In a message dated 8/6/2010 11:49:21 AM Central Daylight Time, jansy@AETERN.US writes:
A funny insight reached me, quite belatedly: Hazel Shade can never function as an inspiring Muse...She is condemned, at most, to function as kindly and unsexed ghost acting over crazed Kinbote. Muses are something altogether distinct (Shade's is "the versipel", his "odd muse" who is with him everywhere...! The other, is "a muse in overalls" when he exercises method A...)
The 9 Muses are virgin goddesses, the daughters of Zeus and (Speak!) Mnemosyne. Erato, lyric poetry, and Calliope, epic poetry ("a large amusement park"?), are the most relevant. Hazel, chaste daughter of god-like Shade and his constant memory, Sybil, may in fact fit the bill as an "odd versipel." Of course, his usual muse is Sybil, wearing overalls while she gardens. Whitman said that the American muse ought to be "installed among the kitchenware."
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