Muses

I was originally going to do a ‘Muse Shop’ post, but I got to thinking about the actual Muses.  People use the term a lot, but it ends up being for a personalized, nameless figure instead of a specific being.  This got me curious enough to give myself a refresher on the Greek Muses.  I also wondered where Do I Need to Use a Dragon? came from since it isn’t a fantasy book.

There are two sets of Muses.  One is the original trio of Melete, Mneme, and Aoide.  They followed practice, memory, and song respectively.  The names change at times, but this is where the concept started.  It eventually got expanded to 9 Muses who were the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne.  The 9 Muse group became more popular because it was cited by Homer, Hesiod, and other notable writers of the time.

So, why are the 9 Muses?

• Calliope the Muse of Epic Poetry (Considered leader of the Muses)
• Clio the Muse of History
• Euterpe the Muse of Music
• Thalia the Muse of Comedy and Idyllic Poetry
• Melpomene the Muse of Tragedy
• Terpsichore the Muse of Dance and Chorus
• Erato the Muse of Love Poetry (This includes Erotic Poetry)
• Polyhymnia the Muse of Hymns and Sacred Poetry
• Urania the Muse of Astronomy

I find it interesting that Urania is around because one wouldn’t expect Astronomy to need a Muse.  Yet, one can see how scientists may need inspiration in order to think about what they haven’t discovered yet.  With Astronomy, you need to be able to imagine what it is like out in space by using the data you have.  Since I don’t look into this subject much, I can’t be certain on the Muse’s influence though.  Still, I guess it was a big thing back in Ancient Greece, which is why it received a Muse.

For myself, I would assume that Calliope is the Muse that I interact with the most.  Epic poetry is what turned into epic stories, which transformed into most types of fiction such as fantasy.  Thalia and Melpomene get involved as well, but that is more about theme and plot progression than genre.  This can reveal that a single story can be inspired by more than one Muse.  Wonder if it was like that back in the days or it turned into a group activity as stories became more complicated.

Now, Do I Need to Use a Dragon? is a strange one.  It isn’t fiction, but it needed to be inspired by a Muse.  My use of humor definitely shows that Thalia was on my shoulder at several points.  None of the musical ones or Urania could have been involved.  Calliope may have been overseeing the project, but it wasn’t really in her wheelhouse.  Erato . . . Not even in the same time zone.  Probably had Polyhymnia and Melpomene with her since there was no sacredness or tragedy to the book.  At least, I hope there wasn’t any tragedy beyond the one or two typos that survived all the editing.

That makes me think it was Clio the Muse of History.  She is considered the ‘proclaimer, glorified, and celebrant of history, great deeds, and accomplishments’.  Do I Need to Use a Dragon? certainly falls into the accomplishment arena to me.  Not because I wrote a book that had me exposed instead of hidden behind characters.  It celebrates the progress I’ve made as an author in terms of craft knowledge and developing my own style and identity.  Is that really an aspect of history?  Not in the traditional sense, but it can fall under her umbrella.

This isn’t to say that you only have the 9 Muses to work with.  Maybe more have appeared over the years as new types of art and genres are created.  For all we know, there are Muses of fantasy, Lego building, macramé, and everything else.  Could be a unique Muse for each artist, which makes the whole concept moot in a way.  Does bring up an interesting question though:

Did the Muses create human imagination or did human imagination create the Muses?

Seems like a good note to end on there.