Today's blog topic is inspired by my wonderful daughter! After yesterdays blog where I mentioned my missing Muse she posted a comment asking, what the hell is a Muse. I know, you would think being the daughter of an author she would not have to ask. So after a short giggle, I gave her a short and simple reply. Throughout the rest of the evening I thought about the question and decided what a perfect topic for a Blog post! So thank you Ashley for a little inspiration and steering me towards the direction of today's topic. You are today's Blog Muse! I will try to keep this short and sweet, but as informative as possible.
In today's world of modern English Muse simply refers to a person who inspires an artist, writer, or musician. There are three different definitions in the dictionary for the word muse, since I am a writer I will just stick to third and final definition.
muse: n, [ME, fr. MF, fr. L Musa, fr. GK Mousa] (14c) 1: capitalized: Any of the nine sister Goddesses in Greek mythology presiding over song and poetry and the arts and sciences 2: a source of inspiration; esp: a guiding genius 3: Poet
These are the nine Muses of Greek Mythology:
There are many mythological stories about how the the Nine Muses were created. In my opinion the most common story being that the Nine Muses are supposedly the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne being created after the Greek god and goddess spent nine nights of crazy hanky-panky together.
Some are of the opinion that there are three original Muses, aaccording to Pausanias Aoide; for song or tune, Melete; for practice or occasion, and Mneme; for memory, were the three original Muses that were worshiped at Mount Helicon.
Throughout history many scholars, authors and creative types have referred to, studied, or have had an opinion on the subject of the Muse. Many authors have used the mythological Muses in their writings, including Dante, Shakespeare, John Milton and Geoffrey Chaucer. Shakespeare's Sonnet 38 even invokes the Tenth Muse. Many museums around the world displays various statues and paintings that involve the mythological Muses, such as The Muses Sarcophagus at the Louvre.
This information is only the tip of the iceberg where the subject of the Muse is concerned. For those interested Wikipedia has great link with tons of info on the origins of the Muse: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muse. And several Books worth reading on the subject, these are two available at Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Lives-Muses-Women-Artists-Inspired/dp/B000C4SJB6 : http://www.amazon.com/Nine-Muses-Forrest-Aguirre/dp/0975590367
Now back to my missing Muse! In my simple opinion a muse is anything or anyone who inspires your work, that little something that sparks an idea, or gets you through writers block, the thing that picks at your brain and nags at you until the words or paints or music flows. Maybe its a mythological goddess, maybe its just imagination, or God forbid a split personal! But in the dark of night while I toss and turn and the words just keep pecking and my brain begging for release and I just can't sleep until I get up and give the words release, I must and always will blame Rhia, my own personal Muse! Whom needs to get her but back home where she belongs!
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