The Muses were nine goddesses who inspired all art and knowledge. Their name now sells bars, and it always will.
The Muse Lounge holds a 4.5 from two hundred and fifty people, and it carries a name we met in the Covent Garden survey and will keep meeting for as long as bars exist: the Muse.
The nine goddesses
In Greek mythology, the Muses were nine goddesses, daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (Memory), who presided over the arts and sciences. Each governed a domain: Calliope for epic poetry, Clio for history, Erato for love poetry, Euterpe for music, Melpomene for tragedy, Polyhymnia for sacred song, Terpsichore for dance, Thalia for comedy, and Urania for astronomy.
They were the source of inspiration itself. A poet or musician did not, in the ancient understanding, simply create – they were visited by the Muse, filled with divine inspiration, made into a vessel for something greater than themselves. This is why epic poems traditionally begin with an invocation: “Sing, O Muse…” The poet is asking the goddess to speak through him.
The word has given us “music” (the art of the Muses), “museum” (originally a temple or seat of the Muses), and “amuse,” and the very idea of the “muse” – the person or thing that inspires an artist – survives intact in modern usage.
Why bars love the Muse
We noted in the Covent Garden survey that “Muse” is a popular bar name, and it is easy to see why. It is short, elegant, classical, and flattering. It suggests inspiration, creativity, beauty and the arts. It implies that something wonderful might happen here – that you might be inspired, moved, lifted out of the ordinary.
And there is a genuine, if unromantic, connection between drink and inspiration. Alcohol has been the companion of artists, writers and musicians forever – the loosener of inhibition, the fuel of countless creative sessions, the subject of endless myths about the drunken genius. To call a bar the Muse is to nod at this whole tradition: the idea that a drink might unlock something, might summon the goddess, might turn an ordinary evening into something inspired.
The reality, as every writer who has tried to work drunk knows, is usually more prosaic. But the promise is lovely, and the name sells it perfectly.
The bar
A well-regarded Chelsea lounge doing a solid 4.5 across a decent sample. It trades on exactly the associations its name evokes – inspiration, elegance, a touch of the creative and the beautiful – and does so well enough to earn a genuinely good score.
Verdict
Elegant, well-rated, and named after the nine goddesses of inspiration who gave us music, museums, and the very idea of being inspired.
Memory, the mother of the Muses
There is a beautiful detail in the myth worth drawing out. The Muses were the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne – and Mnemosyne was the goddess, and the personification, of Memory. The goddesses of art and inspiration were, in the Greek understanding, the children of Memory.
This is profound, and true. All art draws on memory – the poet remembers, the musician recalls, the whole of culture is an act of memory passed down. Before writing, everything – the epics, the histories, the songs – had to be held in memory and recited, and the Muses, born of Memory, were what made this possible. That inspiration and memory should be mother and daughters is one of the quiet wisdoms buried in Greek myth, and it hangs, unnoticed, over every bar that borrows the Muses’ name.
Verdict
Elegant, well-rated, and named after the nine goddesses of inspiration who gave us music, museums, and the very idea of being inspired.
Order something, invoke the Muse, and see if the goddess visits. She may. It is usually the second drink that does it.
Alan Nafzger was born in Lubbock, Texas, the son Swiss immigrants. He grew up on a dairy in Windthorst, north central Texas. He earned degrees from Midwestern State University (B.A. 1985) and Texas State University (M.A. 1987). University College Dublin (Ph.D. 1991). Dr. Nafzger has entertained and educated young people in Texas colleges for 37 years. Nafzger is best known for his dark novels and experimental screenwriting. His best know scripts to date are Lenin’s Body, produced in Russia by A-Media and Sea and Sky produced in The Philippines in the Tagalog language. In 1986, Nafzger wrote the iconic feminist western novel, Gina of Quitaque. He currently lives in Holloway, North London. Contact: [email protected]
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