Unit 7
The Libido for the Ugly
--H.L.Mencken
Aims
1. To know the author, Henry L.
Mencken
2. To understand the text
3. To learn the writing technique
4. To appreciate the language features
Teaching Contents
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I. Henry Louis Mencken
II. Writing type
III. Detailed study of the text
IV. Organizational pattern
V. Language features
I. Henry Louis Mencken
1. His life
2. His views
3. His works
4. His style
H.L.Mencken -- his life
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1880- 1956
American educator, author, critic
born in the city of Baltimore,
Maryland
the son of German immigrant parents.
graduated from Baltimore
Polytechnic Institute at 16
H.L.Mencken -- his life
• became a reporter
• then a drama critic and editor
• central figure in American intellectual life
during the 1920's
• invented the word"booboisie", combining
the two words "bourgeoisie" and "booby"
(an awkward, foolish person).
H.L.Mencken -- his views
• hated narrow-minded religion.
• believed strongly in intellectual
freedom
• hated commercialism.
• not supported democracy because he
considered the masses too ignorant
and greedy to exercise it wisely.
H.L.Mencken – his works
• Mencken's essays were received
with delight or horror, depending
on the reader's point of view, he
was also highly respected for his
literary criticism and he exerted
a powerful influence on American
literature.
H.L.Mencken – his works
1.The American Language 1918
2. Prejudices (6 vols) 1919--1927
3. Happy days
4. Newspaper Days 1940--1943
autobiography
5. Heathen Days
6.25 Books and thousands of articles
The American Language
• He was a leading scholar in the field
of language. His monumental book
"The
American
Language"
is
considered an outstanding work of
philology.
The American Language
a) It examined the development of the
English language in America,
b) It contrasted English and American
expressions and usage.
The American Language
c) It explained the origin of many
American idioms,
d) It traced the influence of immigrant
languages on American English.
The American Language
• He made a large contribution to the
study of language and particularly
encouraged scholarly study of the
American branch of English.
H.L.Mencken -- his style
• He is well-known for his
bombastic style and acid tongue
• He wrote with verve(strong feeling),
gusto (eager enjoyment) and
exaggeration. His exuberant and
extravagant use of the language was
so amusing and startling that even his
most violently critical essays became
acceptable to his readers.
• He employed a huge vocabulary and
liked to insert unusual or unexpected
words, for surprise or comic effect,
into otherwise normal sentences.
Although his style is occasionally
difficult to read, Mencken is still
considered as one of the best and
liveliest essayists of this century.
• Bombastic style and acid language
– exaggeration
– hyperbole
– over rhetorical pompousness
• Language--- biting \sharp
II. Writing type
• It is typical of description
• Description is painting a picture
in words of a person, place,
object and scene.
Description
• It conveys the sensations, emotions
and impressions that affect a writer
experiencing a person, place, object
or idea. The writer describes what he
sees, hears, smells, feels or tastes,
and it often includes his emotional
reactions to the physical sensation of
the experience.
• The soul of description:
– minute details, specific concrete words
to appeal to the reader's sense of sight
– smell
– taste
– hearing
– touch
How to develop description?
By space order
Things can be described from a moving
position through space
a fixed position in space
A. The description of a person
1) a person's appearance
2) what the person does, says, how
he behaves to others to reveal the
person's character
B. The description of a place
1) for its own sake, for the purpose of
describing it, such as on a visit to
famous scenic places
2) for the purpose of revealing the
personality and character of a person
(A clean tidy room shows the occupant is an
orderly person)
3) for the purpose of creating a feeling or
mood
• The howling of a chilly wind
• The falling of autumn leaves help to
build up a sombre mood and increase
the feeling of depression.
C. The description of an object
– We have to depend on our senses.
1) You need to mention:
size
color shape
taste
texture smell
---- create a clear visual image
2) You need to tell how it is used if it is
useful
• What part it plays in a person's life if
it is in some way related to him
• But emphasis should be placed on only
one aspect of the object, such as its
most important characteristics.
• D. The description of a scene
When describing a scene, the writer
should try to create a dominant
impression. So before he begins to
write, he must make up his mind as
to what effect he wants the
description to achieve.
