An Article About Frances Yates and The Art of Memory

[Josh (Josh Cohen)]

Remembering Frances Yates

Yates was the author of The Art of Memory, a 1966 title that remains oddly obscure despite having been named by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best nonfiction books published in the 20th century. Many well-read people have never even heard of it, yet tendrils of Yates’ ideas are entwined through contemporary culture—not just wrapped around Hannibal Lecter and Sherlock. Those who have read The Art of Memory tend to become obsessed with it, and the list of contemporary authors inspired by the book is impressive: Italo Calvino, Carlos Fuentes, Hilary Mantel, Philip Pullman, Penelope Lively, Harold Bloom, and Madison Smartt Bell, to name just a few. John Crowley wrote a four-novel series, Aegypt, based on The Art of Memory.

[Mnemoriam]

Thanks for this!

I have just finished the first chapter of “The Art of Memory” and two striking aspects of it were also commented by the article 's writer.

And above all, she conveys the excitement of intellectual discovery and deduction, as she carefully unearths the strands of a strange, unbroken tradition lying concealed beneath the conventional story of Western civilization’s stately procession toward the triumph of the Enlightenment.

It was very nice to find out that, totally different from a boring historical account, Yates writes as if she was just now studying the old texts on memory and reaching her conclusions as we read them. Beautiful!

Although she is best known for unearthing this long history of the art of memory, Yates never actually learned to perform any of its techniques herself.

I had read some place else about that, but I was shocked to learn now by reading her that she also does not believe in “the Art” or even fully understands it.

From the book, talking about one of the few examples of conjured images in Ad Herennium:

Though everything appears to be explained, I yet find this image baffling. Like much else in Ad Herennium on memory it seems to belong to a world which is either impossible for us to understand or which is not being really fully explained to us.

But the image is nothing more than what we do all the time memorising cards or anything else. If memory techniques weren’t so popularised today, would we be so baffled by the descriptions of images that we would not believe it’s true? That’s fascinating to wonder if, in fact, it was her work that made it all so “believable” as to allow the memory feats we see today, in spite of the fact that to her it all seemed impossible…

Now, clearly stating she does not believe in it:

There were inert or lazy or unskilled people in Cicero’s time who took the common sense view, to which, personally, I heartily subscribe—as explained earlier I am a historian only of the art, not a practitioner of it—that all these places and images would only bury under a heap of rubble whatever little one does remember naturally. Cicero is a believer and a defender. He evidently had by nature a fantastically acute visual memory.

I kept asking myself why she would not try to apply the Art; I am sure that would even benefit her writing for she would understand its inner workings better. Then the article provided an interesting possible hypothesis, which I’ll keep in mind while continuing to read the book:

By the time of her death she had buried her beloved brother, both her parents, and two talented sisters who had been the companions of her later years. If she had chosen instead to look back, chances are she would have seen only loss and that mysteriously tragic “event” of her youth. For someone with her gloomy disposition, this might have seemed too great a risk. Even Frances Yates must have understood that there are times when it’s better just to forget.

NIce!

Thanks again!

Best!
Tammish.