The Ruin : An Old English Mnemonic?
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The Ruin: An Old English Mnemonic? Brian Cook1 Accepted: 21 September 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Despite the generally accepted scholarly opinion that the three rhetorical manuals describing the method of loci and its accompanying origin legend were unknown in early medieval England (i.e. Rhetorica ad Herennium, Cicero’s De oratore, and Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria), I argue that the Old English poem, The Ruin, suggests otherwise. By examining the features that overlap between the method of loci as described in these rhetorical texts, Mary Carruthers’ argument for a uniquely “monastic memoria” that was ubiquitous in the early medieval period, and The Ruin, I suggest that the Rhetorica ad Herennium provides a good accounting for some of the oddly specific descriptive details the poem is best known for. Moreover, as the poem is fundamentally concerned with the power of remembering to bring order to chaos, The Ruin bears a striking resemblance to the origin legend of the method of loci. Evidence of the influence of the method of loci and its origin legend on Old English literature requires that we rethink how well the extant manuscript record represents both the state of learning in, and the transfer of knowledge throughout, early medieval Britain. Keywords Method of loci · Mnemonics · The Ruin · Rhetorica ad Herennium · Early medieval learned culture In The Anglo-Saxon library, Michael Lapidge (2006, pp. 128–9) asks us to “Consider the kinds of text which are unrepresented in any Anglo-Saxon library,” among which he lists “treatises describing the rhetorical training required of a young gentleman (the Rhetorica ad Herennium; Cicero, De oratore; Quintilian, Institutio oratoria, along with the model speeches of the elder Seneca),” concluding that their absence is due to their being “of no use to scholars engaged in interpreting the Bible and explaining the organization of the Church.” The three rhetorical treatises mentioned by Lapidge are noteworthy for describing the mnemonic device of the method of loci, attributed to Simonides of Ceos and generally considered to have had little * Brian Cook [email protected] 1
Department of English, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, USA
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influence on early medieval learned culture. As I shall argue, the Old English poem The Ruin is functionally similar to the method of loci, suggesting that the poet knew the mnemonic, at least indirectly and perhaps independently of these rhetorical treatises. Moreover, the poem may go beyond merely being influenced by the method of loci—The Ruin itself may be a poetic explication designed to teach the method of loci. If the method of loci or its accompanying origin legend can be shown to have influenced Old English poetry, then we must rethink our assumptions about the state of learning in early medieval England, knowledge networks in the early medieval British Isles, and how well both are represented by the extant manuscript record. Frances Yates brought widespread critical attention to t
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