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Unit 7 Beauty
Susan Songtag
Teaching objectives:
 I. Analysis of the concept of beauty.
 II. Library work.
 III. Comprehension of the text.
 IV. Organization and development.
 V. Language points.
 VI. Exercises
 VII. Further readings

I. Background knowledge:
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
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Definition of beauty.
Greeks:universe: a delight
Beauty ： a perceptual experience of
pleasure, meaning or satisfaction.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Beauty is studied as part of aesthetics,
sociology, social psychology and culture.
As a cultural creation, beauty has been
extremely commercialized.
. "beauty" was used to mean "women,"
 not muscular or strong. body's contours(轮
廓 ): precise technical specification for
softness and curvature(弯曲), glossy hair,
and lots of it - red lips, a small delicate nose,
a face wide at the temples and narrow at the
jaw, a dainty neck.

2.History of beauty :
 Aesthetics, branch of philosophy
 (1)Plato ： Plato's thinking had a marked
ascetic（禁欲者） strain.
 (2)Aristotle ：Aesthetics was inseparable
from morality and politics.
 (3)Neoplatonism ：a life of sense through a
rigorous(严格的)ascetic discipline.
 . Symmetry
youthfulness
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一种至上的美是不合比例的,而且这种美是图
画所不能表现的,也不是我们一眼就可以领会
的,因此培根对古希腊名画家阿派莱斯和德国
画家阿伯特·杜勒提出了批评。
 阿派莱斯为了画一个美女的图像,选择了
城邦内最美的五个少女,融合各个美女最
美的部分成一至美的脸面,而杜勒按照严
格的几何比例来画人培根嘲笑他们说,这样
炮制出来的画像,除了画家本人外,恐怕谁的欢
心也赢不到。他主张画家不应该凭借某种公
式,而应该凭心灵的巧运和创造性的想像力来
完成艺术创作.

当时的清教徒认为,艺术是导致道德放荡的
的罪魁。培根为诗歌正名,是对柏拉图和中
世纪教会。他对诗歌的功用总结道:“至于
诗歌的功用,则诗人们表示爱情、情欲、败
德、风俗等等的力量,是比哲学家著作的功
效大的;说到机智同辞令,诗歌亦是不很弱
于演说的雄辩的。”

培根的美学与其哲学密切相关,表现出启蒙时
代的现实主义、乐观主义、唯物主义、世俗
主义和人本主义的精神意蕴。优雅合适的动
作是人的内在心灵的外在表现,在培根看来,内
在的灵魂美高于外在的形式美。

在这个意义上,老年人比年轻人更美,正如拉
丁俗语所言“美人的秋天也是美的”。因为
年轻人只有外在悦目的颜色和青春的朝气,
缺乏老年人因经年的岁月所积淀的内在灵魂
的定性和智慧。关于人的内在美与外在美的
关系培根总结道:“假如美落在人身上落得
适当的话,它是使美德更为光辉,而恶德更加
汗颜的。” 培根的人本主义审美观是文艺
复兴以来西方美学家的共同观点。
Bacon’s Mottoes
 Of Beauty
VIRTUE is like a rich stone, best plain set
 美德好比宝石，在朴素背景的衬托下反而更
华丽。
 Beauty is as summer fruits, which are
easy to corrupt, and cannot last.美有如盛
夏的水果，而容易腐烂而难保持的。
 if it light well, it maketh virtue shine, and
vices blush. “假如美落在人身上落得适当的
话,它是使美德更为光辉,而恶德更加汗颜的。”

(4)Johann Gottlieb Fichte beauty： a moral
virtue.
 (5)in the 18th and 19th centuries ：art as
imitation of nature.
 Jane Austen and Charles Dickens in England
and dramatists such as Alexandre Dumas ：
presented realistic accounts of middle-class
life

(6) Henrik Ibsen, criticize society and so
lead to reform.
 In the 19th century, in painting. French
impressionists
 (7)the impressionist objective was to
capture the fleeting moment, the optical
sensation produced by a chance effect of
weather, light, or movement.
 pointillism点画法：分色主义；点描派：后
期印象主义绘画，以19世纪后期法国的乔
治·修拉和他的同好为典范，特征为运用颜
料以小点或涂绘方式构成画面
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The Circus by Georges Seurat

Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La
Grande Jatte
Seurat’s Trombonist长号手
French artist Georges Seurat’s drawing of a trombonist
(1887-1888) in chalk and conte