• 2 kinds of description:
1) objective \ impersonal
– realistic
– When topic is viewed from an objective
point of view, the writer paints a verbal
picture of the realistic world, like a
camera.
– factual words
• 2) subjective \ personal
– impressionistic \ emotional
– The writer wants to share with the
readers a kind of dominant impression.
The dominant impression may be a sense
impression or an emotion
III. Detailed study of
the text
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•
•
•
Writing type of this text
Main idea of the text
Language characteristic
Title of the text
Orgnizational pattern
Detailed study of each part
Writing type of this text
• 1. writing type: subjective,
impressionistic or emotional
description
The dominant impression --- ugliness
– Westmoreland is the ugliest place not
only in the US but also in the world.
Main idea of the text
2. Main idea:
Mencken doesn’t just berate and
revile the ugliness of Westmoreland. He
attacks the whole American race --- a
race that loves ugliness for its own sake,
that lusts to make the world intolerable;
a race which hates beauty as it hates
truth.
Language characteristic
3. language characteristics:
(1) abusive words
(2) over-rhetorical
Title of the text
4. the title:
libido: a specific word used in
psycho-analysis,
a technical term in psychology.
(Freudian)
Title of the text
• Libido:
1.psychic energy generally
• specifically that comprising the
positive loving instincts
2.the sexual urge
• strong desire, great passion,
great lust
Title of the text
• Why does the writer choose this
term?
– -- in order to give his subject
scientific coloring.
Title of the text
• He wants to demonstrate that what
he describes has psychological and
scientific foundation. Usually, people
love things beautiful, but a group of
people in the US love things ugly for
its own sake (because they are ugly)
Why? There must be some scientific
and psychological reasons.
Organizational pattern
• Part 1 (para1~2)
– the general impression of Westmoreland
rich and ugly
• Part 2 (para3~5)
– the description of the design and color
of the houses
Organizational pattern
• Part 3 (para 6~8)
– the reason and cause why the people in
Westmoreland love such ugly houses
Part 4 (para 9): Conclusion
--Mencken is being very critical of the
American race and the American society,
which hates beauty as well it hates truth
Part 1
Para 1:
Language points:
1. On a Winter day some years ago,
coming out of…Westmoreland
county.
1) Pittsburgh
2) Westmoreland
Paragraph 1
• 1). Pittsburgh:
A city in southwest Pennsylvania , It is
one of the most important industrial cities
of America, and a center of rail and river
transportation. Termed the “Steel City” of
“Smoky City”, it is the center of rich
bituminous-coal region, producing also
natural gas, oil and limestone, a large part
of US steel and iron is produced here.
Paragraph 1
2) Westmoreland county: a county in
Southwest Pennsylvnia. It is a mining and
manufacturing region. Its county seat is
Greensburg
3) the meaning of the sentence: One day in a
winter some years ago, I started out from
Pittsburgh and travelled through the coal
and steel towns of Westmoreland county in
a fast railway train,
Paragraph 1
2. I had never sensed its appalling desolation
1) appalling : causing fear, shocking, terrible,
dreadful
• Something that is appalling is so bad or
unpleasant that it makes you feel disgust
or dismay
– Some of these people live in appalling
conditions.
Paragraph 1
2) desolation – bleakness
• A quality of a place which makes it
seem empty and frightening
– Empty of people
– Lacking in comfort
Paragraph 1
3. Here was the very heart…
1) metaphor:
heart --- center of industrial America
2) hyperbole :
richest, grandest nation on earth
3) antithetical contrast
Paragraph 1
• Here was the very heart of industrial
America, the center of the most lucrative
and characteristic activity.
---- The rigion around Pittsburgh was one
of the most important industrial centers
of America. Here was the center of the
most profitable and characteristic
American activity– industrial
activity.(manufacture and produstion of
goods as distinguished from agriculture)
Paragraph 1
• the boast and pride of the richest and
grandest nation ever seen on earth.
---- The United States, the richest and
grandest nation ever seen on earth, both
boasts about and feels proud of this
center of industrial activity.
Paragraph 1
• And here was a scene so dreadfully hideous, so
intolerably bleak and …depressing joke.
