Socratic Monologue
I’ve been thinking about the origins of blogging lately. I suppose the standard history points to around 1998 or 1999, although the first internet blogs were actually around as early as 1983 via Usenet (all this according to the Wikipedia entry on blogging). Even before the internet as a medium, people have been keeping diaries or journaling for a long time. I think this counts as an analogous version of modern blogging. Maybe we could call it plogging or paplogging (paper logging).
One of the earliest prolific practitioners was Samuel Pepys. Samuel Pepys was the Robert Scoble of his time, starting his diary on January 1, 1660. His last entry was on May 31, 1669. He was forced to stop his diary due to poor eyesight. Samuel Pepys journal contained all details of his life both significant and mundane. As a historic resource, it is invaluable for his observations of the restoration of the English monarchy, the Great Plague and the Great Fire of London. Details of his reflections and personal life are also recorded. Some of these details would be a severe example of TMI (too much information) if posted on a blog – wine and ale feature prominently, as do details (and I emphasize the word details) of his extra-marital affairs. If you want to read more, you can find the diary online at Project Gutenberg as well as other sources. One of the most interesting is the Pepys Diary blog, which puts Pepys Diary in modern form with his entries being released in real time corresponding to his real diary. The Pepys Diary blog began on Jan. 1, 2003 so each diary entry is precisely 343 years after the original entry.
After taking that much time to explain about Pepys, you might now be thinking that he is the person to whom I am assigning the title The Original Blogger. I’m sorry if I have mislead you. There is someone else who not only wrote earlier than Pepys, but also wrote in a much more blog-like style. Blogs tend to have (the potential for) a wider audience, and I don’t know if Pepys ever meant for his diary to bear public scrutiny. The writings of Michel de Montaigne, however, are personal and reflective and written for a wider audience.
Montaigne wrote about 100 years prior to Pepys. He was one of the most influential writers of the French renaissance (according to Wikipedia – you can safely assume that almost all factual information cited here is from Wikipedia). He was, in fact, the originator of the personal essay. In addition to historical precedence, he is more like a modern blogger in that he was writing for a wider audience, and his writing is more directed towards an audience beyond just himself. His collected writings were published in a volume entitled Essais (French for attempts). Now you know where the English word comes from – that bit of cocktail party trivia alone should make reading this worthwhile! I was actually thinking of titling this blog Attempts, but that seemed way to pedantic and presumptuous on my part.
His writing wove together some seriously deep thinking on various topics, some anecdotes and some autobiography. His description of the common theme of his writings is a good description of the modern blogger – I am myself the matter of my book. Perfect – aren’t all blogs at their core narcissistic? I don’t mean this in a bad way. Why else would we put our writing online if we don’t think our ideas are worth public display. Part of my purpose in writing this was to clarify some vague thoughts I had about the connection between bloggers, Pepys and Montaigne. The fact that I’m doing it online – that this is as the blog title suggests an Open Monologue – indicates that I think there is some sort of audience for it. If so, I thank you for reading. I may not be as forthright or prolific as Pepys or as erudite as Montaigne, but I’m hoping that this blog has similar intents.
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Great post, Rob. Yes, I do think that most bloggers are narcissistic.
As bloggers we are telling the world what is on our minds, but what of our comments on other blogs. I was briefly torn about whether I should blog about your post on my own blog to keep these thoughts in a place where my readers will surely see them (of course my readers should also be reading your blog). I may do that anyway and expand with something that was going through my head last week.
Thanks for the link to Pepy’s Diary blog. This is something that I will definitely check out.
My definition of blogging must include conversation. If that feature does not exist I hesitate to call it a blog. It would be interesting to exam these historical works in terms of generating conversation. Certainly not at the speed of today but if indeed their writing was able to evoke conversation and interaction with the author, I’d consider it a blog.
Heather – I think that much of what we do as bloggers is derived from people like Pepys and especially Montaigne. It’s not a perfectly linear path from their work to ours, but there are certainly some important elements. I think that comments are similar in ways to the marginalia that would be written in a copy of a published work. Due to the restrictions of the medium, the comments would not be likely to be shared with the author but they might be seen by other readers of the book. Some of the most interesting reading in University was the notes left by previous owners when I purchased used textbooks! I’d look forward to reading some more of your thoughts on your own blog.
Dean – Hmmmm. I had to give your comment some thought, at least 10 minutes worth which is enough to allow for deep introspection in internet time. I agree with you that conversation is an element of blogging, but what level of conversation is required? I’ve had a couple of comments on this post, so the conversation is obviously there. If Heather writes in her blog about this but I never know about it, is there still a conversation? If there are written comments or posts about some of my blog entries but not others, does that imply that only some of my writing is blogging? I think these are some good questions, and I don’t have any answers right now but the wheels are spinning …
I guess Samuel Pepys was not intentionally initiating a conversation since he intended for his diary to remain private. Montaigne, however, was deliberately writing for a public audience. I would guess that one of his goals was to provoke thought and discussion amongst his readers – discussion with each other or with Montaigne himself, perhaps by personal correspondence or perhaps by writing and publishing their own reactions to his writing. If that is the case, I think that Montaigne’s work had many elements, if not the speed, of blogging.