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Encyclopedism is an outlook that aims to include a wide range of knowledge in a single work. The term covers both themselves and related genres in which comprehensiveness is a notable feature. The word encyclopedia is a Latinization of the Greek enkýklios paideía, which means all-around education." encyclopedia," Encyclopædia Britannica, 2013. The encyclopedia is "one of the few generalizing influences in a world of overspecialization. It serves to recall that knowledge has unity," according to Louis Shores, editor of Collier's Encyclopedia. It should not be "a miscellany, but a concentration, a clarification, and a synthesis", according to British writer H. G. Wells.H. G. Wells, World Brain.
Besides comprehensiveness, encyclopedic writing is distinguished by its lack of a specific audience or practical application. The author explains facts concisely for the benefit of a reader who will then use the information in a way that the writer does not try to anticipate. Early examples of encyclopedic writing include discussions of agriculture and craft by Roman writers such as Pliny the Elder and Varro – discussions presumably not intended as practical advice to farmers or craftsmen.Marco Formisano, "Late Latin Encyclopedism: toward a new paradigm for practical knowledge," in Jason König and Gregg Wolf (eds.), Encyclopaedism from Antiquity to the Renaissance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp. 197–218: "Roman encyclopaedism and practical knowledge", pp. 199-204. .
The vast majority of classical learning was lost during the Dark Ages. This enhanced the status of encyclopedic works which survived, including those of Aristotle and Pliny. With the development of printing in the 15th century, the range of knowledge available to readers expanded greatly. Encyclopedic writing became both a practical necessity and a clearly distinguished genre. Renaissance encyclopedists were keenly aware of how much classical learning had been lost. They hoped to recover and record knowledge and were anxious to prevent further loss.Blair, Ann, "Revisiting Renaissance Encyclopedism," Encyclopaedism from Antiquity to the Renaissance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp. 381-382. .
In their modern form, encyclopedias consist of alphabetized articles written by teams of specialists. This format was developed in the 18th century by expanding the technical dictionary to include non-technical topics. The Encyclopédie (1751–1772), edited by Diderot and D'Alembert, was a model for many later works. Like Renaissance encyclopedists, Diderot worried about the possible destruction of civilization and selected knowledge he hoped would survive." Encyclopedists", Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
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, which, however, are either not generally known or are rendered dubious from our ingenious conceits."Pliny the Elder, Natural History , preface 14: ante omnia attingenda quae graeci τῆς ἐγκυκλίου παιδείας vocant. For the English translation, see here. For the Latin/Greek original, see here. Pliny writes the relevant phrase using Greek letters. Latin printers of incunabula lacked the typeface to render it. Some printers substituted encyclopædia or another Latin phrase. Others just left a blank space.A Venice incunabulum printed in 1469 has a blank space in the middle of second page where this phrase is supposed to be. This led to the misunderstanding that Pliny had called his work an encyclopedia.Jason König and Gregg Wolf, "Introduction", to Encyclopaedism from Antiquity to the Renaissance'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 1
In the Renaissance, writers who wanted their work compared to that of Pliny used the word. In 1517, Bavarian Johannes Aventinus wrote Encyclopedia orbisqve doctrinarum, a Latin reference work.Aventinus, Johannes, Encyclopedia orbisqve doctrinarum : hoc est omnium artiumm, scientiarum, ipsius philosophiae index ac divisio scriptores earundem rerum ... ; ex Platone Aristotele, Auguste : Miller, 1517. (WorldCat entry) Ringelberg's Cyclopedia was published in 1541 and Paul Scalich's Encyclopedia in 1559.Ringelberg, Joachim Fortius, Lucubrationes, vel potius absolutissima kyklopaideia, 1541.
Scalich, Paul, Pauli Scalichii Encyclopaediae, sen Orbis disciplinarum epistemon ( Paul Scalich's Encyclopaedia, or Knowledge of the World of Disciplines), Basel, 1559. Both of these reference works were written in Latin.Markey, Morris, " The Encyclopedists", The Atlantic, Feb. 1868. The French Encyclopédistes popularized the word in the 18th century.
The Oxford English Dictionary's first citation of "encyclopedism" is dated 1833. The context is a book on Diderot.1833 Carlyle, Diderot, Misc. V. 45 "This exaggerated laudation of Encyclopedism."