---- The scene that met the eye was terribly ugly
and the whole region was so miserable and gloomy
that it was unbearable. This dreadful scene (in a
region which produces through its industry the
wealth to make America the richest amd grandest
nation) makes all human endeavors to advance and
improve their fortune appear as a terribly
saddening joke.
Paragraph 1
4. Here was wealth beyond …of alley cats
alley cat: homeless, mongrel cat
--- people could not imagine or calculate the
amount of wealth that was to be found in
this region. And in this same region there
were such terrible and disgusting houses
that even homeless mongrel cats would
feel ashamed to live in them.
Paragraph 1
• Paragraph 1 is developed by contrasting the great
wealth of this region to the abominable human
habitations seen everywhere. The readers fail to
understand why such rich people live in such ugly
houses. The contrast , thus helps Mencken to
make his point: ugliness is not due to poverty but
to something innate in the American character--a love of ugliness for its own sake, or as the title
says, the libido for the ugly.
Paragraph 2
1.
What I allude to is the unbroken and agonizing
ugliness,…of every house in sight.
1）unbroken ugliness: ugliness that was continuous
and uninterrupted. It was ugly no matter where
you looked.
2) agonizing ugliness: ugliness that caused great
pain (to people who saw it).
3) sheer revolting monstrousness: the absolute
disgusting hideousness.
4) hyperbole , an exaggeration that is hard to
believe . Not every house could have been that
ugly
Paragraph 2
2. From East Liberty to …lacerate the eye.
1) lacerate: to hurt; to tear (the flesh, an
arm, the face) roughly as with fingernails
or broken glass.
2) – Every house a passenger saw when
travelling by train from East Liberty to
Greensburg, a distance of 25 miles, was so
ugly that it offened and hurt his eyes.
Paragraph 2
3. … they were among the most pretentious
1) pretentious: self-important,
2) The houses that were specially ugly were also
important building, claiming some distinction.
4. One blinked before them as one blinks before a
man with his face shot away.
--- The ugliness of these houses was as gruesome
as a face that has been shot and mangled.
(simile)
Paragraph 2
5. A few linger in memory, horrible
even there:
-- Some of the houses remain in one’s
memory and later when one pictures
them in one’s mind they still appear
to be horrible.
Paragraph 2
6. A crazy little church… a bare leprous hill.
1) crazy: (colloquial) foolish, wild, fantastic,; not
sensible
2) Jeanette: a small city in Westmoreland county,
21 miles southeast of PIttsburgh.
3) dormer-window: a window set upright in a sloping
roof
4) leprous: like a leprosy having ulcers and white
scaly scabs.
5) -- An insensible little church just west of
Jeannette was built like a dormer-window on a
hillside that was bare and looked as repulsive as
the skin of a leper. (simile)
Paragraph 2
7. a steel stadium like a … the line:
1) line: railway line
2) It was a large round oval structure
made of steel and looked like a big rat trap.
The headquarters of the Veterans of
Foreign Wars was a bit further down the
line than the church at Jeanette.
3) simile and ridicule
Paragraph 2
8. There was not… Greensburg yards:
1) yard: a railway center where trains
are serviced, switched from track to
track, etc
2) – when traveling from Pittsburgh
to Greensburg, one did not see a
single decent house.
Paragraph 2
9. There was not one … shabby.
1) double negatives
2) repetition of the same structure
3) to emphesize the two words “misshapen”
and “shabby”
4) –Every house was misshapen, and every
house was shabby.
Paragraph 2
Describe the houses more specifically:
1. What buildings did the writer describe in
details?
1) churches, stores, warehouses etc.:
like a man’s face shot away
2) a little church:
like a dormer-window on the side of a bare
leprous hill
3) the headquarters of the veterans of Foreign
Wars: a steel stadium
like a huge rat-trap
Paragraph 2
2. What impression can you get?
shabby;
ugly;
hideous
Part 2
Paragraph 3
1. The country itself is not uncomely, despite the
grime of the endless mills.
1) not uncomely:
--- quite comely, pleasant, fair to look at.
undserstatement.
2) --- The country itself is pleasant to look at,
despite the sooty dirt spread by the
innumerable mills in this region.
