Despite the generally accepted scholarly opinion that the three rhetorical manuals describing the method of loci and its accompanying origin legend were unknown in early medieval England (i.e. Rhetorica ad Herennium, Cicero’s De oratore, and Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria), I argue that the Old English poem, The Ruin, suggests otherwise. By examining the features that overlap between the method of loci as described in these rhetorical texts, Mary Carruthers’ argument for a uniquely “monastic memoria” that was ubiquitous in the early medieval period, and The Ruin, I suggest that the Rhetorica ad Herennium provides a good accounting for some of the oddly specific descriptive details the poem is best known for. Moreover, as the poem is fundamentally concerned with the power of remembering to bring order to chaos, The Ruin bears a striking resemblance to the origin legend of the method of loci. Evidence of the influence of the method of loci and its origin legend on Old English literature requires that we rethink how well the extant manuscript record represents both the state of learning in, and the transfer of knowledge throughout, early medieval Britain.

中文翻译：

---

废墟：一个古老的英语助记符？

尽管普遍接受的学术观点认为，在中世纪早期的英格兰（即 Rhetorica ad Herennium、Cicero's De oratore 和 Quintilian's Institutio oratoria），描述 loci 方法及其伴随起源传说的三本修辞手册是未知的，我认为古英语诗歌, The Ruin, 另有暗示。通过检查这些修辞文本中描述的地点方法、玛丽·卡拉瑟斯 (Mary Carruthers) 关于中世纪早期无处不在的独特“修道院纪念馆”的论点和废墟之间的重叠特征，我建议修辞学和海伦尼姆提供很好地解释了这首诗最著名的一些奇怪的具体描述细节。此外，由于这首诗从根本上关注记忆带来秩序混乱的力量，废墟与轨迹方法的起源传说有着惊人的相似之处。地点方法及其起源传说对古英语文学的影响的证据要求我们重新思考现存的手稿记录在多大程度上代表了中世纪早期英国的学习状态和知识在整个过程中的转移。