A re-invocation of the Muse for the Homeric Iliad

Abstract

Working on A sampling of comments on the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey, I have made revisions, concentrating on the need to fill some gaps in my analysis of Homeric poetry. Here I focus on a set of revisions centering on the Muse who is invoked by the Master Narrator in Iliad 1, at the very beginning of the epic. What led to these particular revisions in the first place was a question I was asking myself: why does this singular Muse in Iliad 1 get re­invoked in Iliad 2 as a set of multiple Muses? I have no solution as of yet, but at least the revisions I have made in my comments point toward a hoped­for answer from the re­invoked Muse herself. The illustrations that I have chosen for my post here are suggestive of the answer I am hoping for: possibly the singular Muse is Calliope, divine mother of Orpheus. I am not the first, and I will surely not be the last, to argue that Calliope is the originating Muse of the Iliad, but my reasoning, however tentative, has its own merits, I think.