I like to think of editors as muses. just kidding.
Sometimes we objectify our internal interlocutor into various
introjects--as in, my father isn't really shouting at me, etc. And there
isn't an actual audience in my head. The form the introjects take is
certainly culturally -driven in part, as in the case of the female muse.
But all kinds of divinities occasionally burst into speech among the
ancients, male and female. The voice of the poem, and sometimes its
imagined audience, remained the female muse into the renaissance as a
matter of convention, but the convention carried psychological weight, and
I have no doubt that some renaissance poets actually experienced her as a
true introject. Fact is, whether or not we think it politically or
psychologically appropriate we carry all sorts of voices inside us over
which we have liuttle control. So the female muse or whatever may be
inappropriate, but she carries on. It would be nice if more women had a
male introject that provided them with wisdom or eloquence beyond theit
normal reach. But we all know that life is unfair to men, and no matter how
we change the culture most women will resist adopting one.
Mark
At 10:02 AM 1/12/2006 -0800, you wrote:
> > Can language itself be a (or the) muse?
>
>Yes, Doug. I suspect we "also" look for figures or persons (men and/or
>women) to carry the ball - that is to say, those with whom we invest the
>powers of language.
>
>But it is a question. If I read Sappho and her work (language) - or a good
>translation - releases a charge in me to write, is it Sappho or her language
>that constitutes the function of a muse??
>
>This says nothing of the power of our own language in and of itself; a
>phrase - for example - that pops out from seeming nowhere, that acts as a
>catalyst to a whole unwinding of either one poem or a series of poems. About
>twenty years ago I was driving down the street and the word, "walking"
>started repeating itself over and over in my head - like a mantra that would
>not go away - and then it began to add on clauses. I stopped my car. Pulled
>out the note book and went on for several pages. This experience kept
>happening for a couple of months, filling my little notebook - not
>necessarily the initiatory word "walking" but the rhythm of it - giving
>charge to one improvisation after another. A few months later, it stopped,
>exhausted itself. A couple of years later, Mark Weiss threw out about half
>of, helped eliminate the shaggy parts from many of these improvs, and then
>we had a book!
>
>I am sure many of us have comparable experiences - the word as catalyst and
>muse.
>
>I always find it kind and complimentary when someone tells they have started
>a series of something after reading my work. A kind of wonderful genetic DNA
>about the process. Language (words) a property that belongs to no one.
>
>
>Stephen V
>http://stephenvincent.net/blog/
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