Gottfried Keller’s dance legend supports two opposite interpretations. As the story progresses, there is a shift in emphasis from Musa and dance to the Muses and song. The question is how the two parts relate to each other. One analysis may see the Muses’ uncouth song as supporting evidence for David’s statement that dance in Heaven is more refined and exquisite than the best dance on Earth. By extension, the same would be true of all the arts. Thus, in comparison with the blessed who enjoy eternal life in Heaven, the Muses appear as crude misfits who deserve to be expelled. Creatures of Greek mythology do not belong in the Christian Heaven.

Additional information indicates an alternative reading, in which Musa’s self-denial is a tragic waste of her talent, and the worldly art of the Muses contains heights and depths of mortal aspiration not accessible to those in Heaven.

Keller was a nonbeliever whose thinking was influenced by the materialistic philosophy of Ludwig Feuerbach. A Swiss scholarship enabled Keller to study in Heidelberg in 1848 and 1849, where he attended Feuerbach’s lectures and developed a close friendship with him. Feuerbach believed that because life on Earth is all humans have, people should devote all of their energies to leading a natural and moral life. Life should not be passed in preparation for an uncertain reward in Heaven. When seen in that light, the Christian requirement that Musa renounce dance and all worldly pleasures seems wrong.

The strongest argument for interpreting the dance legend as a criticism of Christian abstinence and self-denial is that the dance legend is the last in a set of seven legends, all of which stress the importance of experiencing life to the fullest. Most of these legends show the Virgin acting in compliance with people who seek fulfillment in this life.

The first legend, for example, is about Sister Beatrice, a nun who feels compelled to leave the convent, marries a knight, and has eight sons. Almost twenty years later she returns to the convent and finds that she has not been missed. The Virgin has impersonated her and performed her duties all that time. The Virgin’s approval of Beatrice’s secular life in this legend is comparable to the Virgin’s remark in the dance legend that she will not be content until the Muses are taken into Paradise forever.

Keller portrays the Virgin throughout as sympathetic to human needs and desires, but he also indicates that she does not have the authority to install the Muses in Heaven. Regardless of whether one sees the Muses’ performance as inferior or superior to the heavenly choir, common to both interpretations is the insight that the two worlds are irreconcilable.