The Muses and Their Afterlife in Post-Classical Europe

This interdisciplinary collection of essays considers the identity of the Muses in Antiquity and through centuries of their afterlife, tracing their religious, educational and philosophical meaning in classical Greece and their subsequent transformation and re-interpretation in a range of post-classical contexts. Individual contributors consider the invocation of the Muses in different places and at different times by those in search of inspiration, immortality and fame. The volume addresses the concept of the Muses from the perspective of philology, philosophy, art history, antiquarianism and musicology, from Antiquity to the Middle Ages and Early Modern period. It concludes with a discussion of the place of the Muses in Aby Warburg’s cultural theory. Published with the support of the Gerda Henkel Foundation, Düsseldorf.

Contents

John Dillon,
The Muses in the Platonic Academy

Penelope Murray,
The Muses in Antiquity

Karin Schlapbach,
The Temporality of the Muses: A Reading of the Sister Goddesses in Late Antique Latin Literature

Peter Dronke
The Muses and Medieval Latin Poets

Ulrich Pfisterer
The Muses’ Grief. Jacopo de’ Barbari on Painting, Poetry and Cultural Transfer in the North

Kathleen W. Christian
The Multiplicity of the Muses: The Reception of Antique Images of the Muses in Italy, 1400–1600

Brigitte Van Wymeersch
The Muses and Musical Inspiration in Early Modern France: The Case of Pontus de Tyard and Mersenne

Jan Söffner
Poetic Frenzy and the Afterlife of the Muses in Ficino’s In Platonis Ionem and Bruno’s De gli heroici furori

Clare E. L. Guest
The Growth of the Pygmy Muses: the Muses in Italian Sixteenth-century Poetics

Claudia Wedepohl
Mnemosyne, the Muses and Apollo: Mythology as Epistemology in Aby Warburg’s Bilderatlas