I doubt it was a temptation to which Homer succumbed. I mean, after sitting down at the campfire and tearing off the required 5,000 lines of rollicking hexameter, I imagine the old poet simply thanked his audience, hung up his zither, and shuffled off to bed content with his evening’s work.
But then again, maybe not. Maybe even Homer nodded and, like so many poets and writers after him, had trouble resisting the temptation to play the literary impresario. Perhaps after the evening’s episode featuring Odysseus and the Boys, he went on to introduce his own variety show: a fellow poet brought into the firelight to pluck out a sensitive lyric, a local thespian with one or two comic sketches, a scorching review of a recently released epic, a “how-to” demonstration of the Homeric epithet, a marketing lesson on how to attract an “epic” audience, and finally, in an effort to show off his political chops, a satirical report on poor sanitary conditions in Troy.
Alas, few writers have the intestinal fortitude required to remain mere storytellers. The desire to start some kind of journal, miscellany, review or blog is downright overpowering. Samuel Johnson couldn’t resist it with The Rambler (1750-52). Poor Dickens committed serial journalizing, “conducting” Household Words from 1850-59 and All the Year Round from 1859-1870. G.K. Chesterton suffered worst of all, not even being able to keep his name from the title of G.K.’s Weekly (1925-36).
Some would like to attribute this desire to play the literary impresario to a genetic abnormality. Doubtless there is some truth to this. But I would also like to insist that no small part is played by advances in technology. If Jane Austen was able to confine her activities as an impresaria to the family drawing room, then she was certainly helped by the fact that it was dashed difficult to get hold of a printing press. Less than fifty years later we find Dickens having no such difficulty. And in our day–with blogs freely available and a worldwide audience potentially at one’s fingertips–well, it’s no wonder that practically every writer on the planet winds down from the day’s stint by firing up WordPress or Typepad and composing his or her own private literary journal.
I confess to being no different. While I suppose I should rest content with writing novels and putting them up for sale, I just can’t. There’s something inside compelling me to reflect upon the craft of storytelling, to comment upon the work of others, to interview authors, to demonstrate keen insights into the world of publishing and, à la Seth Godin, to offer marketing advice in the form of pithy epigrams. Gads. I even offer my consulting services to fellow writers.
In short, I have the “literary impresario” bug clawing at my innards.
So welcome to The Comic Muse. In the “Preliminary Word” to his own Household Words, Dickens stated that one of the chief aims of his journal was the tender cherishing “of that light of Fancy which is inherent in the human breast,” a light which if neglected may “sink into a sullen glare” but which cannot be extinguished–“or woe betide the day.” The Comic Muse seeks to capture something of this spirit by not letting the cheerful light of artistic inspiration sink into the sullen glare of the suffering artist. Here at The Comic Muse, the craft of storytelling is always a cause of delight and good humor, even when the subject matter of the story is tragic or sad.
Again in his “Preliminary Word,” Dickens presented himself to his audience as a beloved writer, one “admitted into many homes with affection and confidence…regarded as a friend by children and old people…thought of in affliction and in happiness…peopling the sick room with airy shapes ‘that give delight and hurt not’…associated with the harmless laughter and the gentle tears of many hearths.” Without, of course, claiming anything of Dickens’ popularity, I do hope The Comic Muse will be admitted into your home or sick room with affection and confidence. Like Dickens, I understand “the great responsibility of such a privilege” as well as its “vast reward.”*
I hope, also, that you will join in the conversation through the comment boxes on the blog. Finally, I hope that if I may ever be of assistance to you, then you will not hesitate to contact me.
Daniel McInerny
All the voices we hear, cry Go on! The stones that call to us have sermons in them, as the trees have tongues, as there are books in the running brooks, as there is good in everything! They, and the Time, cry out to us Go on! With a fresh heart, a light step, and a hopeful courage, we begin the journey. The road is not so rough that it need daunt our feet: the way is not so steep that we need stop for breath, and, looking faintly down, be stricken motionless. Go on, is all we hear, Go on! In a glow already, with the air from yonder height upon us, and the inspiriting voices joining in this acclamation, we echo back the cry, and go on cheerily!
–Charles Dickens, from “A Preliminary Word” to Household Words
* These quotations from Dickens are taken from the enjoyable account of Dickens’ involvement with Household Words found in Michael Slater’s Charles Dickens (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009).
