Diary-writing, an unknown practice until the seventeenth century, has developed over the last three-and-a-half centuries both reflecting and shaping changes in the conception of self. Diaries have changed to show different aspects of a diarist's character as the genre developed. Many diaries never reveal more than the daily activities of the diarist, while others show the deepest fears, emotions, and uncertainties of the diarist. Some of this variety results from the various literary skills of the diarist. However, the analysis of several diaries spaced out over the centuries shows that diarists wrote in deeper levels of introspection as time wore on because of a changing conception of the self. The evolution of diaries is "a manifestation of the history of 'sensibility' - the reflections, at the level of individual consciousness, of the succession of social and cultural epoch" (Fothergill, 11).
Diarists in the seventeenth century wrote about their daily lives, the local events of note, and often wrote in a removed voice. Even when writing above themselves, these diarists looked on at their changing emotional states from a viewpoint outside of those emotions. Even introspective spiritual diaries phrased their inner battles as conflicts between their corrupt nature as humans and the purity of God. By the nineteenth century, the romantics began to conceive of themselves, and write of themselves as embodiments of their emotions. Their diaries did not merely relate impartially, but rather cast themselves into their emotions; the diarists did not remove themselves from their emotions, but became them, and wrote emotionally. This trend deepened in the twentieth century, when writers used their diaries to create themselves and their world. What they recorded became their reality. Over the years, "diary-writing has become increasingly conscious of itself" (Fothergill, 8). Diaries no longer functioned as a tool of self-discovery, but one of self-definition. By the middle of the twentieth century, diarists wondered about their own objectivity. They realized that their diaries played a role in their own self-definition and struggle to come to terms with the possibility of self-deception. Does creating a written reality in a diary make that reality valid?
One crucial aspect of diaries which raises many other issues is that diaries always address an audience. The primary audience is the diarist. However, every diarist phrases their entries as if they are addressing a specific person, though it might not be any particular person. Diarists write as if they are writing to someone, even if that someone is the diarist himself. This characteristic raises two interesting issues: first, why do diarists have to write to an audience; and second, has the technology of writing changed the individual's consciousness of him/herself to the point that introspection not only becomes possible, but essential?
When a diarist addresses his reader he must always construct that reader. Because a writer's audience exists in the future, "the writer must set up a role in which absent and often unknown readers can cast themselves" (Ong, 102). The diarist may even intend the audience to be himself; but, the diarist can not know what state he will be in when he decides to read back in his diary. "And for which self am I writing? Myself today? ... For myself as I imagine myself or hope others may imagine me?" Diaries intend to imitate a dialog. However, the style of communication does not use the same form as conversational dialog. The language of diaries is much more formal - written language is always more formal than spoken language.
The fact that diarists always compose for an audience, no matter who it may be, indicates that diarists' work is a form of communication. Before the rise of literate, writing cultures, the only function of speech was for communication with another person, directly and immediately. Perhaps the dialectic nature of diaries originates from that use of language. Although the changes of technology, especially the emergence of a literate society, have made dramatic changes in the nature of cognition and the use of language, remnants of a primary oral culture (from which we all have evolved) may still influence how we use language. According to that theory, the diarist constructs an audience for his diary because he cannot produce written thoughts without directing them to somebody. In short, humans cannot use language in isolation. Of course, we can think and talk and write without another person's presence. However, could we think without language? Language developed as a form of communication between two or more people. Without another person, a recipient of the message conveyed through the speaker's (or writer's) words, would rational thought even be possible? If we can not write about our own thoughts and experiences without constructing a fictional audience for them, than it may not be possible for us to think without a spoken, shared language. In a diary intended for personal use only, the diarist will still address himself formally, as if writing to another person. We are still entrenched in the habits formed in our oral past. I tentatively conclude that we use our language not only to think, but also to construct reality.
