The Muse Writes Back: Lyric Poetry and Female Poetic Identity

Abstract

This chapter examines the genre of lyric poetry, focusing on one particular aspect of that genre — the convention of the muse. The love lyric directed at the beloved muse has a lengthy tradition, from Sappho and Catullus to Petrarch, through Shakespeare, Sidney and Donne, and into the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. The muse, as the conventional addressee of the lyric, plays a crucial role in enabling the poem to come into being: she is the absent presence towards whom the poet’s words are directed. But the gendered positioning of the muse-poet relationship, reiterated throughout literary history, means that the lyric muse has proved a particularly problematic concept for women poets. Due to the concept of the muse, women have been consistently associated with the passive, inspiring role rather than that of active creator — that role is preserved for men. This, along with other social and cultural factors, made it particularly difficult for women poets to claim the role of poet for themselves.