Paragraph 3:language points
2.It is thickly settled, but not noticeably
overcrowded.
-- In this area a great number of people live close
together, but it doesn’t give the impression of
being overcrowded.
3. There is still plenty of room…solid blocks.
--- Even in the larger towns there are very few
solid blocks of houses, and there are still many
empty spaces on which new buildings can be set up.
Paragraph 3:language points
4. If there were architects of any
professional sense or dignity in the
region, they would have perfected a
chalet to hug the hillside.
1) chalet: a type of Swiss house, build
of wood with balconies and
overhanging eaves(屋檐).
Paragraph 3 : Chalet
A• chalet’s roof is steep in slope so that heavy
snow would slide off them easily.
Paragraph 3: chalet
Paragraph 3: chalet
Paragraph 3:language points
2) Sarcasm (讥讽) : The “if”clause is not a real
conditioanl clause. It sarcastically emphasizes
the fact that there were no architects worthy
its name in this region. There were no
architects worthy of the honour or the high
standards demanded by its profession.
3) If there had been architects of responsiblilty,
they would naturally have built Swiss type
houses which would lie low and clinging to the
hillsides.
Paragraph 3:language points
5. They have taken as their model a brick set
on end.
-- The model they follow in building their
houses was a brick standing upright. All
the houses they built looked like bricks
standing upright.
6. This they have converted into … roof.
--- The brick-like houses were made of
shabby thin wooden boards and their roofs
were narrow and had little slope.
Paragraph 3:language points
7. And the whole they have set upon…piers.
1) pier: --- a pillar of stone, wood,
metal etc. esp. as used to support a
bridge, or the roof of a high building
2) -- And the whole house was set upon
/or supported by thin and ridiculous
looking brick columns.
Paragraph 3:language points
8. on the low sides…mud:
1) the meaning of the sentence:
Since these houses are built on the
hillsides and set on brick piers, one side is
high and the other is low. The low sides
make them look like pigs burying
themselves in the mud.
2) metaphor: comparing the houses to pigs
wallowing(打滚) in the mud.
Paragraph 3:language points
9. And one and all they are streaked in grime, with
dead and ecaematous patches of paint peeping
through the streaks.
1) one and all : – all the houses, every house
2) streak: if something streaks a surface, it
leaves long stripes or marks of a different color
on the surface ;
e,g: His face is streaked with dirt.
n. --- line
e,g: Her hair had a very pretty grey streak in it.
Paragraph 3:language points
3）eczematous – of Eczema
Eczema is a skin disease which makes your
skin itch and become rough and sore.(湿疹)
4）the meaning of the sentence:
All the houses here are covered with dirt, and
some paint which is not covered up by the dirt
looks like dried-up scales (鳞癣) formed on the
skin by eczema.
(每栋房屋都积上一道道尘垢，在尘垢的间隙之间，还
可隐约见到象湿疹的鳞癣一样的油漆斑点。)
Paragraph 3: questions
1.What is paragraph 3 about?
Paragraph 3 is about how people build the house on
the hillside.
2. What is their model of building?
They have taken as their model a brick set on end.
3. How do people build the house on the hillside?
These houses are built on the hillside and set on
brick piers, one side is high and the other is low.
The low sides make them look like pigs burying
themselves in the mud.
Paragraph 4: language points
1. But what brick!
elliptical sentence
But what terrible brick it was!
Such elliptical sentences often
express shock, surprise, wonder,
etc.
Paragraph 4: language points
2. When it has taken on the patina of the mills it is
the colour of an egg long past all hope or caring.
1) patina: beautiful green or greenish-blue color.
Here Mencken uses it ironically to describe the
grime of the mills.
2) the meaning of the sentence:
When the brick is covered with the black soot
of the mills, it takes on the color of rotten eggs.
3) ridicule: laughing scornfully at the color of the
houses.
metaphor: the color of the house compared to
the color of rotten eggs
Paragraph 4: language points
3. Red brick, even in a steel town, ages with some
dignity.
-- Red brick, even in a steel town, looks quite
respectable and dignified with the passing of time.
Even in a steel town, old red bricks still look
pleasant.
