Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Memorizing your 50!!!!!

Alex mentioned in class the other day that he was afraid that you are just getting into too much when you are foced to use a tool to memorize something instead of just simply memorizing it. To counter this, I turn to Frances A. Yates.

Chapter 1
"The artificial memory is established from places and images." p. 6
"Those who know the letters of teh alphabet can write down what is dictated to them and read out what they have written. Likewise those who have learned mnemonics can set in places what they have heard and deliver it from memory." p. 7
"It is essential that the places should form a series and must be remembered in their order, so that we can start from any locus in the series and move either backwards or forwards from it." p. 7
"If these have been arranged in order, the result will be that, reminded by the images, we can repeat orally what we have committed to the loci, proceeding in either direction from any locus we please." p. 7
"But the loci remain in the memory and can be used again by placing another set of images for another set of material." p. 7
"In order to make sure that we do not err in remembering the order of the loci it is useful to give each fifth locus some distinguishing mark." p. 7
"It is better to form one's memory loci in a deserted and solitary place for crowds of passing people tend to weaken the impressions. Therefore the student intent on acquiring a sharp and welldefined set of loci will choose an unfrequented building in which to memorise places." p. 7
"Memory loci should not be too much like one another, for instance too many intercolumnar spaces are not good, for their resemblance to one another will be confusing." p. 7
There is also a big long set of rules for images but I will let you use your book and turn to pages 8 and 9 for further explanation. Thanks to all of these, the memorization of fifty things seems far less daunting and more achievable.

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