# Muse: yea or nay?



## e.Blackstar (Apr 16, 2005)

I've noticed that lots of people (even other writers, not just the ignorant public) seem to think that 'muse' is a figuarative term. You know...they know that they were nine Greek Goddess of the Arts, yada yada, but they don't actually think that people _have_ muses. Like they'll be like "Oh, I get _inspiration_ from...blah blah" but its not the same time. So what do you think? Do you actually have a muse or is it just...dee dee dee?

See like, I know for me, I have a muse. For real. Its a male, but other than that, I'm clueless. I dunno what he looks like, or anything, but he be there, for sure. So...anyone else?

e.Morelen

ps-this thread sprung from my english teacher (ugh I hate her) wanting to know why people write poetry and a lot of weird stuff like that, and me barely holding back the urge to say that the only reason why I ever write poetry is because my muse is having a temper tantrum (which is true).


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## Alcuin (Apr 16, 2005)

Tolkien had a muse: his wife Edith was his muse and inspiration for Lúthien. 

Petrarch had a muse, the enigmatic Laura. Shakespeare had a muse or two as well. For more modern work, Eric Clapton had Patti Boyd as his the inspiration for "Layla"; Patti Boyd was also the muse for George Harrison’s Beatles hit, “Something in the Way She Moves”. 

Outside the Arts, many a loved one has inspired the actions of people along the way. Soldiers carry pictures and letters of their beloved into battle. Captains of industry keep the pictures of their spouses and children on their desks. 

_Encyclopedia Britannica_ lists nine classical Greek muses, but notes that the list is not exhaustive. Its dictionary offers these definitions, among others: “[from the 14th century] to become absorbed in thought; _esp:_ to turn something over in the mind meditatively and often inconclusively … [from the 15th century] a state of deep thought or dreamy abstraction”.


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## Hammersmith (Apr 16, 2005)

Alcuin said:


> Petrarch had a muse


Gah! Beat me to it!
I often look back on a page of writing without the slightest idea where it came from. I suppose you could call it a muse, or the subconscious or inspiration or anything.


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## e.Blackstar (Apr 16, 2005)

That's kinda what I be talking about, Hammersmith. Like I'll write a poem and read it the next day, and have no idea where it came from and don't really remeber writing it.


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## HLGStrider (Apr 19, 2005)

Half this question is: Have you ever been in love?

The answer is yes. Half of what I have written in my life, perhaps more, started by me trying to imagine myself being loved by the man I love and putting myself into all sorts of sitauations where he would have to rescue me or I would have to rescue him or we would have to do something that brought us together. You know the type of story. 

"M doesn't love me, but we are friends, and I bet if I were to be captured by an evil villian he would come rescue me and then . . ."

Now I do write for other reasons, but the ferocity of the passion involved in the stories above always propelled them into something "special." Something more involved and more involving than the stuff I wrote from other forms of inspiration. Why, because I wanted to be there, and I wrote it from the bottom of my soul.

It doesn't always play out in love scenes either. The passion of a sword fight, the desperation of being held at knife point, the beauty of a landscape, all of those can absorb that excitement, longing, and joy.


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## HLGStrider (Apr 19, 2005)

P.S. 


HOW CAN YOU MENTION LAURA WITHOUT BRINGING UP DANTE'S BEATRICE!

mumble grump


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## Hammersmith (Apr 19, 2005)

I think you hit the nail on the head with that one.


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