4. Let it become downright black…,it is still sightly.
Even when it becomes absolutely black, old red
bricks still appear pleasing to the eye.
Paragraph 4: language points
5. … especially if its trimming …by the rain.
--- especially if the borders are of white stone,
with black soot in the hollow places and the
protruding parts washed clean by the rain.
6. But in Westmoreland …uremic yellow.
--- But it seems that people in Westmoreland
prefer that yellow color produced by the disease
uremia.
uremia: 尿毒症
Paragraph 4: language points
7. So they have the most loathsome towns
and villages ever seen by mortal eye.
1) mortal eye: human eyes
2) loathsome: disgusting
3) hyperbole, exaggerating the ugliness of
the towns and villages in Westmoreland
county.
Paragraph 4: questions
Q1. what is paragraph 4 about?
It is about the color of the houses.
Q2. what does Mencken say about the color
of these houses?
According to the writer, the houses have
the most loathsome color. The color of a
fried egg when new and after some time
they take on the color of uremic yellow.
Paragraph 5: language points
1.I award this championship only …prayer
1) championship: Mencken uses this word
ironically to describe not the best but the
worst.
2) prayer: asking God to help him to come to
the correct decision.
3) Sarcasm and irony
4) The meaning of the sentence
--- I have given Westmoreland the highest award
for ugliness after having done a lot of hard work
and research and after continuous praying.
--- I came to the conclusion that Westmoreland
had the most loathsome towns and villages only
after visiting and comparing many places not only
in the United States but also in other countries
and after constantly praying to God for guidance.
2. I have seen the mill towns …Texas
－ I have seen the decaying and rotting
mill towns of New England and the desert
like the towns of Utah, Arizona and Texas.
This shows he has travelled throughout
the United States from the Northeast
state of New England to the states in the
Southwest on the border of Mexico,
Arizona and Texas and the western state
of Utah.
3. I am familiar with the back streets…Newport
News, Va.
He mentions some places of the towns he visited.
back streets: small, mean streets; streets in slum
areas.
Newark --- in New Jersey
Brooklyn --- in New York
Chicago --- in Illinois
Camden --- New Jersey
Newport News --- Virginia
4. Safe in a Pullman, I have whirled … hamlets of
Georgia.
1) Pullman : a railroad car with private
compartments or seats that can be made up into
berths (a sleeping place) for sleeping. Its is socalled after US inventor, George M. Pullman
(1831-97)
2) Malarious:
-- malaria-stricken area , mosquito-infested
malria: a disease of hot countries, caused by a
small living thing which enters the blood when the
person is bitten by certain types of mosquito.
3) hamlet: a small village
4) tidewater: village near the sea affected
by the rise and fall of tides
5) the meaning of the sentence:
Travelling in a pullman car, I passed
through the gloomy, desolate villages of
Iowa and Kansas, and the malaria infested
small seaside villages of Georgia.
5. They are …in color, they are …in design.
1) People can’t find such terrible color and design
in any other region.
2) imcomparable: beyond comparison; unequaled;
matchless
This word has the connotative meaning of superb
excellence but Mencken uses it ironically to mean
that the color and design were so bad that you
couldn’t find any that was worse.
6. It is as if some titanic and aberrant
… to the making of them.
1) aberrant: unusual and not normal,
straying away from the right path
aberrant behavior/ideas
2) uncompromising: firm, steadfast , rigid
When people are uncompromising , they
are determined not to change their
opinions or objective in any way
– He was an ~ opponent of the war
3) inimical: hostile, unfriendly,in opposition
4) genius :used ironically to mean an evil
genius, having great ability to do evil
5) ingenuity: skills, intelligence
6) hell: the powers of evil or darkness
7) Hyperbole
irony
8) The meaning of the sentence:
It is as if some genius of great poewer,
who didn’t like to do the right things and
who was an inflexible enemy of man,
employed all the cleverness and skill of hell
to build these ugly houses.
彷佛有什么与人类不共戴天的,能力超常的鬼
才,费尽心机,动员魔鬼王国里的鬼斧神工才造
出这些丑陋无比的房子.
