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- Submitted by: beauiraq
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- Category: English
- Date Submitted: 02/16/2012 11:48 AM
- Pages: 9
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I- Introduction
Memory played a vital role in the history of poetics and in the clashing theories of poetic creation. The ancient Greek paid a lot of attention to its role in composing poetry. They regarded it, though indirectly, as a main source of poetic inspiration which was thought to be divine at that dim eras of man's civilization. The ancient Greek myth tells us some indirect information concerning this subject. In the course of its investigation of the origin of the Muses which are the goddesses of poetry, the ancient myth supplies a narrative about their mother "Mnemosyene" who shared Zeus bed for nine successive nights and gave birth to nine daughters who were later on called the Muses(1).The name of this mother is significant for it means memory(2). Hence, memory has its deepest roots in the process of composing poetry, without its aid, poets seem to be helpless when they enter the foggy, illusive world of this phenomenon.
However, memory helps retain past knowledge in the present. In this respect, it has to deal with the past and the present at the same time. It is "the capacity to bring to mind an event from one's past experience (or) .... a fact about the past beyond one's own experience"(3). The first survival literary works do not neglect this matter and Homer was quite aware of a fact that some past events and names cannot be remembered easily and they are subject to forgetfulness. Consequently, he invokes the Muses in The Iliad to tell him the names of the leaders of armies:
In another invocation he asks the Muses to tell him the name of the fist warrior who matched Agamemnon:
The above invocations to the Muses assert two facts: the first, which the expression" Tell me now" shows, is concerned with the problem of how present knowledge of the past is acquired and the second is that the act of remembrance is not always ready in Homer, therefore; he invokes the Muses to help him in his mission. This denotes that poetic creation is...
Memory played a vital role in the history of poetics and in the clashing theories of poetic creation. The ancient Greek paid a lot of attention to its role in composing poetry. They regarded it, though indirectly, as a main source of poetic inspiration which was thought to be divine at that dim eras of man's civilization. The ancient Greek myth tells us some indirect information concerning this subject. In the course of its investigation of the origin of the Muses which are the goddesses of poetry, the ancient myth supplies a narrative about their mother "Mnemosyene" who shared Zeus bed for nine successive nights and gave birth to nine daughters who were later on called the Muses(1).The name of this mother is significant for it means memory(2). Hence, memory has its deepest roots in the process of composing poetry, without its aid, poets seem to be helpless when they enter the foggy, illusive world of this phenomenon.
However, memory helps retain past knowledge in the present. In this respect, it has to deal with the past and the present at the same time. It is "the capacity to bring to mind an event from one's past experience (or) .... a fact about the past beyond one's own experience"(3). The first survival literary works do not neglect this matter and Homer was quite aware of a fact that some past events and names cannot be remembered easily and they are subject to forgetfulness. Consequently, he invokes the Muses in The Iliad to tell him the names of the leaders of armies:
In another invocation he asks the Muses to tell him the name of the fist warrior who matched Agamemnon:
The above invocations to the Muses assert two facts: the first, which the expression" Tell me now" shows, is concerned with the problem of how present knowledge of the past is acquired and the second is that the act of remembrance is not always ready in Homer, therefore; he invokes the Muses to help him in his mission. This denotes that poetic creation is...