Introduction; 1. Models for the memory; 2. Descriptions of the neuropsychology of memory; 3. Elementary memory design; 4. The arts of memory; 5. Memory and the ethics of reading; 6. Memory and authority 7. Memory and the book; Afterword; Appendixes; List of abbreviations; Bibliography.
Mary Carruthers is the author of The Craft of Thought (Cambridge 1998) and The Medieval Craft of Memory (University of Pennsylvania 2002) as well as of The Book of Memory (1990 and 2008). She divides her time between New York City and Oxford, where she holds the positions of Remarque Professor of Literature at New York University and Fellow of All Souls College.
"I have been looking at medieval illuminations for years, but after
reading what Mary Carruthers has to say about them (well
illustrated by thirty reproductions) I can never look at them in
quite the same way again....A short review can do no more than
scratch the surface of this profound book." Canadian Journal of
History
"Mary Carruthers...has much enlarged our conception of memory in
the Middle Ages....The Book of Memory is the work of a careful and
erudite scholar, scrupulous and yet imaginative..." Times Literary
Supplement
"The Book of Memory is not only a very fine ethnographic study of
folk psychology and an exemplary study of material culture
(medieval books), but also a very significant contribution to
general anthropological theory." Man
"...a delightful and erudite presentation on the role of memoria,
or memory, in the Middle Ages." Elwood E. Mather III, The Sixteenth
Century Journal
"Mary Carruthers has presented a detailed study of the importance
of memory to the preservation and transmission of knowledge and
written material. She also gives us an important insight into the
relationship between writing and orality....This book is excellent
reading....it is a specialized book in a neglected field of study."
Elmer Clark, History
"Just as memory was fundamental to the Middle Ages, Mary
Carruthers's The Book of Memory will be fundamental to our
understanding and teaching of medieval mentalité. Rather than
asking who needs Carruther's book when Frances Yates's The Art of
Memory, written from a Renaissance perspective, has served scholars
since 1966, I would wonder who can do without it. Carruthers's
documentation of the layout of medieval memory and of books as both
echoes of and aids to memory formation deserves the attention of
all serious students of the history of ideas....Though Carruthers
positions her work with respect to Yates's scholarship, she
supersedes it. Scholars from all disciplines who have sought
support in Frances Yates will want to enlarge their conception of
medieval books and their rememberers by consulting Mary
Carruthers's The Book of Memory." Elaine E. Whitaker, South
Atlantic Review
"Carruthers has done a great service by providing so lucid and
authoritative an account of medieval memory systems." Modern
Language Quarterly
"This is an excellent and important book, and like all good works
of scholarship it has major implications beyond the subject matter
actually treated by the author....This book will open up new,
historically focused ways of understanding reading and writing in
the Middle Ages as social practices based on educational objectives
and cultural assumptions quite different from our own. As I was
reading, I saw many ways to apply Carruther's arguments to Old and
Middle English poetical codices and to the works of Dante, Chaucer,
Langland, and Gower. The Book of Memory opens a door to future
research that I hope many scholars and students will pass through."
Martin Irvine, Modern Philology
"Of making many books there is no end, but for some books we are
continually grateful. Occasionally, we find a book that opens up a
whole new vista, a work so solidly organized and so carefully
detailed that it immediately becomes a standard reference book.
Mary Carruthers's The Book of Memory is that sort of book." Joyce
Sutphen, Rhetoric Society Quarterly
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