Mnemosyne and the Muses: The Role of Memory in Education

Mnemosyne and the Muses: The Role of Memory in Education
"Mnemosyne," c. 1876-1881, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Public domain
Walker Larson
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In Greek mythology, Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory, was the mother of the nine muses, who were goddesses of the arts and sciences. As usual, the Greek poetic-allegorical mind teaches something true and important about the concepts personified in the story.

In their narrative of these divine beings, the Greeks communicated that, in a very real sense, memory is the generator and preserver of human knowledge and culture—and, by extension, education.

The Realness of Myth

Too readily, I think, our modern, post-scientific revolution mindset discards mythology, such as that of the Greeks, as unenlightened and uninteresting because it isn’t real and quantifiable in the literal sense, in the way that, say, the chemical composition of a leaf is real. Yet, as James Sale recently pointed out here in The Epoch Times, mythology explores and explains those aspects of reality that are deeper than what’s easily quantifiable, those truths that are constant, timeless, transcendent, and often mysterious.
Walker Larson
Walker Larson
Author
Prior to becoming a freelance journalist and culture writer, Walker Larson taught literature and history at a private academy in Wisconsin, where he resides with his wife and daughter. He holds a master's in English literature and language, and his writing has appeared in The Hemingway Review, Intellectual Takeout, and his Substack, The Hazelnut. He is also the author of two novels, "Hologram" and "Song of Spheres."
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