
Cultivating the Muse
Struggles for Power and Inspiration in Classical Literature
Oxford University Press
Published on 21. March 2002
Book
Hardback
324 pages
978-0-19-924004-3 (ISBN)
Description
Cultivating the Muse looks beyond the secure and benign images traditionally associated with inspiration in classical literature and scholarship. In contrast to the shapeless collectivity of the Muses in ancient accounts, this collection aspires to redeem their shape in other more vital forms, closer or more distant incarnations of the ever-elusive maiden. Protagonists -- or victims -- in a complex game of cultural exploration, the alternative Muses and muse-like figures of this book are manipulated, abused, or effaced, but at the same time they also advocate or resist their fates and explore their own powers of persuasion. Inspiration is here not so much explored in its traditional cultic dimensions, but rather invoked for its capacity to trigger fervent debates about power, desire, knowledge, identity, and gender in the societies of ancient Greece and Rome.
Reviews / Votes
... elegant, coherent, with interesting interactions ... These essays tell us not only a lot about muses, but a good deal about poetic creativity and identity, tradition and individuality. They cast unexpected light on familiar poems ... This is an unusual and thoroughly enjoyable volume. * JACT Review *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 222 mm
Width: 145 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
Weight
595 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-924004-3 (9780199240043)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Efrossini Spentzou is Lecturer in Latin at Royal Holloway
Don Fowler was Fellow and Tutor in Classics at Jesus College, Oxford
Don Fowler was Fellow and Tutor in Classics at Jesus College, Oxford
Editor
, Lecturer in Latin, Royal Holloway, University of London
, Late Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford
Content
Preface ; Abbreviations ; 1. Introduction: Secularizing the Muse ; 2. Plato's Muses: The Goddesses that Endure ; 3. The Envied Muse: Plato versus Homer ; 4. Reinscribing the Muse: Greek Drama and the Discourse of Inspired Creativity ; 5. Stealing Apollo's Lyre ; 6. Authority and Ontology of the Muses in Epic Reception ; 7. Masculinity under Threat: the Poetics and Politics of Inspiration in Latin Poetry ; 8. The Untouched Self: Sapphic and Catullan Muses in Horace, Odes 1. 22 ; 9. The Muse Unruly and Dead: Acanthis in Propertius 4 . 5 ; 10. An A-musing Tale: Gender, Genre, and Ovid ; 11. Muse and Power in the Poetry of Statius ; 12. Corny Copa, the Motel Muse ; References ; Index