Diarists quite frequently engage in introspection in their diaries. This private process, ironically, is dependent on the writer's construction of an audience within their diary. The historical development of diaries from the seventeenth century shows that the genre of diary-writing not only reflects changes in individual attitudes about the role of the self in the world, but also that the habit of diary-writing has been an impetus for such changes. The oldest protodiaries functioned as practical tools - recording important dates and transactions, transmitting geographic material, etc. Soon, diarists began to evaluate their own spirits. The romantic age diaries embodied the emotions of the diarist; later, diarists recognized the power of the written word to define their own character and reality. While the diary of Samuel Pepys showed a man very much concerned with the surface level of life, that of Anais Nin had the power to construct the diarist's personality. In oral cultures, such as ancient Hebrew, individuals conceived of themselves as part of a corporation of people; they had a "corporate personality" (Robinson). Writing cultures have lost that corporate sensibility, and became individualistic. People in writing cultures began to wonder about their own identities; they did not have the immediacy of a primary oral culture. Instead of learning about the world from another person in the same place and time as oneself, literate people could remove themselves entirely from other people. Their lives lost the security of self-knowledge. Or perhaps they gained an awareness of individuality. Either interpretation still leads to the conclusion that literate people have to define themselves consciously as individuals, while oral people do not have that concern.
The process of introspective diary-writing emerged as one method of self-definition. Diarists constantly seek their own inner essence, their character or self-hood. The development of the genre from Samuel Pepys to Anais Nin, and beyond, traces the changes in the conception of the self, as well as the role of diary-writing in the construction of reality.
The personal diary emerged gradually from several early forms of recording thoughts and history. The many functions of the modern diary originated from these earlier uses. The main literary predecessors of the diary, which were travel journals, public journals, journals of spiritual conscience, and personal memoranda journals, addressed topics including geography, public history, religion, and daily life. Although imposing categories upon a body of work which encompasses an enormous variety of topics may seem somewhat arbitrary, these categories differentiate the main purposes of early journals.
Travel journals may be one of the oldest forms of personal record keeping. The related etymologies of the words "journey" and "journal" suggests a close connection between the physical journey and the practice of chronicling one's life. Journeys recommend themselves to diarists because of the progressive nature of a journey. A diarist needs not to search far for meaningful events to record. The physical movement that accompanies travel - journeying from town to town; crossing rivers, oceans, and mountain ranges; encountering new landscapes and people; and entering new countries or regions - creates many situations that a diarist may record as meaningful. According to Fothergill, "It is much easier when traveling to perceive one's life as a progression of stages, than when fixed in one place in one occupation ... It takes imagination to discover fresh and interesting diary-material in the daily round of a settled life." For that reason, travel journals became earlier than other types of journal an acceptable form to record events (p. 14).
Many early philosophers and other writers, including Francis Bacon, encouraged diary writing as a self-improvement technique. "Let diaries ... be brought into use," Bacon urged of travelers in his essay, "Of Travel." "The journal is an instrument for seeing more clearly and remembering more profitably," Fothergill observed, especially during travel. This attitude toward diary-writing, which achieved popularity among upper-class English gentry in the seventeenth century, reflected a new emphasis on rationally-ordered lives. During the seventeenth century, the Age of Enlightenment, bringing forth an onslaught of scientific discoveries, fostered a new trust in the power of rationalism. With proper discipline and tools, a human being could conquer any mystery. A diary became a popular tool for ordering experience for rational analysis.
In addition to the personal uses of the diary, these written records of far-away places provided quite useful information for the diarist's countrymen. The intelligence agencies of the time, including military organizations, sought information about the world beyond their borders for tactical reasons. Also, popular taste ran toward accounts, some of them far from realistic, of the exotic worlds of the South Seas, the Far East, and "Darkest Africa," among others. Although some accounts did exaggerate - tales of sea monsters and Jabberwockies abound - during this age of exploration, a well-heeled traveler could return with stories of the Noble Savage, cannibals, mysterious monuments, and new lands. The popularity of these accounts led to publication of travel journals. Quite early in the history of diary writing, the diarist learned to expect a future audience.