.
(8) “art for art's sake
 (9)John Dewey, human experience ：
disconnected, fragmentary, full of
beginnings without conclusions
(10)Marxism and Freudianism:
 Marxism ：art is great only when it is
“progressive,”
 Sigmund Freud art ： therapeutic use。
 James Joyce： The stream-ofconsciousness
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(11)Existentialism: A philosophy that
emphasizes the uniqueness and isolation
of the individual experience in a hostile
or indifferent universe, regards human
existence as unexplainable, and stresses
freedom of choice and responsibility for
the consequences of one's acts.
 存在主义：一种强调在怀有敌意或冷漠的世
界中个人经历的独特性和孤立性的哲学，它
认为人的存在是不可解释的，并强调调选择
的自由和对自己行为的结果负责
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其最著名和最明确的倡议是萨特的格言：
“存在先于本质”（l'existence précède
l'essence）、“任何事都是可能的”。他的
意思是说，除了人的生存之外没有天经地义
的道德或体外的灵魂。道德和灵魂都是人在
生存中创造出来的。人没有义务遵守某个道
德标准或宗教信仰，人有选择的自由。

要评价一个人，要评价他的所作所为，而不
是评价他是个什么人物，因为一个人是由他
的行动来定义的。存在主义否认神或其它任
何预先定义的规则的存在。萨特反对任何人
生中“阻力”的因素，因为它们缩小人的自
由选择的余地。假如没有这些阻力的话，那
么一个人的唯一的要解决的问题是他选择哪
一条路走。

人生是一场悲剧
在存在主义者看来，人生活在一个与自
己对立的、失望的世界之中，人在世界上的
地位是不确定的。绝对自由的人也是烦恼和
无所依靠的孤独者。人虽然有选择的自由，
但他面对的未来的生活却是混沌而没有目标
的。他只是盲目地走向未来，他只知道人生
的真实的终结就是死亡。死亡作为人生的最
后归宿，对于个人的存在具有非常重要的意
义。
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4.Susan Sontag (January 16, 1933 –
December 28, 2004) was an American
literary theorist, novelist, filmmaker, and
political activist.
II.Library work
 Find out about the difference between
Roman Catholicism and Protestantism in the
Christian religion(para.4)
 Roman Catholic Church is Christian church
headed by the Pope, the Bishop of Rome.
Roman Catholics may be simply defined as
Christians in communion with the Pope.
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Roman Catholicism holds that the Pope
and the Bishops have in varying degrees
the spiritual authority Christ assigned to
his apostles. The voice of the Pope is
regarded as infallible when speaking on
matters of faith and morals.

Protestantism is a special development
within Christianity. It is distinct from Roman
Catholicism in that it breaks from papal
obedience. Protestantism is widely
practiced in most northwestern European
countries except southern Germany,
Ireland, France, and Belgium.
What is the definition of “pagan”? In what ways is a pagan
different from either a Catholic or a Protestant?

A pagan is one of a people or community
professing a polytheistic religion, i.e., a
religion based on the belief in more than one
god. Ancient Romans and Greeks were
pagans. A pagan is different from a Roman
Catholic and a Protestant in that the latter
believe in only one god.
III. Organization and development:
1.What can we infer from this etymological
study of the word?
 To Sontag, the change that has occurred in
the meaning of the word is not merely an
instance of semantic narrowing, but ,more
significantly, an instance of the distortion of
the lexical meaning of a word which has
been inflicted upon it by social prejudice. It
is just such social prejudice that the author
aims to expose and denounce.

2.Can you find where?

Her point is made especially clear in the
last and conclusive paragraph. This is a
justifiable alternative because of the
complicated nature of the issue she deals
with in the essay.
IV. Answer the following questions.
1.How does the notion of beauty held by the
ancient Greeks basically differ from the
modern one?
 For the ancient Greeks beauty embraces
both inside and outside excellence, a
combination of a person’s virtue and good
looks. In present-day English beauty refers
exclusively to the good looks of a female.

2.What does the word “ paradoxical”
(para.1) mean?
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Contradictory.
3.In what sense is the word “ beauty”
used in the sentence “ we are wary of
the enchantments of beauty” (para.2) ?
And how do you interpret the sentence?

In the overall sense of the word, i.e.,overall
excellence. We are more aware (than the
ancient Greeks) of the aspects “beauty” has,
which we think distinguishable and should
be distinguished.
4. Did the limitation Christianity placed on the
meaning of the word “beauty” give it any
sexual bias?
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No. It was limited to superficial
enchantment only.
5. What does Sontag mean by “And beauty has
continued to lose prestige”(para.3)?
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It has lost prestige when its meaning was
narrowed down from overall excellence to
superficial enchantment. And it further lost
prestige when the superficial enchantment it
referred to became associated with the fair
sex only.
6.Do you think Sontag will agree that
“handsome” means to men what “ beautiful”
does to women?
 Not quite, “ handsome” does not have the
demeaning overtones “beautiful” has.
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7. Why does Sontag think that regarding
women as the beautiful sex is detrimental to
both the notion of beauty and that of women
(para.4)
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It depreciates the notion of beauty itself ,
and implies a sexually unfair judgment of
women.
8.Explain “ It does not take someone in the throes of
advanced feminist awareness to perceive
that…’(para5)
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One does not have to be a feminist who is
painfully aware of the many social biases
women have to put up with to perceive that.
In other words, virtually anyone can
perceive that Songtag’s purpose here is to
show the obviousness of the phenomenon.
9.What does Sontag refer to by “stereotypes” in the
last sentence of para.5? And what have they to do
with the “ mixed reputation” beauty enjoys?
Fixed notions of the two sexes; what people
generally think a man or a woman should be
like.
 The association of beauty with nice looks
but dependence and inability, and
disassociation with intellect and success
give it a mixed reputation.
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10.How does Sontag show linguistically in para.5
that social convention plays a role in maintaining
feminine stereotypes?

