Sirens & Muses: A Novel

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a b c Harrison, Jane Ellen (1882). Myths of the Odyssey in Art and Literature. London: Rivingtons. pp.169–170, Plate 47a. Mythology [ edit ] (Holland, Amsterdam), Antonio Tempesta (Italy, Florence, 1555-1630) Metamorphosis of the Pierides by Wilhelm Janson (1606) at Los Angeles County Museum of Art Ovid's Account [ edit ]

The Muses, therefore, were both the embodiments and sponsors of performed metrical speech: mousike (whence the English term music) was just "one of the arts of the Muses". Others included science, geography, mathematics, philosophy, and especially art, drama, and inspiration. In the archaic period, before the widespread availability of books (scrolls), this included nearly all of learning. The first Greek book on astronomy, by Thales, took the form of dactylic hexameters, as did many works of pre-Socratic philosophy. Both Plato and the Pythagoreans explicitly included philosophy as a sub-species of mousike. [25] The Histories of Herodotus, whose primary medium of delivery was public recitation, were divided by Alexandrian editors into nine books, named after the nine Muses. A less interesting approach to the book would have been to make it entirely a campus novel. Instead, Sirens & Muses begins as a campus novel and then expands into an NYC art world novel. Both worlds of Wrynn and NYC are full of possibility but also harm. The artists are exploited by both — sometimes violently, as is the case with an assault Karina experiences. The big art competition built to for much of the beginning of the book would, in a lesser novel, be an endpoint or near-endpoint. But instead, Angress places it midpoint and uses it as an opportunity to blow everything up, sowing a twist that sends the characters scattered in new directions. As a writer and artist myself, there comes an acute interest into how that plays out in a fictional world. I like novels that center this with female characters especially as a person who identifies as a woman, which is why I probably gravitated to this book in particular. It follows four characters, two who are women, and two who are men. All of their lives intersect in different ways while attending this art school where there are a lot of issues, including classism and privilege. John Lemprière in his Classical Dictionary (1827) wrote, "Some suppose that the sirens were a number of lascivious women in Sicily, who prostituted themselves to strangers, and made them forget their pursuits while drowned in unlawful pleasures. The etymology of Bochart, who deduces the name from a Phoenician term denoting a songstress, favors the explanation given of the fable by Damm. [112] This distinguished critic makes the sirens to have been excellent singers, and divesting the fables respecting them of all their terrific features, he supposes that by the charms of music and song they detained travellers, and made them altogether forgetful of their native land." [113] Arts and influence [ edit ]For poet and "law-giver" Solon, [26] the Muses were "the key to the good life"; since they brought both prosperity and friendship. 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 each year. He believed that the Muses would help inspire people to do their best. A] winning debut . . . Angress nimbly embodies each of her characters, allowing her exceptional storytelling abilities to shine. . . . [ Sirens & Muses] is a standout.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review) Angress so deftly portrays the splendor and squalor of trying to create something great in the face of rampant capitalism, of love and lust in the face of tooth-and-claw competition.” —Electric Lit Zeus made love to Mnemosyne in Pieria and became father of the Muses. Around about that time Pierus, was king of Emathia, sprung from its very soil. He had nine daughters. They were the ones who formed a choir in opposition to the Muses. And there was a musical contest in Helicon.

Waugh, Arthur (1960). "The Folklore of the Merfolk". Folklore. 71 (2): 78–79. doi: 10.1080/0015587x.1960.9717221. JSTOR 1258382. The first-century Roman historian Pliny the Elder discounted sirens as a pure fable, "although Dinon, the father of Clearchus, a celebrated writer, asserts that they exist in India, and that they charm men by their song, and, having first lulled them to sleep, tear them to pieces." [52] Sirens and death [ edit ] Odysseus and the Sirens, Roman mosaic, second century AD ( Bardo National Museum) Harrison, Jane Ellen (1922) (3rd ed.) Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion. London: C.J. Clay and Sons. Melete, Aoede, and Mneme are the original Boeotian Muses, and Calliope, Clio, Erato, Euterpe, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia, and Urania are the nine Olympian Muses.

Sirens & Muses holds the reader’s attention like a gallery so compelling that a visitor is torn between staring at one work and rushing on to the next room.” — Glamour