7.They show grotesqueries of ugliness that,
in retrospect, become almost diabolical
1) grotesquery : n, strangeness, ugliness
grotesque:
① strange and unnatural so as to cause
fear or be laughable
② very ugly in appearance == hideous
– He was rather ~ to look at.
2) in retrospect : looking back towards the
past
His youth was more enjoyable in
retrospect than it had actually been when
he was going through it.
3) diabolical = diabolic: devilish; dreadful ;
extremely unpleasant and annoying
It is used to describe something that people
think is caused by or belongs to the devil.
3) The meaning of the sentence:
When one looks back at these houses
whose ugliness is so fantastic and bizarre
that one feels they must be the work of
the devil himself.
这些房屋不仅丑陋而且奇形怪状,使人回头一
看,顿觉它们变成了一个个青面獠牙的恶魔.
Part 3
Paragraph 6
1. Are they so frightful …in them?
1) insensate: not feeling, not capable of feeling
2) brute: of or like an animal; having no
consciousness or feelings
3) a rhetorical question for effect
4) Are the houses so frightfully ugly because the
valley is inhabited by a lot of foreigners who are
stupid and unfeeling like animals and who have
no love of beauty in them?
,
2. You will, in fact, find nothing of the sort
in Europe— save perhaps in the more
putrid parts of England.
1) save: conjunction: except, but
2) Putrid: decomposing; rotten and foulsmelling
3) In fact,you won’t find any abominable
houses in Europe, except perhaps in some
rotten and decaying area in England.
3. But in American… upon passion.
1) pull: appeal, drawing force/ power
2) yeild: to give up, to surrender
3) border upon: be very much like, almost be
Your remarks border upon rudeness, sir!
先生，你的话简直是无礼。
The proposal borders upon the absurd.
该提议似乎荒唐可笑。
4) But in the American village and
small town, the appeal (drawing
power/ desire) is always towards
ugliness, and in that Westmoreland
valley people have given in to this
appeal eagerly or almost passionately
5) sarcasm
4. It is incredible that mere ignorance
should have achieved such masterpices of
horror.
1) masterpiece :
a thing made or done with masterly skill.
(irony)
Mencken uses “masterpiece” ironically to
say that the houses were so horrible that
no one could build worse ones.
2) It is hard to believe that people built
such horrible houses just because they
did not know what beautiful houses were
like.
Paragraph 7
1. On certain levels … libido for the ugly.
1) antithesis:
libido for the ugly/ libido for the beautiful
2) People in certain strata (social classes) of
American society seem definitely to
hunger after ugly things, which in other
less Christian strata, people seem to long
for beautiful things.
3) Mencken mocks at the Christians and
attacks their code of behavior. The
Chtristians are supposed to have the
qualities of love, kindness, humility,etc,
but Mencken thinks that they do not know
what is beautiful. Pagans (异教徒, 无宗教信
仰者) not Christians know what is beautiful.
2. It is impossible to put down…to the
obscene humor of the manufacturers.
1) put down to:
state that sth is caused by sth
attribute to 归因于
I put his bad temper down to his recent
illness.
His bad temper was put down to his
unhappy childhood.
2) deface:
damage, spoil the appearance or surface
If people deface sth such as a wall or a
notice, they deliberately damage it by
writing or drawing unpleasant or
offensive things on it.
3) inadvertence: carelessness, heedlessness
-- you do sth unintentionally without
thinking or without realizing
-- paying no attention to
-- by accident
4) obscene : nasty, dirty, lewd
5) it is impossible to attribute the wallpaper
that makes the average American home of
the lower middle class look so ugly to mere
oversight (carelessness) or to the indecent
taste of the manufacturers.
(那些把一般美国中下层家庭的住宅打扮得象
丑八怪的糊墙纸决不能归咎于选购者的疏忽大
意,也不能归咎于制造商的粗俗的幽默感.)
3. Such ghastly, it must be obvious,
give a genuine delight to a certain
type of mind.
-- It is clear that the horribly ugly
designs on the wallpaper give real
delight to a certain type of mind.
4. They meet, in some unfathomable way, its obscure
and unintelligible demands,
1) unfathomable --- fml 难以理解
if sth. is ~, it is so strange or complicated that it
cannot be understood or explained.
