Russian commonplace books

[Anne Fisher]

Thanks to everyone who replied to my query about commonplace books.

I'm still intrigued by the line between the writer's notebook and the  
commonplace book, which seems to reflect a pedagogic, self-improving,  
or collecting impulse. Is the line determined simply by whose words  
you are primarily collecting - your own or other people's?

When I hear "zapisnaia knizhka" or "dnevnik dlia zapisok" I tend to  
think more of the writer's notebook than a commonplace book; perhaps  
the problem is that these terms just indicate the physical object  
instead of characterizing that object's contents.

It seems that the answer to my question of how to translate  
"commonplace book" has been answered - there isn't an exact word  
meaning "commonplace book" because in Russia there wasn't a tradition  
analog to the original English one, there were mainly writer's  
notebooks and albums (also an interesting word which seems to be more  
precise in its relationship to its signified than "zapisnaia  
knizhna," since "al'bom" not only describes the physical book object,  
it also describes its owner's mode of using that object - to collect  
things in it). Thus we'd need to use descriptive locutions to get at  
the Russian for "commonplace book" rather than direct translations.  
Although I do like "knizhitsa vsiakoi vsiachiny!" I wonder what Dr.  
Stanton's friend would call her personal anthology?

Thanks for an interesting discussion,

Annie

____________________

Anne O. Fisher
Visiting Assistant Professor of Russian
Department of German and Russian
Williams College
Williamstown, MA  01267
anne.fisher AT williams.edu
office: 413.597.4723
fax: 413.597.3028

_____________________




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