Public journals also had to anticipate an audience. Usually someone kept a public journal as a public service. This type of journal includes ship's logs, records of public bodies, military campaign annals, and other records kept for public use. This type of journal, in its pure form, does not resemble the personal diaries under examination except in the cases in which the record-keeper injects unnecessary, personal details. This public journal keeping was often a self-appointed task. Often diarists would begin writing a more personal diary, but an (in their opinion) important historical event would take over the subject matter, over-riding the mundane details of the diarist's personal life. In the older diaries, this change in subject matter proves useful for historians. However, the lack of personal material in public journals prohibits extensive consideration of them as a literary style, or as a reflection of the diarist's conception of self.
Journals of conscience provide deeper insight into the inner life of the diarist, as their main preoccupation is the state of the soul. This genre achieved widespread popularity with the Puritans, continuing with the Quakers and other groups. Puritans, sect of English religious dissenters who founded many of New England's colonial communities, sought confirmation from God of their election into Heaven. Puritan religious doctrine, which derived from Calvinism, left them uncertain about the state of the conscience. They analyzed every thought for signs of impurity, with the purpose of perfecting the soul. Although the Puritans may have popularized the journal of conscience, others quickly adopted this self-critical form of examination. In fact, even diaries with no religious references often include a rigorous examination of the conscience. Remnants of this form of diary keeping have crept into modern practices: counting calories in a daily log, recording the details of a work-out, each of these represents a kind of record keeping with the intent of self-improvement - the values have changed, but the method of self-policing has not.
The journal of conscience became well-recognized as a form of diary writing. It achieved such widespread recognition that it took on institutionalized qualities which imposed conventions of style of expression, tone, and subject matter. This formulaic approach diminished the value of such diaries as vehicles for personal discovery. However, I disagree with the critic who claimed that these diaries do not reveal important cultural tendencies. Although the Puritan journals of conscience estranged themselves from the outer world, they revealed the extreme self-repression of these diarists.
If diaries of conscience focused excessively on the inner life of a diarist, the personal memoranda diary more than accommodated for that over-emphasis - personal memoranda diaries developed from the informal jottings of lists, events, and reminders for the purpose of record keeping. This sort of diary served as a account book and daily planner. These diaries took on a more personal tone as time wore on, becoming more narrative.
The four genres of diaries described above all existed at least as early as the seventeenth century. Although each form had its own explicit purpose, over time these different forms combined and diverged, both creating new forms as well as collapsing older ones together. In modern diaries, elements of all four prototypes emerge.
A common element of the four types of protodiaries is the practical use of the diary: the travel journal served not only as a source of geographical and military information, but also a rational exercise of the young mind; the public journal recorded history for posterity; the journal conscience helped to reform and improve the spiritual life of the diarist; and the journal of personal memoranda functioned as a memory aid. Early diarists rarely mentioned if they found any pleasure in diary writing. One exception, Sir Henry Slingsby, a seventeenth century English diarist, described his father's diary as "a thing pleasant to read, when time began to wear out the Remembrance" of household events (Slingsby, pp. 54-5). Slingsby wrote that his diary served as a pleasure rather than a duty - he enjoyed the act of writing about the day's events and musing on any subject. Although Slingsby's attitude toward his diary was rare in the seventeenth century, he foreshadowed future generations of diarists who composed for pleasure. As the practice of diary-writing developed, diarists acknowledged more and frequently their enjoyment of the actual practice of diary-writing.
Historians have designated Samuel Pepys the first true diarist. In his diaries, which spanned nine years of regular daily entries (more of less) beginning in 1660, Pepys combined elements of each of the four protodiaries into one work. Pepys mentions events in his personal life, including family disputes and extra-marital affairs; gossip about other Englishmen; events of public significance, in particular, his description of a devastating fire that swept through London; his own emotions, including reflections upon his character and morality; and descriptions of journeys. His diaries, bound in six volumes, transcend the boundaries of the earlier types, encompassing subject matter that escapes the limitations of the protodiaries. Pepys' diary maintains a similar tone while addressing all matters, either intimate or impersonal. Although this demeanor prohibits a deep character analysis of Pepys, possibly that sort of analysis would be unnecessary; Pepys' descriptions of his life give one the impression that he lives on the surface of life. He enjoys the physical, eating, womanizing, drinking, etc.
