Definition:
The fourth of the traditional five parts or canons of rhetoric, that which considers methods and devices (including figures of speech) to aid and improve the memory.
Etymology:
From the Latin, "mindful"Examples and Observations:
- "In general, Roman writers on rhetoric (and, according to them their Hellenistic predecessors) avoided deciding whether memory was a natural ability or a learned skill by dividing it into two kinds. There was what was called the natural memory, which was simply an individual's aptitude for recalling things. This natural memory could be supplemented by the techniques of artificial memory, a set of practices that enabled their user to remember more clearly, more completely, more systematically, or simply more than his natural memory would allow."
(William West, "Memory" in Encyclopedia of Rhetoric, ed. Thomas O. Sloane, 2001) - "It is not difficult to get hold of the general principles of the mnemonic. The first step was to imprint on the memory a series of loci or places. The commonest, though not the only, type of mnemonic place system used was the architectural type. The clearest description of the place is that given by Quintilian [in Institutio Oratoria]. In order to form a series of places in memory, he says, a building is to be remembered, as spacious and varied a one as possible . . .. The images by which the speech is to be remembered . . . are then placed in imagination on the places which have been memorized in the building. . . . We have to think of the ancient orator as moving in imagination through his memory building whilst he is making his speech, drawing from the memorized places the images he has placed on them. The method ensures that the points are remembered in the right order."
(Frances Yates, The Art of Memory, 1966)
Pronunciation: MEM-eh-ree
