Mnemonics and medieval culture

This is a working list. That something is included here does not mean I recommend it.

Notes

• These techniques are not hard to learn or use. The hard part is to find something useful to do with them. Test preparation, medical studies, games, stage magic, sales, public speaking
• I cannot use visual mnemonics while driving. This must be why we have radio, but not television, in cars. Why we have giant television screens by the side of the road is an open question. Tentatively, I blame George Bush.
• Mnemonics have always been used in two ways: to organize information, and broadly to mislead people. Cicero, Metrodorus, Saint Thomas. At the end of the middle ages, the balance tipped away from organizing to where it is today, associated with stage magic, insincerity, and charlatanry. Did Renaissance magic represent one, the other, or both? Does misleading oneself count?

Studies, criticism, biography

• The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci, by Jonathan D. Spence
• Logic and the Art of Memory, by Paolo Rossi
• The book of memory:A study of memory in medieval culture, by Mary J. Carruthers
• The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature, by C.S. Lewis
• The Art of Memory, by Frances A. Yates
• Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature, by C.S. Lewis
• Saint Thomas Aquinas, by G.K. Chesterton
• The History of the Abacus, by J.M. Pullan
• Wax Tablets of the Mind, by Jocelyn P. Small
• * The Universe in a Handkerchief, by Martin Gardner
• The Evolution of Medieval Thought, by David Knowles
• Feudal Society, by Marc Bloch
• * Mnemotechnics and Virgil, by Elizabeth-Anne Scarth
• * The Medieval Craft of Memory: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures, by Mary Carruthers (Editor), Jan M. Ziolkowski (Editor)
• * The Singer of Tales, 2nd ed., by Albert B. Lord
• The Making of Memory in the Middle Ages, edited by Lucie Doležalova: “…case studies on memory in different parts of medieval Europe and in a variety of fields”
• Review of Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, by Joshua Foer

Primary works

• Ovid’s Metamorphoses, translated by Rolfe Humphries
• The Song of Roland, translated by Dorothy L. Sayers
• The Consolation of Philosophy, by Boëthius
• * The Faerie Queene, by Edmund Spenser
• The Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri
• * The Aeneid, by Virgil
• * The Confessions of St. Augustine
• * Jerusalem Delivered, by Torquato Tasso
• * Lives of Famous Greeks and Romans, by Plutarch
• The Medieval Craft of Memory: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures, by Mary Carruthers, Jan M. Ziolkowski
• The Treasure Chests of Mnemosyne: Selected Texts on Memory Theory from Plato to Derrida, ed. Uwe Fleckner, photography by Sarkis

More recent memory books

General

• How to Develop a Brilliant Memory Week by Week, by Dominic O’Brien
• Memory Power, by Scott Hagwood
• Your Memory: How It Works and How to Improve It, by Kenneth L. Higbee
• * The Memory Book, by Harry Lorayne and Jerry Lucas
• * Mind Hacks, by Tom Stafford & Matt Webb
• * Modern Mnemotechny, by Asa S Boyd
• * Phreno- Mnemotechny, by Francis Fauvel-Gouraud
• * Pick on Memory Culture, by Edward Pick
• * Mnemonics Applied to the Acquisition of Knowledge, by RobertPike Jr. and William C. Pike

Specific

• Mnemonics, Rhetoric and Poetics for Medics, by Robert L. Bloomfield
• Memorize the Faith! by Kevin Vost
• Better Bridge with a Better Memory, by Ron Klinger
• Visual Mnemonics for Biochemistry, by Laurie L. Marbas
• Vocabulary Cartoons: SAT Word Power, by Sam Burchers

Technical

• St. Thomas Aquinas, by Ralph McInerny
• * In the Palaces of Memory, by George Johnson
• * The Mind of a Mnemonist, by Aleksandr R. Luria

Tangential

• The Shallows, by Nicholas Carr, surveyed in How the internet is altering your mind.
• Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age, by Ann M. Blair – Q and A with the author – Remarks by the author

Links

• Memory Effects (pdf) from Grey Matters
• Profile of Andrew Card, who used mnemonic devices as White House Chief of Staff
• Inventional Mnemonics and the Ornaments of Style: The Case of Etymology
• Mnemonic Criticism & Renaissance Literature: A Manifesto
• Google search for “C.S. Lewis’ The Discarded Image: What to Read with It”
• How to Learn Facts, by Steven Dutch, Natural and Applied Sciences, University of Wisconsin – Green Bay
• The memoria technica cipher, by Francine F. Abeles in Cryptologia, Jul 2003, includes a description of Lewis Carroll’s mnemonic scheme. (link may be dead)
• Wax Tablets of the Mind online class syllabus
• Diner lingo
• The Canon of Memory in the Middle Ages Bibliography
• Beasts and Buildings: Religious Symbolism and Medieval Memory, by Brendan P. Newlon
• You’re Not as Samrt as You Could Be part 2, by David G. Wittels
• The Memory Doctor: Elizabeth Loftus and the construction of false memories.
• The Speculum Theologie, Beinecke MS 416: “Medieval educators gave significant attention to the principles of morality in training their students. Such instruction was closely linked to the cultivation of memory.”
• Sebastian Brant’s Stultifera Navis, the Ship of Fools
• Medievalists.net aims “to create a central online hub for news, resources and videos on medieval topics.”
• How to learn math formulas presents “10 things you can do to improve your memory for math formulas.”
• Mnemonic Device for the parts of speech – “A NOUN’S the name of any thing; As school or garden, hoop, or swing.”
• A mnemonic system for dyslexic and dysgraphic students: Writing Made Easier: Helping Students Develop Automatic Sound/Symbol Correspondence, by Regina G. Richards, 2008
• Bar Mitzvahs and the Dyslexic Child, The Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity, 2008 – briefly mentions and illustrates mnemonic flash cards for learning Hebrew
• Mempowered! by Fiona McPherson
• The Dead Media Archive on Mnemonics, from the NYU Department of Media, Culture, and Communication. “Mnemonics Neatly Eliminate Man’s Only Nemesis (Insufficient Cerebral Storage)”

* To do