Random Rants
Marrying the Muse
Marrying the muse. What is there to say about that? Except that it is a stupid metaphor.
Cause if you are a heterosexual female, the idea of wedding a Greek goddess does seem rather
odd. Of course Greek goddesses rarely appear in flesh and blood these days anyway. Most of the
time they come as marble statues. And I would not want to marry a marble statue of either sex.
Though I suppose I could settle for putting up a marble statue of a muse next to my writing
desk. However, the only statues of the muses that I know of decorate the roof of the National
Theatre of Flanders in Antwerpen. I would certainly like one of those statues in my room. The
people of Antwerpen would like it less, I suppose.
Having decided on the how, the next question is which muse to choose. As everybody knows, there
are nine of them. Antique goddesses of the arts. However, the ancient Greeks defined "arts"
somewhat differently from us. Thus, we do have muses for astronomy (Urania) and history (Clio),
both of which would not be considered arts today. Furthermore, there are the obvious choices
like song, dance and so on. The writer has four muses to choose from, two of which, comedy
(Thalia) and tragedy (Melpomene), are only of interest for playwrights and screenwriters. For
the poet, the appropriate muses would either by Calliope, muse of heroic poetry, or Erato, muse
of love poetry. What a poet is supposed to do, if he or she does not wish to write either love
or heroic poetry I do not know. Nevertheless, the poet is still more lucky than the prosewriter,
who does not have a muse of his own at all.
So now I have established how one is to go about tying the knot with a muse. Go to Antwerpen,
which is an inspiring experience in any case. Direct your steps towards the National Theatre of
Flanders. Be careful, it is situated in a side street and rather hard to find. Scale the roof,
pick the appropriate muse (you would not by accident want to grab Urania and become an excellent
astronomer, but still no poet), find a way to remove her (careful, those near life-size statues
look heavy) and transport her home. Better bring a van or a trailer - I doubt such a statue
would fit into your ordinary car. Place the statue in the room where you write and voilá - you
have got yourself a muse of your own and a very lovely decoration, too. The only question now is
- does it help? Will the sheer presence of the muse make you a better writer? To be honest, I
rather doubt it. It probably will have no more effect than the ancient German poetry inspiring
amulet which I bought at a Christmas fair some years ago.
Incidentally, the nine muses of classic antiquity were the daughters of Mnemosyne, goddess of
memory, and chief god Zeus. That idea says a lot about where art comes from. Half of it comes
from ourselves, our lives, our experiences. The friends we made and lost, the loves of our lives,
the jobs we had, the books we read, the films we saw. That part is memory, the mother of art.
The other half is godly inspiration so to say. The lightning bolt hurled down by Zeus that
strikes us. Though knowing Greek gods, the genesis of the muses was probably a lot more
inventive. Memory should be no problem for any aspiring writer. We all have lives, we all have
memories. It is the divine lightning bolt of inspiration that we have to attract.
But how does one attract inspiration? How does one court the muse? Well, most of the time you
do not go searching for the muse, she finds you. Generally, she tends to find you at the worst
possible time, during boring lectures, prolonged train journeys or car rides or in similar
situations, when sitting down to write is difficult if not impossible. That is why I generally
tend to carry a notebook around (paper for the time being, though I plan on purchasing one of
those nifty handheld computers). For longer trips, I've got a laptop computer. Thus writing on
the road becomes possible and the divine spark of inspiration is not lost.
But when you are sitting at home, at your desk, with time enough to write, and the muse remains
silent, what are you to do then? Music helps, so I have found. I see music as a kind of liquid
emotion. It can get you in the mood for writing. Sometimes the words of a song might even be
just the inspiration you have been looking for. What type of music you choose is up to your
preferences of course. But in my own writing I have noticed that the music I was listening to
at the time is reflected in the texts I wrote.
Otherwise, it is better not to force the muses. They are coy creatures and only appear when
they will. And when they do appear be ready. So just wait for the muse to strike (and hope it
is not a marble one from the roof of the National Theatre of Antwerpen).
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