A Festive Mission
In classical times it was Thalia who, among the Nine Muses, was identified as the muse of comedy.
The name Thalia was taken from a Greek word (thaleia) meaning a “blooming” or a “flourishing.” Thalia, most literally, was “the blooming one.” She was associated with good cheer, abundance, freshness, laughter, and festivity.
Thalia was not the only muse associated with the arts, but her connection with festivity gives her a special place among the artistic muses.
The philosopher Josef Pieper tells us that the arts are at home amidst festivity.[1] But festivity is not any old party. Pieper defines the “innermost core” of genuine festivity as “the praise of the world,” a praise made perceptible to the senses through the medium of the arts. The arts make tangible our “Amen,” our “yes-saying” to the goodness, the meaningfulness, the beauty of Creation—and of its Creator.
Festivity is realized above all in religious ritual, but as Pieper says, the so-called “fine arts,” even outside of a religious context, keep alive the memory of the true ritualistic, religious origins of festivals when these begin to wither or be forgotten. For many, the arts are the only pathway they have to the mysteries that transcend humanity.
This newsletter is dedicated to the proposition that the arts in our time are past due for a fresh blossoming—for an influx of a Spirit or muse that is truly comic.
The truly comic is not simply that which prompts a laugh. Laughter is prompted by the incongruous, but true comedy never just leaves us with the incongruous. It leads us on to the congruent. It culminates in the harmonious resolution of conflict. It takes us past laughter into a full blossoming in joy.
But given that we live in an age where the basic meaningfulness of Creation is doubted, if not outright rejected, praise of the world is lacking. True festivity suffers, replaced by what Pieper calls sham festivity, a fending off of reality accompanied by glib entertainments and highbrow noodlings that keep us titillated and comfortable and ultimately cheerless.
Instead of making tangible our “yes” to all that is, a reality that takes the measure of us, the arts have become the foremost means of our vain attempts to be the measure of all things.
What You Can Expect In Your Inbox
Consider how painters in the Renaissance conceived of their “shops.” As Piero Formica has described it, the practice of painting in 15th-century Florence took place in a bottega, or workshop, “in which master artists were committed to teaching new artists, talents were nurtured, new techniques were at work, and new artistic forms came to light with artists competing among themselves but also working together.”[2] Ian Wallace adds that the Renaissance bottega would have been accompanied by a studiolo, “a word that has the sense of a study, a room for contemplation, which would be a separate space.”[3]
The Comic Muse aspires to be something of a studiolo, a place where I can share my contemplation on the nature of art and the challenges it faces in our Technopoly[4], where every aspect of culture, including the arts, is taken over by a mindset that seeks not so much to use human intelligence to invent things that will aid human flourishing, but instead seeks, in the ambiguous name of “progress,” to master and control and indeed to replace nature, not least human nature.
In more or less weekly posts I will reflect on topics such as…
the freshness of vision needed to make art that gives praise to the world;
on the special character of artistic practices and the master-apprentice relationships that sustain them;
on artistic traditions, in which the practical know-how of the craft is passed on from one generation to the next;
and on what it means for art to resist Technopoly and that praise of the self, or expressive authenticity, that makes for both sham festivity and sham art.
Out of my bottega, or workshop, I will also share short fiction as well as news and updates about work published or performed elsewhere.
Thanks For Stopping By the Studiolo
Whether you are a causal visitor or a subscriber, I hope you will enjoy what you find here at The Comic Muse.
Most posts remain free to all readers, though at present my fiction can only be enjoyed behind a paywall. I charge for it out of respect for the time and effort I put into it.
If you choose to become a paid subscriber, your contribution helps make possible the leisure necessary to read, reflect, and write. And for such a gift I could not be more grateful.
An ancient fresco of Thalia, the Comic Muse, at Pompeii.
[1] See Chapter VI of Pieper’s In Tune with the World: A Theory of Festivity (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 1999).
[2] Piero Formica, “The Innovative Coworking Spaces of 15th-Century Italy,” Harvard Business Review, hbr.org, April 27, 2016, https://hbr.org/2016/04/the-innovative-coworking-spaces-of-15th-century-italy. Accessed October 16, 2023.
[3] Ian Wallace, “The Evolution of the Artist’s Studio, From Renaissance Bottega to Assembly Line,” Artspace, artspace.com, June 11, 2014, https://www.artspace.com/magazine/art_101/art_market/the-evolution-of-the-artists-studio-52374. Accessed October 16, 2023.
[4] I take this term and the definition of Technopoly from Neil Postman’s Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (New York: Vintage Books, 1993).
**The marvelous illustration above of me dancing with the Comic Muse is by the incomparable Theodore Schluenderfritz.
Yes, flourishing over ‘progress’, every time. I’m reminded of CS Lewis’ idea of it from Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
Sounds amazing, I’m looking forward to what you’ll be sharing.