I challenge you to find a more accomplished example of poetic grandiosity! The Romantic Muse Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhime. That with no middle flight intends to soar In the Beginning how the Heav’ns and Earthĭelight thee more, and Siloa’s brook that flow’d That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed, Sing Heav’nly Muse, that on the secret top Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat, Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tastīrought Death into the World, and all our woe, Of Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit The subject of these two characters alone is fascinating, but lies well outside the scope of this prompt!Ĭontinuing the tradition, Milton’s Paradise Lost begins as follows: Evidently, Shakespeare had multiple muses. We may compare these to the mysterious ‘ Dark Lady‘ sonnets (127-154). The subject in this case was the ‘ Fair Youth‘ to whom he addresses sonnets 1-126. Here we find Shakespeare reflecting on the Classical tradition, and referring to his subject as a potential tenth Muse. The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise. If my slight muse do please these curious days, Than those old nine which rhymers invocate Īnd he that calls on thee, let him bring forth When thou thy self dost give invention light?īe thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth O! give thy self the thanks, if aught in meįor who’s so dumb that cannot write to thee, While thou dost breathe, that pour’st into my verse Shakespeare also took up the tradition in both Henry V, (Act 1, Prologue) and Sonnet 38: One of the earliest examples of an invocation of the Muse in English poetry is to be found in Chaucer ( Troilus and Criseyde, Book II). Virgil, from Book I of the Aeneid (John Dryden translation, 1697) The Muse in English Poetry What goddess was provok’d, and whence her hate įor what offense the Queen of Heav’n began O Muse! the causes and the crimes relate The tradition of invoking a muse at the start of a poem continued into the Roman Period, with renowned poets such as Ovid and Virgil issuing a call to the Muse to rouse them into song: You can see straight away that four of these Muses are directly associated with poetry, but arguably any one of them could provide inspiration for a poem inspired by her area of expertise! Here they are listed with their names and functions: Evelyn-White translation, 2015)Īs you can see above, to speak of a single Muse is inaccurate, as there were in fact a total of nine Muses in the Classical pantheon. Ye Muses who dwell in the house of Olympus,Īnd tell me which of them first came to be. These things declare to me from the beginning, Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turnsĭriven time and again off course, once he had plunderedĪnd Hesiod calls on the Muses of Olympus in the opening lines of his Theogony: Homer invokes the Muse in the opening lines of the Odyssey: This poetry was originally composed as part of an oral tradition, around 800 B.C., before being committed to writing centuries later. The Muse is part of the Classical Tradition in poetry, which dates back over 2000 years to the poetry of Homer and Hesiod in Ancient Greece. The Muse and the Poetic Tradition ‘Apollo and the Muses’ by by Charles Meynier: Image via WikimediaImages from Pixabay We often hear poets talk about their ‘Muse’ or ‘Muses,’ but what does this mean, exactly? And where does the practice of invoking the Muse in poetry originate? I’ll be looking back through the poetry archives to come up with some answers, then it’s over to you to provide the rest. The bar opens at 3pm EST, and the link to the live event will be posted at that time. Before we go any further, I would like to remind you that this Thursday, 22 July, there will be a live Open Link Night where you will be able to read your poetry, and listen to others read theirs. Greetings, fellow poets! I’m Ingrid of Experiments in Fiction, and today I have a poetry prompt which I hope you will find inspiring.
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