Encyclopedism
Like Renaissance encyclopedists, Diderot worried about the possible destruction of civilization and selected knowledge he hoped would survive.
[8] The use of the term to refer to a genre of literature was prompted by a line that Pliny used in the preface of Natural History: "My object is to treat of all those things which the Greeks include in the Encyclopædia [tē̂s enkyklíou paideías], which, however, are either not generally known or are rendered dubious from our ingenious conceits.
[15] The Greek writer and teacher Aristotle (384–322 BC) had much to say on a broad range of subjects, including biology, anatomy, psychology, physics, meteorology, zoology, poetics, rhetoric, logic, epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and political thought.
Long after his death, commentators filled in the gaps, reordered his works, and put his writing in a systematic form.
This passage from the Souda suggests that it was made up of alphabetized entries:[17] Pamphilus, of Alexandria, a grammarian of the school of Aristarchus.
On rare words; i.e. vocabulary in 95 books (it contains entries from epsilon to omega, because Zopyrion had done letters alpha to delta.)
On unexplained matters in Nicander and the so called Optica; Art of Criticism and a large number of other grammatical works.
A Roman who wanted to learn about a certain subject would send a slave to a private library with orders to copy relevant passages from whatever books were available.
In Pro Archia, Cicero explains that he studied literature to improve his rhetorical skills and because it provides a source of elevating moral examples.
"Cornelius Celsus, a man of modest intellect, could write not only about all these arts but also left behind accounts of military science, agriculture, and medicine: indeed, he deserves, on the basis on this design alone, to be thought to have known all things," according to Quintilian.
In the introduction of Natural History, Pliny writes:... in Thirty-six Books I have comprised 20,000 Things that are worthy of Consideration, and these I have collected out of about 2000 Volumes that I have diligently read (and of which there are few that Men otherwise learned have ventured to meddle with, for the deep Matter therein contained), and those written by one hundred several excellent Authors; besides a Multitude of other Matters, which either were unknown to our former Writers, or Experience has lately ascertained.
[31] There are seven planets: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars ("of a fiery and burning nature"), the Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon ("the last of the stars").
[33] As a good Stoic, Pliny dismisses astrology: "it is ridiculous to suppose, that the great head of all things, whatever it be, pays any regard to human affairs.
"[34] He considers the possibility of other worlds ("there will be so many suns and so many moons, and that each of them will have immense trains of other heavenly bodies") only to dismiss such speculation as "madness."
At the very end of the work, Pliny writes, "Hail Nature, parent of all things, and in recognition of the fact that I alone have praised you in all your manifestations, look favorably upon me.
The great encyclopedist was commander of the Naples fleet and died trying to assist the local inhabitants during the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79.
[40] While classical and modern encyclopedic writers sought to distribute knowledge, those of the Middle Ages were more interested in establishing orthodoxy.
[42] These early medieval writers organized their material in the form of a trivium (grammar, logic, rhetoric) followed by a quadrivium (geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, music).
This division of seven liberal arts was a feature of monastic education as well as the medieval universities, which developed beginning in the 12th century.
With the advent of printing and a dramatic reduction in paper costs, the volume of encyclopedic writing exploded in the Renaissance.
Ironically, Jesuit Antonio Possevino used Bibliotheca universalis as a basis to create a list of forbidden books.
Primaudaye was much taken with analogies, some of which have found their way into Shakespeare: the unweeded garden, death as an unknown country, and the world as a stage.
[2] While ancient and medieval encyclopedism emphasized the classics, liberal arts, informed citizenship, or law, the modern encyclopedia springs from a separate tradition.
[55]This realization that no one person, not even a genius like Pliny assisted by slave secretaries, could produce a work of the comprehensiveness required, is the mark of the modern era of encyclopedism.
Enlightenment encyclopedias also inspired authors and editors to undertake or critique "encyclopedic" knowledge projects in other genres and formats: the 65-volume Universal History (Sale et al) (1747-1768), for example, far exceeded its predecessors in terms of scope, and The General Magazine of Arts and Sciences (1755-1765) published by Benjamin Martin (lexicographer) sought to bring encyclopedism to the monthly periodical.
A loyal subscriber, he wrote, would “be allowed to make a great Proficiency, if he can make himself Master of the useful Arts and Sciences in the Compass of Ten Years.”[56] In Laurence Sterne's The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759-1767), the title character satirically refers to his fictional autobiography as a “cyclopædia of arts and sciences.
[58] Once solely for society's elites, in the 19th and 20th centuries encyclopedias were increasingly written, marketed to, and purchased by middle and working class households.
Different styles of encyclopedism emerged which would target particular age groups, presenting the works as educational tools—even made available through payment plans advertised on TV.
Inspired by the possibilities of microfilm, he put forward his idea of a global encyclopedia in the 1930s through a series of international talks and his essay World Brain.
The production of electronic encyclopedias began as conversions of printed work, but soon added multimedia elements, requiring new methods of content gathering and presentation.
