Denis Dutton, the philosopher who started Arts and Letters Daily (which, he points out, isn't a weblog but 'just a daily reading list with attitude'), has an interesting and liberating aside on his personal site about the forerunners of weblogs:
'The progenitor of the modern weblog, by the way, is not the personal diary, but the nineteeth-century commonplace book, a scrapbook of newspaper cuttings, favorite poems, and creative prose.'
Well obviously the diary (or pseudo-diary) is the forerunner of some weblogs. But the commonplace book plus links is a good model, and one that opens up many more possibilities for the writer/compiler. Not that bloggers need be bound by origins...
I do describe my weblog as a commonplace book - though in terms of precursors, I've heard similar arguments being made in favour of feuilleton columns.
Posted by: Richard | January 09, 2007 at 07:14 PM
I have always had the commonplace book as a model - I have never kept a diary or journal in my life.
Posted by: ian | January 10, 2007 at 10:53 AM
I've thought of blogs as commonplace books on speed all along. They're what commonplace books always wanted to be. They're commonplace books cubed.
Posted by: Ophelia Benson | January 10, 2007 at 10:06 PM