Jonathan Edwards’Cmonplace Book
I recently discovered a century-old idea that’s finding a beautifully modern expression. The idea is known as commonplacing (or said differently, the practice of “producing a commonplace.”)

What is commonplacing?
Commonplacing is the act of selecting important phrases, lines, and/or passages from texts and writing them down. A commonplace book is then a notebook in which a reader has collected quotations from works he or she has read. These commonplace books often included comments and notes from the reader. They were a sort of reflective journal of what one read or learned during his life–a practice common to many of history’s leading thinkers.

Thomas Jefferson, for example, was an avid practitioner of reflective journaling. One biographer noted that Jefferson “would synopsize and capture the key points of his readings and add his own reflections, recording them in a journal which he called his ‘commonplace book.”

Jefferson himself reflects on his practice:
I was in the habit of abridging and commonplacing what I read meriting it, and of sometimes mixing my own reflections on the subject.

Jefferson’s tutor, James Maury, commended the practice as a means ‘to reflect, and remark on, and digest what you read’.

How was commonplacing done?
Commonplace books were frequently indexed so that the reader could classify important themes and locate quotations related to particular topics or authors. They were a way to compile knowledge. Depending on the “commonplacer”, these notebooks might serve as essentially scrapbooks filled with items of every kind: medical recipes, quotes, letters, poems, tables of weights and measures, proverbs, prayers, legal formulas. Commonplaces were most often used by readers, writers, and students, as an aid for remembering useful concepts or facts they had learned. Each commonplace book was unique to its creator’s particular interests.

Why should one have a commonplace book?
As Max W. Thomas puts it, “commonplace books are about memory, which takes both material and immaterial form; the commonplace book is like a record of what that memory might look like”. As one scholar commented, the commonplace book exists to serve the commonplace storehouse of the mind, to assist the learner to master knowledge and wisdom.
I’ve been growing increasingly excited about the discipline of commonplacing–particularly as a reflection of my own personality and learning style. I see it as another means to keep me learning for a lifetime. At the same time, I believe the discipline might help many of you as well.

Is blogging a good way to develop a commonplace?
(I love setting myself up with these questions.) Absolutely. Blogs (online journals) can be the “beautifully modern expression” of the century old idea of commonplacing. Blogs serve all kinds of purposes, but I’ve found them to be a wonderful way to “commonplace” things I’m reading. They are serving as a “storehouse” for the mind. I’ll take the risk and invite you to visit this site often.

More on Commonplacing

Commonplace books (or commonplaces) emerged in the 15th century with the availability of cheap paper for writing, mainly in England. They were a way to compile knowledge, usually by writing information into books. They were essentially scrapbooks filled with items of every kind: medical recipes, quotes, letters, poems, tables of weights and measures, proverbs, prayers, legal formulas. Commonplaces were used by readers, writers, students, and humanists as an aid for remembering useful concepts or facts they had learned. Each commonplace book was unique to its creator’s particular interests.

“Commonplacing is the practice of entering literary excerpts and personal comments into a private journal, that is, into a commonplace book or, to use a 17th century synonym, a silva rerum (“a forest of things”).

“Time was when readers kept commonplace books. Whenever they came across a pithy passage, they copied it into a notebook under an appropriate heading, adding observations made in the course of daily life. Erasmus instructed them how to do it . . .The practice spread everywhere in early modern England, among ordinary readers as well as famous writers like Francis Bacon, Ben Jonson, John Milton, and John Locke. It involved a special way of taking in the printed word. Unlike modern readers, who follow the flow of a narrative from beginning to end, early modern Englishmen read in fits and starts and jumped from book to book. They broke texts into fragments and assembled them into new patterns by transcribing them in different sections of their notebooks. Then they reread the copies and rearranged the patterns while adding more excerpts. Reading and writing were therefore inseparable activities. They belonged to a continuous effort to make sense of things, for the world was full of signs: you could read your way through it; and by keeping an account of your readings, you made a book of your own, one stamped with your personality. . . . The era of the commonplace book reached its peak in the late Renaissance, although commonplacing as a practice probably began in the twelfth century and remained widespread among the Victorians. It disappeared long before the advent of the sound bite.” — Robert Darnton, “Extraordinary Commonplaces,” The New York Review of Books, December 21, 2000

I OUGHT not to offer a record of these days, interests, recuperations, without including a certain old, well-thumb’d common-place book, 1 filled with favorite excerpts, I carried in my pocket for three summers, and absorb’d over and over again, when the mood invited. I find so much in having a poem or fine suggestion sink into me (a little then goes a great ways) prepar’d by these vacant-sane and natural influences.– Walt Whitman