Why memorize?

In an increasingly “visual” culture, memorization is practically a thing of the past. Other than commercial jingles, favorite oldies, and sports statistics, few things not necessary to our jobs and relationships are given more than a few moments mental rent.  The idea of mentally keeping around anything we don’t need, and doing so intentionally, is a foreign one to most.

It wasn’t always this way. The Romans took as a major measure of intelligence the amount a man could memorize (Cicero did remarkably well by this standard). Even as recently as the 1940s, school children were required to memorize poems like “The Highwayman” and “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.” If schools still have such requirements, I didn’t attend any of them. Having a handy stack of quotations, poems, and Biblical passages at the ready used to be a sign of being cultured. Now, if you spend your time memorizing something not set to music, you have strange hobbies.



Of course, measures of what makes one literate or educated are changeable, and an inability to trot out Mark Twain’s or Dorothy Parker’s opinion on a given topic does not constitute moral or social downfall. Not having literature or Scripture memorized is hardly even inconvenient anymore, thanks to the internet and pdas.  But are there advantages other than social credibility and ultimate portability to the memorization of text? I’ll offer two. 



The first advantage pertains only to longer passages memorized. When you memorize an entire chapter of the Bible, or a complete poem, you have — within your mind – an entire and discrete literary unit. And this is a rare experience. It’s unthinkable for most of us to have our favorite novel present to our minds at once in entirety; but with a favorite chapter (or book!) of the Bible, or a poem, we can have the experience of being able to know and recall an entire literary thought. You don’t have to go back and skim the book for context or grasp at surrounding detail: you’ve got it.

This is a particular way of being acquainted with a piece of literature, one wherein you can “own” or contain it as a whole.  We no longer need to memorize to have quick access to things, but memorization helps us get to know the rhythm, the cadence, the fabric of a piece in a way that mere rereading or quick reference doesn’t allow. It may also be worthwhile simply because we so rarely push ourselves to exercise our minds in this way any longer. 

Secondly, it’s undeniable that what we know already structures what we are capable of learning. We are only able to mine reality as much as our tools allow. It doesn’t matter how skilled a miner you are, if all you’ve equipped yourself with are three toothpicks and some used chewing gum, you’ll have a hard time digging up anything worthwhile. One way we can accouter ourselves to know the world better is by broadening our vocabulary: not just learning new words for ourselves, but acquainting ourselves with the words of others — especially those others worth repeating. This means more than just an ability to mentally look up a handy phrase or a mot juste; it means having greater personal and mental resources within oneself to engage reality. A memorized text can offer something that even the handiest book of quotations or search engine can’t provide, and it does so in a more organic way.