In the Greco-Roman world, the poets had the same religion toward their literature. In the ancient times of Greece and Italy, people believed in gods, who controlled human life and fate, and poets would invoke inspiration or anything they needed to complete their work by praying to the Muses20, who were so divine and blessed that poets placed their faith in these immortals who were able to help with their epics. Just like a Christian has his prayer to God, poets have their invocations21 in the beginning of the epic to ask for luck and blessings.
Before discussing teachers and muses, an important question should be raised here: do
teachers need muses? The poets then called for Muses on account of their religion and faith,
but teachers nowadays do not necessarily have the corresponding spiritual beliefs. Because of globalization and cultural diversity, compared with ancient Roman times, more than one religion is practiced in one nation, and it is impossible for all the teachers to pray to the same muses or even God. However, Muses provide spiritual support to poets when they are writing, and I think teachers do need such spiritual support, regardless of the religions we have today, when they face problems or get frustrated with teaching. This relationship between muse and poet is applied by Dante and Eliot. In Dante’s The Divine Comedy, Dante the poet portrays himself as a pilgrim and makes Virgil a guide in his poetry, which shows Dante’s affections for Virgil the poet who guides him from the underworld to the gate of heaven, overcoming all the obstacles and depression Dante faced in reality. Virgil is, no doubt, the spiritual support to Dante though they are two people who had never met or seen each other and lived in
20 In Greek mythology, the nine muses are goddesses of various arts such as music, dance, and poetry. They inspire musicians and writers to strive to reach greater creative and intellectual heights.
21 An invocation begins the epic poem and serves as a prologue to the events to come. A prayer or address is made to one of the nine muses of Greco-Roman mythology. The poet asks for the inspiration, skill, knowledge, or the right emotion to finish a poem worthy of his subject matter. For example, in the prologue of Odyssey,
“Speak, Immortal One, / And tell the tale once more in our time.” Homer asks for inspiration and a blessing for the retelling of the epic.
different times. Similarly, Eliot as a 20th century poet also shows great admiration for Dante who is from a different era and portrays him as the greatest poet ever.
Eliot mentions that he had borrowed lines from The Divine Comedy by Dante, “in the attempt to reproduce, or rather to arouse in the reader’s mind the memory, of some Dantesque scene, and thus establish a relationship between the medieval inferno and modern life” (Eliot, 1965). Though his intention was to imitate, he confessed himself to be unable to completely
imitate Dante’s words in his poetry owing to the differences between the languages of his and
Dante’s time. In spite of the difficulty of imitation, it is of necessity for Eliot to transmit the spirit of Dante because
…that the important debt to Dante does not lie in a poet’s borrowings, or adaptations from
Dante, nor is it one of those debts which are incurred only at a particular stage in another poet’s development. Nor is it found in those passages in which one has taken him as a
model. The important debt does not occur in relation to the number of places in one’s writings to which a critic can point a finger, and say, here and there he wrote something which he could not have written unless he had had Dante in mind. (Eliot, 1965:132)
The debt here is to express a feeling of gratitude for the favor to Dante, whom Eliot sees as his spiritual support when composing poetry, and this gratitude is like one’s love to his parents, the love which is so expressive and meaningful that its influence is revealed in descendants’ works.
The next question to ask is, if there is a possibility for a teacher to have muses: who are
they? First of all, it is essential to separate “liberal arts” from “works of arts”. Liberal arts,
whereas a work of art itself is a contribution of human civilization, and I think this is the major difference when discussing the two “arts”. Nowadays, there are many issues and terms concerning arts of education or educational aesthetics, although education was not seen as aesthetics until Pestalozzi (1746-1827) had a series of ideas on educational goals based on human instincts with intuitional instruction22. With the appreciation towards education, we could have a different expectation from education, seeing it more than just a subject or a teaching process. And, therefore, with the appreciation towards education, it seems that there is a muse, or other influences, blessing this art, the muse who plays the crucial part in a teacher’s mind when practicing teaching. The conception of the muse in most Chinese people and Taiwanese students’ mind would probably be Confucius23, who is one of the Saints in Chinese traditional culture and thought. Confucius would be brought up when it comes to the spiritual support of a teacher because he himself as a teacher is the role model for a teacher to imitate, and his influence has lasted for over 3000 years after his death. Nonetheless, I would not say that Confucius is an adequate representation of a muse to a teacher, for what Chinese and Taiwanese teachers follow is the system of his philosophical and ethical teachings, Confucianism24. In The Analects of Confucius, for instance, there are sentences and dialogues Confucius had with his students, and every word he spoke contains significant meanings to whomever seeks his advice, but still, what we follow is his philosophy, not the characteristics or features Confucius has.