After Pepys, diary writing became more wide-spread, though Pepys' diaries had no impact on the genre as they were not discovered and published for more than two centuries after his death. Diary-writing through the centuries, follows certain trends and conventions. The trends reflect changing values and attitudes over the years. Pepys' diary attracts notice because of the dearth of other diarists to set the style. If other diarists before Pepys wrote in the style for which critics have credited him, their works have not survived.
In the eighteenth century, diarists tended to be "dissenting bourgeois," a kind of character marked by a rejection of traditional values and questioning of authority. Some historians have speculated that the habit of diary-writing particularly suited that type of character. Self-introspection seems an appropriate activity for those who challenge the status quo intellectually. These "dissenters" were by no means revolutionaries. They wanted to change society from within, by changing themselves. Eighteenth century diaries tended to be one of two types: public or personal, although often one diary contained elements of both categories. Diarists of either type expressed themselves with a neutral tone akin to that of Pepys. Public diaries frequently focused on other people's activities. Those with an insider's view on court or politics would document every scandal, note new gossip, and record interesting anecdotes. Some diarists mentioned their personal struggles only at times of extreme stress; their diaries included quotations, moral and philosophical (though not personal) musings, anecdotes, bits of news, and gossip. Diaries of a more intimate nature took on a functional nature - accounting for time expenditures, as well as matters of the conscience. At the end of the eighteenth century, diarists began leaning toward the romantic. Several diaries addressed to women from amorous young men reveal a much more romantic, rather pathetic, attitude about diary subject matter. One diarist, Laurence Sterne, relates to the object his desire his intense sadness. His pathetic description of his solitary meal betrays an intense romanticism, which may be revolting today, but attracted scores of women in his day.
Sterne is but one early example of a new romantic tradition, which pervaded all types of English literature and crept into the diaries of the nineteenth century. Romantic writers wrote emotionally, rather than merely about their emotions. Sterne, who provides a convenient example, frequently interrogated a pining "O Eliza!" in his whimpering works. "The capacity for self-abandonment to passion becomes as asset, not a liability" in the romantic nineteenth century. Diarists rant, implore, boast, pray, decry, and rhapsodize in their daily writings. Unfettered emotions achieved popularity, and diarists reveled in them with the rest of England. A comparison of James Boswell's diaries to Benjamin Haydon's shows that while both may have experienced the spectrum of emotions, Boswell's diary serves to remove him from them so he can examine them from a distance, while Haydon's diary becomes an extension of those emotions. This change could reflect a changing attitude toward the self. Boswell may see himself as an arbiter of the many emotional stages he undergoes, while Haydon consider himself a summation, or even a sequence, of his emotions.
Diarists in the nineteenth century began to show an awareness of themselves as diarists in a literary tradition - they conceived of diary-writing as a work of composition, beyond just a record of daily life or even a tool of introspection. Previous diarists had certainly written with a particular style, which they used deliberately, but they did not consider their diaries literary works. In the nineteenth century, several diaries from earlier diarists were published and drew large audiences. Diarists became aware of their writings as part of tradition of diaries, rather than as a personal tool. The publication of other diaries alerted nineteenth century diarists to the possible publication of their own diaries. The awareness of an audience (whether realized or not) changed the tone of self-presentation in diaries. Although some diarists could write secure in the knowledge that they would be long dead before their diaries would be exposed to another, the mere thought of a reader beyond themselves must have changed the writing style. One could object that publication did not affect the tone of diaries because even diarists who never expected publication may have anticipated an audience of their descendants. However, diarists writing with the expectation of an audience of family members, people who were intimately acquainted with the diarist, would write quite differently than a diarist expecting an audience of strangers.
In the nineteenth century, Victorian conventions pervaded every aspect of English life, including diary-writing. The Victorians viewed the diary-writing habit as a respectable intellectual activity available to all cultured people. Unfortunately, as in Puritan diaries, the repressive character of the age imposed such strict standards of tone, style, and subject matter that the personality of the diarist often gets lost. However, as in the Puritan diaries, Victorian diaries can be very revealing of certain aspects of society and personality. The repressed nature and limited scope of the diaries certainly shows which outlets were acceptable for the release of emotions, anxieties, and desires.
