I mentioned, in a previous post, taking the task of memorizing the kings of England. I meant to imply that we could make it less of a task, less onerous, even possibly fun, and while having that bit of fun, we could get the memorizing done in less time than expected. I still think so. Shall we get to it?
The kings and queens of England were William the Conqueror, William II, Henry I, Stephen, Henry II, Richard I, John, Henry III, Edward I, Edward II, Edward III, Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI, Edward IV, Edward V, Richard III, Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, Elizabeth I, James I, Charles I, Charles II, James II, William III and Mary II, Anne, George I, George II, George III, George IV, William IV, Victoria, Edward VII, George V, Edward VIII, George VI, Elizabeth II. That's a list of 41 items (if we throw in the two Cromwells, there will be a total of 43 heads of state: the same number as there have been heads of state of the United States).
So we have our list, and we know we want to memorize it. What now?
One thing we can do is to -- as in all other fields -- stand on the shoulders of giants. Generations of English shoolboys have memorized this list, so we should be able to do the same. With this thought we've accomplished two things: one is motivation, in other words, if they can do it, so can we; the second is, let's see whether we can cheat and find some of their old methods.
Well, we can. A traditional memory aid to the kings of England goes like this:
First William the Norman,
Then WIlliam his son:
Henry, Stephen, and Henry,
Then Richard and John;
Next Henry the Third,
Edwards one, two, and three.
And again after Richard
Three Henrys we see.
Two Edwards, third Richard,
If rightly I guess;
Two Henrys, sixth Edward,
Queen Mary, Queen Bess.
Then Jamie the Scotchman,
Then Charles whom they slew,
Yet received after Cromwell
Another Charles too.
Next James the second
Ascended the throne;
Then good William and Mary
Together came on.
Til, Anne, Georges four,
And fourth William all past,
God sent Queen Victoria:
May she long be the last!
Or this one, also anonymous:
Willie, Willie, Harry, Stee,
Harry, Dick, John, Harry Three.
One, Two, Three Neds, Richard Two,
Harry Four, Five, Six. Then who?
Edward Four, Five, Dick the Bad,
Harrys twain and Ned the Lad.
Mary, Bessie, James the Vain,
Charlie, Charlie, James again.
William and Mary, Anna Gloria,
Four Georges, William and Victoria.Ned Seventh ruled til 1910,
When George the Fifth came in, and then
Ned Eight departed when love beckoned,
Leaving George Six and Liz the Second.
We have our names (items) and we know the total number to be memorized. Does natural memory play a role here, or even possibly help? Well of course it does: you already know the names and positions of two items on this list. Is Queen Elizabeth still alive? Yes. Well then, she is the last item, isn't she? And wasn't old William the Conqueror the first king in our list? Yes, well, first
means first.
Let's play around with these lists and see what we can do with them. The first anonymous poem doesn't really provide a structure that would help -- the rhyme scheme is irregular, so no help there, and there's an erratic number of rulers per line throughout the poem. Plus, it's incomplete, isn't it? But I like the way it reads: "First William the Norman, then William his son..." And it's been around, so it must have helped somebody. In other words, it can work for our purposes.
The second anonymous poem has some promise: the structure itself can help us in our memory quest. First of all, it has fourteen lines and is divided evenly into seven rhymed couplets. That gives us nothing about the content (the kings) but it does help us to remember the memory aid itself (the poem).
What I would do here is to memorize the rhyming sounds and then lock in the content:
-ee
-oo
-ad
-ain
-oria
-en
-econd
Why would I do it this way? Good question. I could just copy and recite the poem (or both poems), and I'm sure that's how those English schoolboys did it at Rugby and Eton or wherever, but that's just a matter of taking a bit of the drudgery out of a sheer rote approach to memory. That alone is better than nothing, and in fact it's a whole lot better -- but we can do more. If we play around with the poem, we'll prepare ourselves for some of the more mind-stretching things we can do with our memories.
So having read the poem through once, let's say that we recall but a few items: we know that Elizabeth II appeared in the poem as "Liz the Second." But there are two rhyming words in a couplet, so which refers to her? In this case, it's obvious: she is still the queen, so she's last on the list. Therefore, the last line refers to her and the line ends with "Liz the Second." If you were maintaing a numbered list on another sheet of paper, you could now go over to 43 (or 41, if you were ignoring the Cromwells) and write in "Elizabeth II." Your natural memory is probably jogged by the rhyme at this point and you're thinking, "when love beckoned (or, in some versions, when Mrs. Simpson beckoned)." Just go ahead and write it in at the end of that line. Still doesn't tell us much more about who goes where, though.
Next I'd move to the "-oria" rhymes. It's probably pretty easy to recall that those words were "Gloria" and "Victoria," so just go ahead and write them in, too. Somewhere in there is a rhyme word "bad," but hmmm, can't remember whether it came first or second. So, nothing to write there.
But, I do remember --- from "First William the Norman, then William his son," and the "Willie, Willie" from this one -- the names of the first two English kings: William! So I go to my list and on item 1 I write: "William I" and on item 2, I write "William II."
Then I'd go back and read the poem again, going over it a few times without looking at the page (or screen), and correcting my errors until I had it all. I'd read it out loud, too, taking advantage of rhythm, rhyme, and play. Between natural memory and the prompting of the rhymes, it won't take long. You give it a try...I say you'll get it in 20 minutes. Or less.
Probably less.
Once the task was properly ordered, it became easy to do, didn't it? Those of you who tried it know what I'm talking about, because, even if you missed a few names here and there, you still got most of the list, and you did it in far less time than you thought it would take. The cure for the few mistakes you made? Go back and correct 'em, that's all. Even with the corrections, you probably still memorized a list of 41 items, in order, in what was, for you, a surprisingly short amount of time.
You could also memorize the U.S. Presidents, in order, and a few years ago I taught a campus Objectivist group to do just that. Didn't take much effort, didn't take much time. And they all did it, members and visitors alike.
What was done with the kings, above, was more of a one-time trick than a system: we took two poems written specifically for the purpose of memorizing a specific list, and we worked with them. We didn't use a strict rote approach -- we were a bit more imaginative than that -- but a rote approach would have worked here, as it worked for many pupils in the past. But we didn't use an abstract, systematic approach, the kind of thing -- an actual system -- which could have been applied to memorizing anything, any subject, whether in a list or not.
But there is such an approach, and it can be used to startling effect, and by anyone. I threatened to use Arabic vocabulary as an example -- and, next time we meet to discuss mnemonics, I'll carry out that threat.
Oh, and such a list as we have above can be extended forever. You just have to know the names, and we already do know the next two. When the Prince of Wales assumes the throne he will probably reign as Charles (he has been known as Charles all his life) and he will therefore be King CHarles III. His son will reign as King William V. You might laugh at my use of "probably," but remember that Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David, known to his family all his life as "David," reigned as Edward VIII. So show some respect. :-)
Posted by Craig Ceely at June 17, 2007 09:33 PM