22 “At a subsequent period, when Pestalozzi pursued the subject of education to a more advanced age, and when he penetrated more deeply into the mysteries of human nature, he spoke likewise of mental, moral, and religious intuition; that is to say, of a perception of the understanding, the moral feelings, and the religious faculties of man; which is distinct from all the information derived from outward sources, inasmuch as it rests altogether on internal consciousness.” (Simpkin et al, 1835)
23 Confucius (551 BC – 479 BC) is a Chinese teacher whose philosophy has influenced Chinese culture, politics and education for centuries.
24 The philosophy of Confucius which emphasizing personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice and sincerity.
If we take a look at Eliot’s identification with Dante as his muse, I think a muse would be the one who brings him the most courage and inspires him the most either in his teaching career or during his pupillage. As I have discussed before, Eliot sees Dante as his mentor of not only his writing but also his life. Eliot is loyal to his nation (the UK) and to his language, so he is inspired by a pioneer who was able to produce great works with his faith even though he was in the doldrums. It seems that Eliot lived a better life than Dante, at least he did not have to endure being expelled by his beloved nation and having no chance of being entombed in his hometown, and, therefore, Dante’s strong will towards his country and his nation would be the reason why Eliot admires him so much. Dante’s image as a teacher is so vivid from his The Divine Comedy that Eliot is able to see him clearly and sense his every emotion in the poetry.
In accordance with the discussion above, the possible answer to the question of who the
muses are to a teacher is quite clear now. If there are muses to a teacher, they would
probably be those teachers who had great influences on them in the past. When being in a state of depression or frustration, whether Virgil to Dante or Dante to Eliot is the redeemer to his descendant, the redeemer is the one who illuminates the path for his students, guiding him to the light; as the consequence of this relationship, Virgil and Dante are the muses to Dante and Eliot, blessing and bestowing gifts to inspire the students’ poetry and life. The muses in Greco-Roman times are religious models to poets, and here, just like what Virgil is to Dante, the muses to teachers are the spiritual support for them when they are practicing educational affairs.The influential predecessors of a teacher are able to lead the younger generations to overcome obstacles they face in their teaching career, inspiring the younger generations’
mentioned, “the influence of Dante, where it is really powerful, is a cumulative influence:
that is, the older you grow, the stronger the domination becomes.” (Eliot, 1965)
So far I have discussed two questions based on the beliefs a teacher would have; firstly, it is possible for a teacher to have influential models in a teacher’s mind; secondly, if the muses of a teacher are the seniors of the young generations who are influenced by these elder teachers, the seniors would show the youngers what the virtue of a teacher really is and then the younger generations will dedicate into the teaching career just like what their teachers did for them.
Here I would like to raise my third question. Anyone undertaking a modern education certainly encounters more than 10 teachers over his 12-year academic period, but every teacher has his own teaching method and educational philosophy, so how could a young teacher identify who the muse is to him when he himself is a teacher? These muses are originally teachers, and because of their significant influences on their students, they become the muses of the younger generations who make them their model and spiritual support. Back to the literature field, this same process of choosing a muse is experienced by a young poet who has his elder poets who have great influences on him, and it seems that there are similarities between these poets, who are called “good poets” and “great poets” by Eliot in his criticism. In other words, those who are deemed as muses of teachers are also teacher as