Turn-of-the-century diaries are marked by the influence of the French journal in time. This kind of diary casts the diarists as high-strung, artistic, and extremely responsive to literature, art, and music. Katherine Mansfield and Ivy Jacquier, a writer and a painter, respectively, both write diaries which chartreuse the diarists as impassioned Artists. Perhaps this form of diary represents the use of a diary to define character. By writing of themselves as distinctly "artistic," Mansfield and Jacquier could have been attempting to use writing to cement their own self-perception, as well. as outsider's perceptions. This development has interesting implications. The two diarists' use of writing to define themselves reveals a new attitude toward writing: writing as legitimization. That is, by putting a thought into words on paper, it becomes true; by writing of themselves as "artistic," they become so. This is different from the earlier, introspective uses of diaries; those diaries helped the diarist discover his/her character, not define it. "There is no way directly to refute a text. After absolutely total and devastating refutation, [a written work] says exactly the same thing as before" (Ong, 79). Hence, writing one's own characterization would be a way to create one's own character. And who is to say that the character that a diarist chooses and memorializes forever in the written word is not the "true" character of the diarist?
By the mid-century, describing yourself and your day became a more complex task because of the influence of Freud, Proust, Jung, and others on conceptions of self. Anais Nin rises to that challenge by addressing the role of her diary in her life. She recognizes that her diary, which exists between her formal fiction and her unwritten life, poses on the brink of incorporating her life and her art. Her diary is her consciousness, the "medium through which experience may be realized, may discover its design and intricate unity, may clarify itself and flower" (Fothergill, 37).
By accepting her diary as her medium of experience, Nin epitomizes the changes brought to the conceptions of self and reality by literate culture. Writing has so insinuated itself into our conceptions of self and society that we can not function without it. We have become aware of ourselves as individuals and must struggle to define ourselves. Introspection is not only possible, but crucial. As beings conscious of our individuality, we cannot live without discovering what characteristics compose that individual. "No form of expression more emphatically embodies the expresser: diaries are the flesh made word..." (Mallon, xvii).
Diaries do not merely express and discover characteristics of the diarist. They can also alter the behavior of the diarist. One diarist remarked that at times he "decided not to do something be [he] realized that if [he] did it, [he'd] have to mention it to the diary that night. ... Confession was a deterrent to sin, not just its antidote" (Mallon, xvi.) Diaries can alter behavior, but more frequently I suspect, behavior is altered in diaries.
The role of diaries in the construction of history has developed to the point that diaries have been used to impeach presidents to create false histories. The alteration of history can serve many purposes: scientists can use them to validate discoveries, nationalists can absolve national guilt by reconstructing history - everyone has an interest in changing history. The most common motivation is that of rationalization: a diarist may not want to admit a wrong-doing, so they'll construct the incident in the diary in a positive frame, even alter facts. Two examples that follow may clarify this issue further.
The diaries of Curt Max Prufer cover a year in Nazi Germany from the perspective a pro-Nazi, German diplomat. He provides a particularly revealing example because he left two versions of diaries about the same year, October 1942 to September 1943. The first diary, which historians have accepted as the most true to the diarist, was radically altered following the German defeat by Prufer. The second version includes many additions, deletions, and fabrications. Prufer altered his diary for two purposes: "to absolve the Germans and himself of all responsibility for the Hitler regime's policies of aggressive war and the annihilation of the Jews; and to persuade the world that his people did not deserve postwar foreign occupation or de-Nazification" (McKale, xi). Prufer revised his diaries as a response to the Nuremberg trials, in part, hoping to refute some of the evidence mounting against Nazi officials. In the original edition, Prufer voiced support for many of Hitler's policies and for Hitler himself as a leader. However, once the war was lost, Prufer revised his diaries to include much more criticism of Hitler and the war strategies. Prufer obviously had an interest in protecting himself and his countrymen the retributions coming from the Allies. He also fabricated in the revised edition statements that implied sympathy for the Jews from the German population. These statements were obviously not only false, but the opposite of Prufer's true opinion of Jews - on several occasions in his original diary, he vilified Jews rabidly. Given the historical situation surrounding the Holocaust, Prufer's attempt to revise history in not surprising. However, had the original version of his diary disappeared, perhaps we would have believed that German officials sympathized with the Jews, disliked Hitler, but were powerless to stop him. That sort of revision would drastically alter the lessons learned from the Holocaust and furthered the fallacious fabrications which attributed the horrendous war crimes of WWII to a few criminally insane, but powerful individuals.