Hesychius (fifth century) credits Diogenianus as a source,Barnes, Jonathan, Mantissa (2015), p. 282. "Plainly, Diogenianus was an important source for Hesychius." who in turn used Pamphilus.Francesca Schironi, From Alexandria to Babylon: Near Eastern Languages and Hellenistic Erudition in the Oxyrhynchus Glossary (P.Oxy. 1802 + 4812) (2009), p. 49. "From this scholium it become clear that Diogenianus did not excerpt directly from Pamphilus, but rather from Vestinus. So we have the chain Pamphilus-Vestinus-Diogenianus-Hesychius." This is the only form in which any of Pamphilus's work may have survived.
Three Roman works are commonly identified as encyclopedic: The collected works of Varro (116–27 BC), Pliny the Elder's (c. 77–79 AD) Natural History, and On the Arts by Cornelius Celsus (c. 25 BC – c. 50 AD). These three were grouped together as a genre, not by the Romans themselves, but by later writers in search of antique precedent.Jason König and Gregg Wolf, "Encyclopaedism in the Roman Empire," Encyclopaedism from Antiquity to the Renaissance, Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp. 23–63. .
In Cicero's time, the study of literature was still controversial. In Pro Archia, Cicero explains that he studied literature to improve his rhetorical skills and because it provides a source of elevating moral examples. Varro's emphasis on the city's history and culture suggests patriotic motives. Pliny emphasized utilitarian motives and public service. He criticized Livy for writing history simply for his own pleasure.Beagon, Mary, " Labores pro bono publico the burdensome mission of Pliny's Natural History," Encyclopaedism from Antiquity to the Renaissance, Cambridge University Press, 2013, p. 92. .
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.Pliny. (1847). Pliny's Natural History. In thirty-seven books (P. Holland, Trans.). London.
With an entire book dedicated to listing sources, Natural History is 37 books long. (It's 10 volumes in the modern translation.Pliny, the Elder.; H Rackham, Natural History, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1938-1963.) Eschewing established disciplines and categories, Pliny begins with a general description of the world. Book 2 covers astronomy, meteorology, and the elements. Books 3–6 cover geography. Humanity is covered in Book 7, animals in Books 8–11, trees in 12–17, agriculture in 18–19, medicine in 20–32, metals in 33–34, and craft and art in 35–37.
Following Aristotle, Pliny counts four elements: fire, earth, air and water. Natural History II:10 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"). Natural History II:28-51 The earth is a "perfect globe," suspended in the middle of space, that rotates with incredible swiftness once every 24 hours. Natural History II:5-6, 8, 10. 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." Natural History II:38. 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." The idea of space travel is "perfect madness." Natural History, II:6.
Pliny had opinions on a wide variety of subjects often interjected them. He tells us which uses of plants, animals, and stone are proper, and which ones are improper. Was the Roman Empire benefiting or corrupting the classical world? Pliny returns to this theme repeatedly. He analogizes Rome's civilizing mission to the way poisonous plants of all nation were tamed into medicines.Molly Ayn Jones-Lewis, " Poison: Nature's Argument for the Roman Empire in Pliny the Elder's Naturalis Historia", Classical World, Volume 106, Number 1, Fall 2012, pp. 51–74, 10.1353/clw.2013.0013 Pliny also wants us to know that he is a heroic explorer, a genius responsible for a highly original and most remarkable work. The extensive reading and note taking of his slave secretaries is rarely mentioned.
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."Pliny, 37.205. Here Pliny points to comprehensiveness as his project's outstanding asset. Nature awarded Pliny a heroic death that gave him "a kind of eternal life," according to his nephew. 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.Pliny the Younger, " Mt Vesuvius Eruption 79 AD"
As a Stoicism, Pliny began with astronomy and ended with the fine arts. Cassiodorus attempted to write a Christian equivalent to Pliny's work. His Institutiones (560) begins with discussions of scripture and the church. Other subjects are treated briefly toward the end of the work. With onset of the Dark Ages, access to Greek learning and literacy in Greek declined. The works of Boethius (c. 480–524) filled the gap by compiling Greek handbooks and summarizing their content in Latin. These works served as general purpose references in the early Middle Ages.
