Following on from the wonderful Leonard Cohen's death they mentioned he had a muse and that when she died he said he thought he would follow her soon.. SO what is a muse? I could look it up..but I suspect it's not entirely definable?
It is .. someone will add more direct detail but I believe the concept comes from the Greeks .. there were muses in various arts, semi divine I think... They were the inspiration for those arts or the patrons maybe ... Today my concept of a muse is some one who inspired you in an art ... Hope this helps
Someone or a spirit that inspires you. I have a muse that inspires me to write poetry. She talks to me and encourages me to write. She also encourages to write. I know it's weird. when I found my spirit to write, I couldn't be without paper and pen. I had a notebook by my bed in case I wanted to write, because I had to write if I was inspired. I wrote on napkins when I was out of paper. That's a muse.
Wisegeek.org suggests much the same as everyone else and I go along with this description too....
"Many artists, writers, poets and musicians have said that their creative work has been inspired by an individual whom they refer to as their muse. A muse is someone who has such an influence on another that he or she becomes the focus and inspiration for that person's creative work. The term has historically been used by men to describe the women that they have been in love with and made the subject of their work".
"A," "the," or "my muse" was frequently mentioned by classical poets in their poetry, usually male poets speaking of a female spirit or woman (often an unattainable object of desire), but any artists can use the term referring to a real or imagined source of inspiration.
In Ancient Greek mythology the nine muses were the daughters of the god Zeus and the mortal Μnemosyne. She gave her babies to the god Apollo and he taught each one a different art, making her the muse for that art form. Their names were: Cllio, history and guitar Euterpe, flute, several musical instruments, teaching courses, and dialectical argument Thalia, comedy, geometry, architectural science, agriculture, and protector of symposiums Melpomeni, tragedy and rhetoric Terpsichore, dance, harp and education Erato, love, love poetry and marriages Polymnia, lyre, divine hymns and mimic art; geometry and grammar. Ourania, astronomy, protector of stars and celestial objects Calliope, justice and serenity, heroic poetry and rhetoric, companion of rulers
In classical European poetry, the poet often starts by invoking the muse most pertinent to the aim of his poem. Or sometimes the whole poem is an ode to her influence.
Germaine Greer, in "Slip-Shod Sybils," has written several essays on the history and effect of the idea of female muses as they affect women poets - not favourably. The history is a litany of failure until the beginning of the 20th century, when Sylvia Plath throws off the female tradition of writing in conformity patriarchal culture and writes directly from the heart.
late Middle English: from Old French, or from Latin musa, from Greek mousa .
muse2
mjuːz/
verb
verb: muse; 3rd person present: muses; past tense: mused; past participle: mused; gerund or present participle: musing
1.
be absorbed in thought.
"he was musing on the problems he faced"
synonyms:
ponder, consider, think over/about, mull over, reflect on, contemplate, deliberate, turn over in one's mind, chew over, weigh up, meditate on, ruminate over/on, brood on, give some thought to, cogitate on, evaluate, examine, study, review; More
think, debate with oneself, be lost in contemplation/thought, be in a brown study, daydream, be in a reverie;
archaicpore on;
rarecerebrate
"I mused on Toby's story as I walked home"
say to oneself in a thoughtful manner.
"‘I think I've seen him somewhere before,’ mused Rachel"
gaze thoughtfully at.
"the sergeant stood, his eyes musing on the pretty police constable"
noun
noun: muse; plural noun: muses
1.
an instance or period of reflection.
Origin
Middle English: from Old French muser ‘meditate, waste time’, perhaps from medieval Latin musum ‘muzzle’.
In Greek mythology the muses were goddesses who inspired literature, philosophy, and arts. (Some historians say "science" but the ancients did not have science; they had philosophy. And for two thousand years, philosophy meant Aristotle.)
The ancients had no tradition about individual thought. Everything came from the gods. Djinn, genie, genius, general, generic, gen-anything, engine, ingenious, engineer, all were assumed to be spiritually guided. Eventually people started claiming their thoughts as their own, and they were called "idiotes", which means "their own". The word morphed into "idea", but to this day a muse still has a better reputation than an idea.
This post was edited by Not Sure at November 11, 2016 7:26 PM MST
Interesting answer. Even though it was publically held that all inspiration came from the gods, I'm not sure that I believe that this was literally believed by all. For instance, Socrates developed some original thoughts and was sentenced to death by hemlock for "corrupting" youth, meaning teaching them to think independently and not necessarily in conformity with Athenian custom. The playwrights and comedians had a relatively free rein in creating original works. Plato developed new ideas about logos and consciousness. Democrates developed the idea of the atom, from which modern science developed. Studies such as astronomy and geometry were based more on observation and logic than myth - otherwise, they could not have achieved such magnificent architecture, nor navigated and conquered the seas.
Yes, but those people were considered philosophers. There was quite a process to go through before people began to be aware of themselves as sources of thoughts. A lot of philosophers have proposed a lot of high sounding theories about that. The subject is called "bicameral mind" and Julian Jaynes is the big name in the field. Here is a delightfully wacko essay about it: http://www.viewzone.com/state-of-mind/01.html
Benedict Arnold 