‘[[Ahern, ‘How to Make a Commonplace Book’, 2023|How to Make a Commonplace Book]]’, *Circe Institute*, 21 July 2023, https://circeinstitute.org/blog/how-to-make-a-commonplace-book/. [^12]: Seneca, ‘[[Seneca, ‘Letter 84. On gathering ideas’, trans. Gummere, 1920|Letter 84. On gathering ideas]]’, *Seneca. ‘Seneca. Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales. With an English translation by Richard M. Gummere*, translated by Richard M. Gummere (William Heinemann and G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1920; Wikisource, updated 4 February 2025), https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_84.