Muses: Actors and Poets: Pablo Neruda

Synopsis

The idea of having a muse is an old one, and for playwrights it has a fine history. Shakespeare wrote for Burbage, Chekhov for Olga Knipper, David Hare for Kate Nelligan, and Simon Stephens for Daniel Mays.

We appear to be mostly men. May be there’s something in male writers in particular working this way?

But inspiration comes in many guises and lately poetry, in its distilled form, has been important too. I was interested in how verse and a particular actor might fire another writer, so I asked Clint Dyer to see how he responded…