The moment inspiration descends.
風流 (풍류) means the artistic spirit, free as wind and flowing water. muse means inspiration; the goddess of art. East Asian idiom and Western myth mirror the same human truth.
The Meeting
On Olympus dwelt nine sisters who breathed inspiration into art, while in East Asia the artistic spirit, free as wind and water, was called pungryu.
Western Myth — The Nine Muses, Goddesses of Inspiration
The Muses are the nine sisters born to Zeus and Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory. Each presided over a domain -- epic poetry, history, lyric poetry, tragedy, choral dance, comedy, sacred hymn, astronomy, and dance. Ancient poets always invoked the Muses for inspiration in the first line of a work. That the Iliad of Homer opens with "Sing, O Muse" belongs to this tradition. Muse, music, museum, and amuse all descend from the names of these goddesses.
"To muse" (to think deeply) shares the same root. The ancient view -- that artistic inspiration is not made within me but breathed in from without by the Muse -- survives in the word itself.
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Oxford English Dictionary"muse" etymology entry.
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Etymonlinemuse word origin.
Eastern Aesthetics — Pungryu, the Art of Wind and Water
Pungryu (風流) means, literally, "wind (風) flows (流)." Choe Chi-won of Silla declared that Korea possessed a Way (道) that had existed from the beginning, and called it pungryu. Pungryu is Korea's own artistic and spiritual tradition, one that existed before Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism. The scholars called it pungryu to recite poetry amid nature, to play the geomungo, and to drink wine while watching the moon. Pungryu holds a view in which inspiration does not arrive from without, as with the Muse, but blooms of itself as one becomes one with nature.
If the Muse is personified external inspiration, pungryu is inward inspiration in union with nature. The West sought the source of inspiration in the gods; the East sought it in nature.
Where the Mirrors Meet — Where the Two Myths Converge
Both share the theme of the moment inspiration descends.
Muse, from Greek myth, and pungryu, from the East Asian tradition, captured the same human truth.
Both live on in everyday language. Muse still endures in English, and pungryu in Korean.
Yet their modes of expression differ. The West conveyed this wisdom through a mythic character, while the East conveyed it through the combination of Chinese characters.
Mnemonic — One Line to Take Home
- ✓ muse = from the nine Muses. Inspiration; the goddess of art.
- ✓ 風流 = the artistic spirit, free as wind and flowing water.
- ✓ Remember in one line: "Muse and pungryu -- two different civilizations telling the same story."
"Myth never dies. It still breathes today within muse and pungryu."
