It's not FOR anything: in praise of the Common Place Book

Courtesy of Never Mind the Bricolage[i] 

What I mean by a commonplace book.

To me, a commonplace book is a compilation of quotes, overheard conversations, thoughts, cuttings, drawings, and doodles. It’s a one-stop inexhaustible collection of all the bits and bobs in life that interest you. It’s not a journal because there is no order and it’s not FOR anything. In this society of goals and targets, forward planning and productivity, a book that has no purpose but to please the individual goes against the modern desire for order and monetisation. Yet, it is precisely because of this, the commonplace book can be so freeing. It celebrates the extra-ordinary and the humdrum. There is no right or wrong way of doing it… at least not in my opinion.

However, it wasn’t always like this…

A Brief History of the Commonplace Book.

Commonplace Books can be traced back to Roman and Greek times. Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations[ii] was originally written as a record of private thoughts.

In the Elizabethan age, commonplace books were not a random collection of interests. Instead, they were places in which quotations (or ‘commonplaces’) were copied. These quotations must not be banal, or from the common person, but universally accepted as wise. The books were, or became, a crib sheet for the wit who wished to impress their friends. This led to accusations that commonplace books were a form of cheating. Richard West wrote in 1638,

"Their Braines lye all in Notes; Lord! How they’d looke / If they should chance to loose their Table-book!"

These Elizabethan books were also formally structured with headings to allow ease of referencing. This caused problems without a cut and paste system, so some writers, like Robert Southwell (1653), left blank pages under some topics and tried to cram everything into other topics they found more interesting.

Courtesy of Yale Library[iii]

Despite the example of Southwell, this way of structuring the books were seen as such a useful way of categorising information it was taught to students.

However, by the 18th Century, the practice had become much more informal and continues to be more slapdash up to today. Virginia Woolf, for example, had reading notes and personal observations all mixed together. Here’s an example from her Italian notebooks.

Courtesy of AnOther [iv]

My take…

It is these commonplace books, like Woolf’s, which I like the best. These I emulate. Life is not clear, clean, and organised. In the commonplace book, like in life, facts knock against each other or communicate. A scribbled overheard conversation from the Post Office queue butts up against a quote from Shakespeare. It’s egalitarian; no-nonsense. What you place in your book boils down to what you want to note, write, draw and snip. Who cares if each page is a hodge-podge. It is a mess that belongs to you, it is your inspiration, your mind on paper.

In my next blog post, I will be discussing why I decided to use a commonplace book to track my work on Greenacres Community Farm.

SOURCES

[i] ‘Commonplace Books’, nevermind the bricolage, accessed 4 April 2024, https://superflat.typepad.com/nevermindthebricolage/2013/11/commonplace-books.html.

[ii] Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (London: Penguin Classics, 2006).

[iii] ‘Commonplace Book · Yale University Library Online Exhibitions’, accessed 4 April 2024, https://onlineexhibits.library.yale.edu/s/not-reading/page/commonplace-book.

[iv] AnOther, ‘#WordWeek: The Famous & Their Notebooks’, AnOther, 30 July 2014, https://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/3786/wordweek-the-famous-their-notebooks.