For those of you who wish to do a bit of cross-referencing, take a look at Plato's dialogue - Socrates and Ion (entitled simply "Ion").

I happened to open to this selection randomly last evening and was caught up with the conversation since it discusses "Muses". When I first saw the word in text, I immediately thought of Mr. Bradbury. As I read on, I was lead to believe that Mr. Bradbury very well may have been present at the time of the conversation (c.425 BC).

It is a precise, if not uncanny, discussion for the creation of original idea vs. imitation of what is around us as rational (?!) thinking creatures.

Mr. Bradbury's deference to his "muses" became much more clear to me after reading this dialogue! Many of his characters in From the Dust Returned (50 yrs. of creating) and "The Exiles" (200 yrs. of authors) also seemed to come to mind during the reading of the selection. RB truly is timeless.


[This message has been edited by fjpalumbo (edited 02-26-2002).]