2) These ugly things, in some way that people cannot
understand, satisfy the hidden and unintelligible
demands of this type of mind.
他们以某种莫明其妙的方式满足聊这种人的某种晦涩
难懂的心理需要.
5 . The taste for them is as enigmatical and yet as
common as the taste for dogmatic thology and the
poetry of Edgar A Guest.
1) enigmatic – mysterious, puzzling and difficult to
understand 既不可思议，又不足为怪
• the love for ugliness of the people in
Westmoreland is
① mysterious to many people
② common, natural from their point of view
•
dogmatic --- opinionated, like a dogma(教条的)
• theology
--- the study of the nature of God; of God’s
influence on people and of religion and religious
beliefs
Paragraph 8
1.
But they chose that clapboarded horror with
their eyes open, and having chosen it, they let it
mellow into its present shocing depravity.
1) with eyes open: with full understanding of what
is involved.
2) mellow: to make full, rich, soft, gentle,etc.
Mencken uses this word ironically to mean: to
let deteriorate, to let it go from bad to worse.
3) They chose, fully understanding what they were
doing, this horrible house made of clapboard
and then let it deteriorate to this present
shocking, sinful condition.
2. They like it as it is: beside it, the
Parthenon would no doubt offend them.
1) Parthenon :
A beautiful doric temple built in honor of
the virgin (Parthenon)goddess Athena on
the Acropolis in Athena around 5th
century B.C.
2) They like things ugly and do not
know what is beautiful. If one were
to put a beautiful building like the
Pathenon there, they would be
offended.
3) sarcasm
3. In precisely the same way the authors of
the rat-trap stadium that I have
mentioned made a deliberate choice.
1) Metaphor
2) The authors of the round oval structure
that was like a rat-trap that I mentioned
before also made a deliberate choice
fully knowing what they were doing.
4. They made it perfect in their own sight…on top
of it.
1) ridicule
2) impossible: not capable of being endured, hard to
tolerate.
3) They put a pentihouse on top of it, painted in a
bright, conspicuous yellow color and thought it
looked perfect but they only managed to make it
absolutely intolerable.
5. The effect is that of a fat woman with a
black eye.
1) Metaphor, comparing the ugly rat-trap
stadium eith an impossible yello
pentihouse to a fat woman with a black
eye.
2) black eye: s discoloration of the skin or
flesh surrounding an eye, resulting from
a sharp blow or contusion.
Part 4: conclusion
1. Here is something that the psychologists have so
far neglected: the love of ugliness for its own
sake, the lust to make the world intolerable.
1) for its own sake:because it is ugly
for the purpose of ugliness
2) So far psychologists haven’t paid sufficient
attention to the problems of the love of
ugliness for its own sake, and the lust to make
the world intolerable.
2. Its habitat is the United States.
1) habitat: the place where a person or
thing is ordinarily found.
2) The place where this psychological
attitude is found in the United
States.
3. Out of the “melting pot” emerges a race which
hates beauty as it hates truth.
1) Melting pot: a country , place, etc, in which
immigrants of various naitonalities and races are
assimilated.
2) From the intermingling of different
nationalities and races in the United States,
emerges the American race which hates beauty
as strongly as it hates truth.
4, it arises and flourishes in obidience to biological
laws, and not as a mere act of God.
The birth and development of this madness is
governed by the scientific laws of biology and not
due to some supernatural act of God.
There must be some biological reason for the
existence and growth of this madness. It isn’t
something done by God.
5. What precisely are the terms of those laws?
1) terms: conditions or requirements, specific
content
-- According to the terms of the agreements,
British ships will be allowed to take a limited
amount of fish each year.
根据协议条款的规定，英国船只每年的捕鱼量是有限的。
-- What are your sales terms?(你们的销售条件是什么？)
-- Cash ( 现金支付)
2) What are the conditions or repuirements of those
laws?
6. Let some honest …to the problem.
1) Privat Dozent: in German universities, an
unsalaried lecturer paid only by his student’s
fees.
2) Pathological sociology: science dealing with the
diseases of human society
3) apply: to concerntrate one’s facultied on; empoly
oneself diligently.
4) Let some lecturer in pathological sociology work
diligently on this problem.