By Étienne Gilson

Choir of Muses manifests Étienne Gilson’s intimate familiarity with aesthetic theory and the creative process. In a manner both philosophically thought-provoking and poetically interesting, Gilson describes various relationships between artists and their works’ inspirations: the women they loved. From Wagner and Mathilde to Petrarch and Laura (and touching frequently upon Dante and Beatrice), Gilson examines the effects of these authors’ affairs on their writing, the concept of what constitutes a Muse, and the place of artists’ lovers as both passive and active forces of influence. 

Translated by Maisie Ward and first published in English in 1953, Choir of Muses presents the figure of a Muse as an envisioned ideal, inseparable from the woman herself yet only identical to her in the eyes of the artist.

The Muse is the poet’s shaping of the woman into the being of his dreams, ideal and yet also real, desirable and inaccessible like the perfect beauty he seeks to create. (Etienne Gilson)

Étienne Gilson (1884–1978) was a French philosopher and historian of philosophy and one of the premier Catholic intellectuals of the twentieth century. Over the course of his illustrious career, he founded the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies in Toronto, was elected to the Académie française, and wrote over one hundred and seventy books.

Paperback: 184 pp.

ISBN: 978-1944418755