A second example of the use of diaries to fabricate history involves the dispute between Peary and Cook in 1909. Richard Peary and Robert Cook both devoted their lives to exploration of the Arctic and Antarctic. Both set out to be the first white man to set foot on the North Pole at the turn of the century. In September of 1909, Cook sent a telegram announcing that he had finally set foot on the Pole. For the next few weeks, countries rushed to honor Cook, giving him awards honorary degrees, and many celebrations. Three weeks after his announcement, Peary made a similar announcement. Suddenly, several societies, including the new, but politically influential National Geographic Society, denounced Cook's claim and set out to defame his character. A public battle ensued in which both parties were investigated by the media. A public legal trial never occurred. Although history books now attribute Peary as the victor in that battle, an objective analysis of the data available clearly shows that neither explorer had a better claim than the other. During the media investigation, led in part by the National Geographic Society, the investigators examined the diaries and instruments of each explorer. In spite of the pristine condition of Peary's diaries, the investigators never questioned their authenticity. Plainly, the media had already selected a victor before the evidence ever arrived. Financial records of NGS show that they funded Peary's exhibitions for more than $25,000. The Society certainly had a lot riding on Peary's victory. In this example, the diaries were used to provide evidence o a geographic discovery. Although no one has established that Peary's diaries were fabricated, it seems apparent that his claims were not supportable. Because the issue was resolved in the media instead of in court, the evidence did not undergo rigorous evaluation. Plainly, Peary's diaries served to validate the version of history preferred by the people who also had the clout to select it.
These two examples complicate the validity of diaries. In both examples, the editing (or implied editing) was done by the diarist himself. Often, outsiders edit historical diaries for publication. No matter who edits a diary, the end result will always show a work that is quite different from the original. The previous examples show how history can be deliberately, and deviously reconstructed. However, often diary editing reflects culture values rather than political agendas.
Some editors alter the diary to remove banalities, redundancies, and trivialities, and to maintain consistent themes and a narrative structure. However, this kind of editing imposes literary conventions on life. The structure of the diary as a narrative reflects the Western conception of life as part of a story. In our stories, the hero-protagonist take positive action toward a goal. However, this kind of story-telling is not life itself. In a sense, diarists use their diaries to impose order on the chaos of sensation and perception that has no inherent order. When a diarist sets down the day's events, he does not relate everything that occurred that day. Instead, he selects the events and emotions that he finds relevant to earlier entries, to his life, and to his mood that day. This selection acts as a structuring, an ordering of life. English and American diaries construct life as a daily sequence of events and observations that they try to frame as part of a journey to a specific goal. Although that goal may never be fully realized, diarists almost always construe their lives as a progressive journey. The protagonist-diarist in each diary attempts to come to terms with himself and his life by looking at it as a narrative.
The progression of the personal diary as a genre of literature over the last three-and-a-half centuries paralells and reflects changing conceptions of the self in the world, what consitutes reality, and how history is constructed. From the earliest writings of Pepys his surface-level perception of himself is evident. He does concern himself with his role in the world, but rather how he can best go about enjoying it. Conversely, Anais Nin agonizes over the role her diary plays in her own life, finally accepting that her diary is her life's greatest work. She recognizes that her diary constructs her reality.
"Thus far the diary has come-from the unconscious by-product of some other activity to the crucuble of consciousness itself. As the activity of registering experience daily varies in importance in the life of the writer, so does the value to be placed upon the gathering book..." (Fothergill, 37).
However, the changes in the genre of diary-writing reflect more than the development of a literary form, but reveal the changes in self-perception underwent by diarists.