Use of the passive : women are taught ; use
of indefinite pronoun”everybody”.
11.Can you think of any concrete example of what
Songtag calls ‘ a flattering idealization of their
sex’(para.6)? What effect does such idealization
have on women?
Winners of a beauty contest , Miss America,
sex symbols, Marylin Monroe,some fashion
models.
 Women are encouraged to look as
attractive as possible , given the models of
what they should and could possibly look
like.
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12.Constrasting para. 6 with para.7 ,do you think
(Sontag’s ) society is fair in its expectations of men and
women with regard to their looks?
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Definitely not. For women perfection is the
goal; for men a small imperfection is
considered favourably.
13.What critical view does Songtag take of
Cocteau’s remark “ The privileges of beauty are
immense”(para.8)?
Refer to the paragraph.
 14. What /Who has made it a woman’s duty
to preen? If a woman succeeds in keeping
herself look nice , how would she expect
society in general to asses her?
 Social conventions .Her good looks conceal
an empty mind ;superficial allurement is the
best asset she can claim.

15. Do you agree with Songtag that it is
dangerous to consider persons as split
between what is ‘inside’ and what is ‘outside’?
 It is not totally irrational to consider the
“ inside “ and “outside” of a person
separately for they do not always go
together (as in the case of Socrates).

However, danger arises when the two
aspects are placed at opposite ends and
regarded as incompatible. This will entail an
erroneous notion of women.
16. To get women out of the trap they are caught in,
Sontag suggests that they ‘get some critical distance
from that excellence and privilege which is
beauty’(para.10).What do you think this means?

Disassociate themselves from the notion
of beauty as far as possible; deemphasize the notion of beauty in their
life.
17What does “ the mythology of the feminine” (para.10)
mean?

The traditional /conventionalized but false/
not well-grounded notion of what women
should be like.
How do you interpret the last
sentence of the essay?

There should be something we can do so
that ‘beauty’ will not be an exclusive
superficial feature of women, (let it be
shared by men, too); and women will be
beautiful in the true sense of the word.
V. Paraphrase the following:
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One of Socrates’ main pedagogical acts
was to be ugly---- and teach those
innocent, no doubt splendid-looking
disciples of his how full of paradoxes life
really was.(ll6-8)
The contrast between Socrates’ outward
ugliness and his inner strengths served to
draw the attention of his naïve and
handsome followers to the fact that there
were many such strange contrasts in the
world.
We not only split off--- with the greatest facility ----the “ inside’
(character, intellect) from the “outside”(looks); but we
are actually surprised when someone who is beautiful
is also intelligent, talented, good.(ll10-12)

We tend to resist the idea that inside beauty
(character,intellect) can coexist with outside
beauty(looks) in one single person, and are
in fact taken aback to meet one who is
beautiful both inside and outside.
Associating beauty with women has put beauty even
further on the defensive, morally.(ll18-19)

Beauty, when considered in relation to a
female, involves a judgment of not only
looks but also character and intellect,
making itself a much more controversial
issue.
If a woman does real work---- and even if she has clambered
up to a leading position in politics, law, medicine,
business, or whatever—she is always under pressure
to confess that she still works at being attractive.(ll6163)

However successful a woman may be in her
career as a politician, lawyer, doctor,
businesswoman, or whatever, she
unavoidably feels compelled to admit to
making an effort to look attractive.
One could hardly ask for more
important evidence of the dangers
of considering persons as split
between what is “inside” and what
is “outside” than that interminable
half –comic half-tragic tale’ the
oppression of women.(ll66-68)
One could hardly ask for more important evidence of the dangers of
considering persons as split between what is “inside” and
what is “outside” than that interminable half –comic halftragic tale’ the oppression of women.(ll66-68)

The biased attitude towards women –the
long story of which is both lamentable and
laughable--- is the most powerful proof as to
how harmful it can be to judge a person by
refusing to put into consideration both inner
beauty and outer beauty together.