The Idea of the Muse in Hesiod and Homer

A detailed Summary of The Idea of the Muse in Hesiod and Homer

The Idea of the Muse in Hesiod and Homer

The custom of appealing to the muses at the outset of a work is a curious one by today's standards; very few modern authors feel the need to ask a metaphysical being to help them write. It is important to understand why the Greek chose to ask for guidance from the muses, but it is also important to realize the underlying implications of such an appeal. In The Odyssey by Homer and Theogony by Hesiod we see an intriguing dichotomy begin to emerge, one marked by a clear distinction between masculinity and femininity. Hesiod and Homer's respective appeals are quite different, and this discrepancy echoes the difference between The Odyssey and Theogony in general.

To refer to Hesiod's call to the muses as an appeal is correct, but also misleading. It is indeed a request for assistance in the story he wishes to tell, but it goes far beyond that, drifting in and out of a history of the muses themselves, just as Hesiod will later discuss his personal history. The appeal to the muses, like his works themselves, have a peculiar feeling not of poetry removed from the course of history but rather as an intricate exposition of all things, grand and small, extraordinary and quotidian, reveling in thei

In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche speculates that Greek mythology, with its story of Prometheus actively stealing fire from the Gods and thus placing the burden of such a crime on all of humankind, is masculine; standing in contrast is the story of Adam and Eve, in which Eve commits the original sin passively, seduced by the serpent, and this is, in Nietzsche's words, a feminine sin. Prometheus' theft of fire is rebellious, proactive, and, in at least some vague and general moral sense, wrong. Eve is tricked into eating of the tree of knowledge, and it's an honest mistake. As a result, the Greeks are in a way above the Gods, and the Christians are irrevocably inferior to them. This distinction also applies to these two appeals to the muses; Hesiod places himself on a lower level than the Gods, and supplicates to them, whereas Homer barks a command and is obeyed. Hesiod thus represents the feminine/Judeo-Christian angle, where the Gods are all-powerful and supreme, and Homer !

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These two attitude towards otherworldly beings, especially in art, persists to this day. There is the art which supplicates to the Gods, like that of the Renaissance, and countless other examples leading right up to the present, such as religious icons. There is also that which eschews the otherworldly influence, or corrupts it for its own gains. We see the roots of these two vastly different attitudes towards the idea of the Gods in the works of Hesiod and Homer,

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Approximate Word count = 1027
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History