the WAR of ART - by Steven Pressfield [scanned book].pdf

INVOKING THE MUSE,

PART TWO

B

efore I met Paul, I had never heard of the Muses.
He enlightened me. The Muses were nine sisters,
daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, which means "memory."
Their names are Clio, Erato, Thalia, Terpsichore, Calliope,
Polyhymnia, Euterpe, Melpomene, and Urania. Their job is
to inspire artists. Each Muse is responsible for a different art.
There's a neighborhood in New Orleans where the streets
are named after the Muses. I lived there once and had no idea;
I thought they were just weird names.
Here's Socrates, in Plato's Phaedrus, on the "noble effect
of heaven-sent madness":

The third type of possession and madness is possession by

the Muses. When this seizes upon a gentle and virgin soul it

rouses it to inspired expression in lyric and other sorts of

poetry, and glorifies countless deeds of the heroes of old for

the instruction of posterity. But if a man comes to the door

of poetry untouched by the madness of the Muses, believing

that technique alone will make him a good poet, he and his

sane compositions never reach perfection, but are utterly

eclipsed by the performances of the inspired madman.

STEVEN PRESSFIELD