It was once common for educated people in the West...  ...e in the West to memorize large bodies of poetry. Memorization of literature was normal and expected. It has, ho...  ...now it by heart. [...]The best argument for verse memorization may be that it provides us with knowledge of a qu...

In 1993, when he was 58 years old, John Basinger (JB) decided he would memorize the 10,565 line poem Paradise Lost by John Milton. By age 74, he could recite books one and two from memory. After seeing JB perform, psycho...