Carl Otto Reventlow

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Carl Otto Reventlow (actually Karl [Carl] Christian Otto; 10 December 1817 in Store Heddinge – 19 April 1873) became notable as the developer of a mnemonic system. He took the nom de plume Reventlow to distinguish himself from journalists with the same family name. There is, despite a personal acquaintance to some members to the Reventlow family of old Holstein-Mecklenburg nobility through his studies at university of Kiel, no family relation.

Biography[edit]

Otto took up studies in philology at the University of Copenhagen and the University of Kiel. There he became a member of the student fraternity Corps Saxonia [1] and made contact to political circles and started first publications. Later he focused on the art of memory enhancement. After publishing a textbook on his mnemonic system in 1843,[2] he travelled widely in Germany to popularize it. His most notable lectures were given in Leipzig, but also in Prague. A dictionary that substituted mnemonic terms for numbers[3] and a guideline for the use of mnemotechnics in schools[4] which listed some 3,000 mnemotechnically annotated facts from history and geography courses followed in 1844 and 1846, respectively.

The novelty of Otto's "substitution method" was disputed almost immediately,[5][6] his opponents stating it to be just one more derivative of the method proposed by Aimé Paris. However, it received highly favorable reviews as well.[7][8]

Otto subsequently involved himself in the revolutionary events of 1848, and came under police investigation in 1849.[9] Apparently he was the Carl Otto-Reventlow who took over a Cincinnati radical, anti-monarchist periodical for German-speaking exiles, the Hochwächter, in 1857.[10] He appears to have had some contact with Karl Marx, who referred to him in extremely derogatory terms in at least one of his letters.[11]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Kösener Corpslisten 1960, 77, 12.
  2. ^ Otto, Carl Christian (Pseudonym: Carl Otto Reventlow): Lehrbuch der Mnemotechnik nach einem durchaus neuen auf das Positive aller Disciplinen anwendbaren Systeme. Ed.: J. G. Cotta, Stuttgart und Tübingen 1843; 240 p.
  3. ^ Reventlow, K. O. Wörterbuch der Mnemotechnik nach eignem Systeme. Ed.: J. G. Cotta, Stuttgart und Tübingen 1844.
  4. ^ Otto, C. Leitfaden der Mnemotechnik für Schulen. Ed.: J. G. Cotta, Stuttgart und Tübingen, 1846.
  5. ^ Rauk C. W. Reventlov und die Mnemonik, und die Mnemonik und die Schule. Cottbus 1844.
  6. ^ Pick E. Mnemonik und ihre Anwendung auf das Studium der Geschichte. Ed.: Steiner'sche Buchhandlung. Winterthur 1848.
  7. ^ E. M. Oettinger, Karl Otto genannt Reventlow oder die Mnemonik in ihrer höchsten Ausbildung. Leipzig 1845.
  8. ^ Charivari, 1847, Ausgabe 222, p. 3546.
  9. ^ Pierer's Universal-Lexikon. 4th ed., 1857-1865.
  10. ^ Eine Geschichte der Entwickelung Cincinnati's und seines Deutschthums, mit biographischen Skizzen und Illustrationen. Cincinnati: Queen City Pub. Co., 1901. p. 81) Harvard University online edition
  11. ^ Marx to Conrad Schramm, 8 December 1857. Cited in: Marx K., Engels F. Collected works (transl. by P. Ross). Ed.: Lawrence & Wishart, 1983. ISBN 0-85315-461-9, p. 217.
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