Muse

The word muse is used figuratively to denote someone who inspires an artist. Today their sound is more country & western, with a bit of rock, and adult contemporary thrown in. The poet Sappho of Lesbos was also paid the very great compliment of being called "the tenth Muse". Wayne and Merrill continue to perform as The Osmond Brothers, with an occasional appearance by Jay. One side-effect of this movement was the use of the word "museum" (originally, "cult place of the Muses") to refer to a place for the public display of knowledge. Alan's eight sons occasionally perform as "The Osmonds - Second Generation". nine Muses), and was attended by Voltaire and Benjamin Franklin. All of the brothers are married with large families themselves.

A popular Masonic lodge in pre-Revolutionary Paris was called Neuf Soeurs ("nine sisters", i.e. The brothers are also well known as devout members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and are particularly strong on family values. Many Enlightenment figures sought to re-establish a "Cult of the Muses" in the 18th century. There are also two older brothers, Virl and Tom, who were born deaf. The Library of Alexandria and its circle of scholars were formed around a mousaion ("museum" or shrine of the Muses) close by the tomb of Alexander the Great. Donny and Marie also performed as a duo hosted their own variety show,"The Donny and Marie Show", on the ABC network in the seventies. Muse-worship was also often associated with the hero-cults of poets: the tombs of Archilochus on Thasos and Hesiod and Thamyris (whom they blinded) in Boeotia all played host to festivals in which poetic recitations were accompanied by sacrifices to the Muses. Donny, and to a lesser extent, Jimmy, both achieved success as solo artists, as did their one sister, Marie Osmond (born October 13, 1959).

The Muses were especially venerated in Boeotia, near Helicon, and in Delphi and the Parnassus, where Apollo became known as Mousagetes "Muse-leader". They were joined for a time by younger brothers Donny Osmond, (born December 9, 1957) and subsequently "Little" Jimmy Osmond, (born April 16, 1963). The Muses were also occasionally referred to as Corycides or Corycian nymphs after a cave on Mount Parnassos called the Corycian Cave. They were so successful that a new word, "Osmania" was coined to describe the phenomenon. Other fountains, called Hippocrene and Pirene were also important to the Muses. One of their first major hits, "Crazy Horses", could be described as rock, but they followed it with gentler, more sentimental songs such as "Let Me In" and "Love Me For a Reason." This music, combined with the brothers' good looks and clean image, greatly appealed to the teenybopper market. They were sometimes called Aganippids because of their association with a fountain called Aganippe. The Osmonds career started with a big break at Disneyland, followed quickly by regular appearances on "The Andy Williams Show" in the early sixties, but their most successful period was the seventies, when they achieved a string of chart hits.

Local cults of the Muses were often associated with springs or fountains. The group originally comprised brothers Alan Ralph Osmond (born June 22, 1949), Melvin Wayne Osmond (known as Wayne) (born August 28, 1951), Merrill Davis Osmond (born April 30, 1953), and Jay Wesley Osmond (born March 2, 1955). When Pythagoras arrived at Croton, his first advice to the Crotoniates was to build a shrine of the Muses at the center of the city, to promote civic harmony and learning. The Osmonds are an American family pop group who achieved enormous worldwide success as teenybopper idols in the 1970s. And Dante Alighieri, in Canto II of The Inferno:. I Can't Live a Dream (October 1976). .. I'm Still Gonna Need You (November 1975).

Two classic examples: Homer, Book I of The Odyssey:. The Proud One (May 1975). Originally the invocation of the Muse was an indication that the speaker was working inside the poetic tradition, according to the established formulae. Having a Party (March 1975). They have served as aid to an author, or as the true speaker for which an author is only a mouthpiece. Love Me For a Reason (August 1974). The muses are typically invoked at or near the beginning of an epic poem or story. I Can't Stop (April 1974).

They blinded Thamyris for his hubris in challenging them to a contest. Let Me In (October 1973). They also gathered the pieces of the dead body of Orpheus, son of Calliope, and buried them. Goin' Home (July 1973). The Muses judged the contest between Apollo and Marsyas. Crazy Horses (November 1972). Solon sought to perpetuate his political reforms by establishing recitations of his poetry—complete with invocations to his practical-minded Muses—by Athenian boys at festivals every year. Down By The Lazy River (March 1972).

For poet and lawgiver Solon (fragment 13), the Muses were the key to the good life, since they brought both prosperity and friendship. One Bad Apple (March 1970). Herodotus, whose primary medium of delivery was public recitation, named each one of the nine books of his Histories after a different Muse. In the archaic period, before the widespread availability of books, this included nearly all of learning: the first Greek book on astronomy, by Thales, was set in dactylic hexameter, as were many works of pre-Socratic philosophy; both Plato and the Pythagoreans explicitly included philosophy as a sub-species of mousike (Strabo 10.3.10). The Muses were therefore both the embodiments and sponsors of performed metrical speech: mousike, whence "music", was the art of the Muses.

The word is probably derived from the Indo-European root *men-, which is also the source of Greek Mnemosyne, Latin Minerva, and English "mind", "mental" and "memory". In Pindar, to "carry a mousa" is "to sing a song". Greek mousa is a common noun as well as a type of goddess: it literally means "song" or "poem". In Roman, Renaissance and Neoclassical art, Muses depicted in sculptures or paintings are often distinguished by certain props or poses, as emblems. Euterpe (music) carries a flute; Calliope (epic poetry) carries a writing tablet; Clio (history) carries a scroll and books; Erato (lyric poetry) is often seen with a lyre and a crown of roses; Melpomene (tragedy) is often seen with a tragic mask; Polyhymnia (sacred poetry) is often seen with a pensive expression; Terpsichore (dancing) is often seen dancing and carrying a lyre; Thalia (comedy) is often seen with a comic mask; and Urania (astronomy) carries a staff pointed at a celestial globe.

However, the association of specific muses with specific art forms is a later innovation, and has been called pedantic. Together, they form a complete picture of the subjects proper to poetic art in the archaic period. The canonical nine Muses are:. Together, they form the complete picture of the preconditions of poetic art in cult practice.

9.29.1). According to Pausanias there were three original Muses: Aoide ("song", "voice"), Melete ("practice" or "occasion") and Mneme ("memory") (Paus. Compare the Roman inspiring nymphs of springs, the Camenae. For Alcman and Mimnermus, they were even more primordial, springing from Uranus and Gaia.

According to Hesiod's Theogony, they are the daughters of Zeus, king of the gods, and Mnemosyne, goddess of memory. The Olympian system set Apollo as their leader, Apollon Mousagetes.. They were water nymphs, associated with the springs of Helicon and Pieris. In Greek mythology, the Muses (Greek Μουσαι, Mousai) are nine archaic goddesses who embody the right evocation of myth, inspired through remembered and improvised song and traditional music and dances.

Urania (astronomy). Thalia (comedy). Terpsichore (dancing). Polyhymnia (sacred poetry).

Melpomene (tragedy). Erato (lyric poetry). Clio (history). Calliope (epic poetry).

Euterpe (music).