The Etymologies (c. 600–625) by Isidore of Seville consisted of extracts from earlier writers. Three of the Isidore's twenty books represent material from Pliny. Isidore was the most widely read and fundamental text in terms of medieval encyclopedic writing.Keen, p. 277.
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.
From the fourth to the ninth centuries, Byzantium experienced a series of religious debates. As part of these debates, excerpts were compiled and organized thematically to support the theological views of the compiler. Once orthodoxy was established, the energy of the compilation tradition transferred to other subjects. The tenth century, or Macedonian dynasty, saw a flowering of encyclopedic writing. The Suda is believed to have been compiled at this time. This is the earliest work that a modern reader would recognize as an encyclopedia. It contains 30,000 alphabetized entries. The Suda is not mentioned until the 12th century, and it might have been put together in stages.Magdalino, Paul, "Byzantine encyclopaedism of the ninth and tenth centuries," Encyclopaedism from Antiquity to the Renaissance, Cambridge University Press, 2013, p. 221. .
The most massive encyclopedia of the Middle Ages was Speculum Maius ( The Great Mirror) by Vincent of Beauvais. It was 80 books long and was completed in 1244. With a total of 4.5 million words, the work is presumably the product of an anonymous team.Blair, p. 387. (By comparison, the current edition of Britannica has 44 million words."" 44 Million Words Strong, Britannica to Join Internet," New York Times, February 8, 1994.) It was divided into three sections. "Naturale" covered God and the natural world; "Doctrinale" covered language, ethics, crafts, medicine; and "Historiale" covered world history. Vincent had great respect for classical writers such Aristotle, Cicero, and Hippocrates. The encyclopedia shows a tendency toward "exhaustiveness," or systemic plagiarism, typical of the medieval period." Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum historiale," Medieval Primary Sources Vincent was used as a source by Geoffrey Chaucer. The full version of Speculum proved to be too long to circulate in the era of manuscripts and manual copying. However, an abridged version by Bartholomeus Anglicus did enjoy a wide readership.Blair, pp. 388-389.
The Arab counterpart to these works was Al-Fihrist by Ibn al-Nadim.
Francis Bacon wrote a plan for an encyclopedia in Instauratio magna (1620). He drew up a checklist of the major areas of knowledge a complete encyclopedia needed to contain. Bacon's plan influenced Diderot and thus indirectly later encyclopedias, which generally follow Diderot's scheme.
Encyclopédie (1751–1777) was a massively expanded version of Chambers's idea. This 32-volume work, edited by Diderot and D'Alembert, was the pride of Enlightenment France. It consisted of 21 volumes of text and 11 volumes of illustrations." About this project", The Encyclopedia of Diderot and D'Alembert There were 74,000 articles written by more than 130 contributors. It presented a secularism worldview, drawing the ire of several Church officials. It sought to empower its readers with knowledge and played a role in fomenting the dissent that led to the French Revolution. Diderot explained the project this way:
This is a work that cannot be completed except by a society of men of letters and skilled workmen, each working separately on his own part, but all bound together solely by their zeal for the best interests of the human race and a feeling of mutual good will. The Encyclopedia of Diderot and D'Alembert
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.
Diderot's project was a great success and inspired several similar projects, including Britain's Encyclopædia Britannica (first edition, 1768) as well as Germany's Brockhaus Enzyklopädie (beginning 1808). 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.” 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." Such "experiments in encyclopedism" demonstrate the widespread literary and cultural influence of the form in the 18th century.
One of the earliest individuals to advocate for a technologically enhanced encyclopedia indexing all the world's information was H. G. Wells. 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.
It would be another several decades before the earliest electronic encyclopedias were published in the 1980s and 1990s. The production of electronic encyclopedias began as conversions of printed work, but soon added multimedia elements, requiring new methods of content gathering and presentation. Early applications of hypertext similarly had a great benefit to readers but did not require significant changes in writing. The launching of Wikipedia in the 2000s and its subsequent rise in popularity and influence, however, radically altered popular conception of the ways in which an encyclopedia is produced (collaboratively, openly) and consumed (ubiquitously). In addition, Wikipedia's success inspired the launching of other, more specialized wiki websites on various Wiki software.
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