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What does it mean to be composed?

I’m reading a novel in which the author has the irritating tick of using the adjective ‘composed’ every few pages. This repetition has left me newly aware of what an interesting word this is:

calm and in control of your emotions

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/composed#google_vignette

But why does it mean that? To ‘compose’ means ‘to produce music, poetry, or formal writing’. To be composed, calm and in control of your emotions, suggests producing your psychological state in a deliberate and artful way. There is a theory of the subject sedimented into the adjectival form of composed. This is the online etymology dictionary’s account of its genesis:

c. 1400, compousen, “to write” (a book), from Old French composer “put together, compound; adjust, arrange; write” a work (12c.), from com- “with, together” (see com-) + poser “to place,” from Late Latin pausare “to cease, lay down” (see pause (n.)).

Meaning influenced in Old French by componere “to arrange, direct” (see composite; also see compound (v.), pose (v.)), which gradually was replaced in French by composer. Similar confusion is found in expose, oppose, repose (v.2), transpose, etc.

Meaning “to make or form by uniting two or more things” is from late 15c. Sense of “be the substance or elements of, make up” is from 1540s. Sense of “invent and put (music) into proper form” is from 1590s. From c. 1600 as “bring into a composed state, to cal, quiet;” from 1650s as “place (parts or elements) in proper form, arrange.”

In painting, “combine into an arrangement with artistic effect” (1782). In printing, “put into type” (1630s), but the usual term among printers was set. Related: Composed; composing. The printers’ composing room is from 1737.

In this sense I’d suggest composure involves creating inner “form by uniting two or more things”; integrating our inner elements in response to an external situation, in a deliberate and purposeful way. There is a tacit understanding of reflexivity inherent in the development of this concept.

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