An Essay on Criticism

As a repeated allusion and symbol that develops over the course of the poem, Alexander Pope’s references to the muse or the muses constitute a motif. The muses in Greek mythology were the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (Memory), and each muse supervised a particular art or science. The muses most associated with poetry are Calliope (epic poetry) and Terpsichore (lyric poetry and dance); classical literature often began with an invocation of the muse, whom it treated as synonymous with the poetic imagination. Pope also mentions the “Pierian spring,” which was a mountain sacred to the muses.

In An Essay on Criticism, the muses are both a source of inspiration and something that poets and critics can access through good judgment and proper education. For example, Pope advises that reading Homer can give one access to the muses’ divine inspiration:

Be Homer’s works your study, and delight,

Read them by day, and meditate by night;

Thence form your judgment, thence your maxims bring,

And trace the Muses upward to their spring (Lines 124-27).

In addition, Pope references a personal muse and characterizes certain patrons and critics as an inspiration for the muse because they support art and poetry.