Sirens & Muses: A Novel

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With a canny, critical eye, Sirens & Muses overturns notions of class, money, art, youth, and a generation’s fight to own theirfuture. Etymology [ edit ] Print of Clio, made in the 16th-17th century. Preserved in the Ghent University Library. [1] Awan, Heather T. " Roman Sarcophagi" In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. (April 2007)

Fourartists are drawn into a web of rivalry and desire at an elite art school and on the streets of New York in this“gripping, provocative, and supremely entertaining” ( BuzzFeed)debut A moldmade Megarian bowl excavated in the Ancient Agora of Athens, catalogued P 18,640. Rotroff (1982), p.67 [17] apud Holford-Strevens (2006), p.29; Thompson (1948), pp. 161–162 and Fig. 5 [18] Sirens & Muses captivated me with its well-drawn, complex characters and vivid descriptions and settings . . . a gorgeously rich and thoughtful novel.” —Annie Hartnett, author of Rabbit Cake and Unlikely AnimalsAntonia Angress has written [an] exceedingly good debut novel, a shrewd and expertly sustained rumination on what it takes to be a self-supporting artist and whether it's even worth it. . . . gripping . . . [A] dazzler of a debut novel.” —Shelf Awareness This object depicts a contest between the muses and the sirens. In Greek mythology, muses were goddesses who inspired literature, science, and the arts. Sirens were half-woman, half-bird creatures who lured men to destruction with their song. Can you identify the two "teams"?

The sirens of Greek mythology first appeared in Homer's Odyssey, where Homer did not provide any physical descriptions, and their visual appearance was left to the readers' imagination. It was Apollonius of Rhodes in Argonautica (3rd century BC) who described the sirens in writing as part woman and part bird. [b] [11] [12] By the 7th century BC, sirens were regularly depicted in art as human-headed birds. [13] They may have been influenced by the ba-bird of Egyptian religion. In early Greek art, the sirens were generally represented as large birds with women's heads, bird feathers and scaly feet. Later depictions shifted to show sirens with human upper bodies and bird legs, with or without wings. They were often shown playing a variety of musical instruments, especially the lyre, kithara, and aulos. [14] Waugh, Arthur (1960). "The Folklore of the Merfolk". Folklore. 71 (2): 78–79. doi: 10.1080/0015587x.1960.9717221. JSTOR 1258382. Convincing and moving . . . Angress’ portrayal of the intersection—or disconnect—of art, politics, idealism, and practicality within the web of familial, romantic, and professional relationships is painterly, in the best sense of the word.” —Minneapolis Star TribuneThe novel is told in four alternating perspectives: Louisa, Karina, Preston, and Robert. Louisa Arceneaux, a student at Wrynn from Louisiana, stretches her own canvases and skips meals to save money as, even with her scholarship, the expensive world of Wrynn remains inaccessible to her. This is not at all the situation for her roommate Karina Piontek, daughter of art collectors and a big name on campus because of her family’s status and also because of a much-gossiped-about moment in her recent past. Louisa is drawn to Karina, and the two begin a fraught, undefinable relationship that blurs lines between art and desire. But Karina’s also tangled up with Preston Utley, an anti-capitalist edgelord who focuses more on his surreal digital art blog than on his Wrynn coursework. The love triangle between Louisa, Karina, and Preston is fraught and frenetic, all three such different artists who, again, operate as sirens and muses for each other in turns (Angress is a maestro of chaotic characters and the novel does indeed fit very neatly into the “disaster bisexual canon” of literature that she coined a couple weeks ago). The fourth perspective comes from Robert Berger, a professor at Wrynn who built his career on political art but newly contends with the ways in which he might not be as radical or boundary-pushing as he once thought. Originally, the invocation of the Muse was an indication that the speaker was working inside the poetic tradition, according to the established formulas. For example: a b c Harrison, Jane Ellen (1882). Myths of the Odyssey in Art and Literature. London: Rivingtons. pp.169–170, Plate 47a.

The tenth-century Byzantine dictionary Suda stated that sirens ( Greek: Σειρῆνας) [c] had the form of sparrows from their chests up, and below they were women or, alternatively, that they were little birds with women's faces. [15] Originally, sirens were shown as male or female, but the male siren disappeared from art around the fifth century BC. [16] Early siren-mermaids [ edit ] Miniature illustration of a siren enticing sailors who try to resist her, from an English Bestiary, c. 1235 Publius Ovidius Naso, Metamorphoses translated by Brookes More (1859-1942). Boston, Cornhill Publishing Co. 1922. Online version at the Perseus DigitalFour artists are drawn into a web of rivalry and desire at an elite art school and on the streets of New York in this “gripping, provocative, and supremely entertaining” ( BuzzFeed) debut Although usually the daughter of Hyperion and Theia, as in Hesiod, Theogony 371–374, in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes (4), 99–100, Selene is instead made the daughter of Pallas the son of Megamedes.

Calliope sang many stories from myths during the contest with the Pierides. The Muse recounted the abduction of Persephone by god of underworld, Hades and the sorrow of the young girl's mother, the goddess Demeter for the loss of her beloved daughter. Calliope also told the account of the unrequited love of the river god Alpheus to the nymph Arethusa and also the adventure of hero Triptolemus in Scythia where he encountered the envious King Lyncus. The following lines described the punishment of the victorious Muses to their vanquished opponents, the Pierides, being transformed into birds: [9] Siren's Lament", a story based around one writer's perception of sirens. Though most lore in the story does not match up with lore we associate with the wide onlook of sirens, it does contain useful information. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.1 Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.* As a writer and artist myself, there comes an acute interest into how that plays out in a fictional world. I like novels that center this with female characters especially as a person who identifies as a woman, which is why I probably gravitated to this book in particular. It follows four characters, two who are women, and two who are men. All of their lives intersect in different ways while attending this art school where there are a lot of issues, including classism and privilege.

The French impressionist composer, Claude Debussy, composed the orchestral work Nocturnes in which the third movement, "Sirènes", depicts sirens. According to Debussy, "'Sirènes' depicts the sea and its countless rhythms and presently, amongst the waves silvered by the moonlight, is heard the mysterious song of the Sirens as they laugh and pass on". [114] Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 4.892; Nonnus, Dionysiaca 13.309; Tzetzes, Chiliades, 1.14, line 338 & 348 Captures the ache-inducing quality of art and desire . . . a deeply relatable and profoundly enjoyable read, one drenched in prismatic color and light.”—Kristen Arnett, New York Times bestselling author of With Teeth Knight, Virginia (1995). The Renewal of Epic: Responses to Homer in the Argonautica of Apollonius. E. J. Brill. p.201. ISBN 9789004329775.