Transcript Unit 7 BEAUTY

Unit 7 BEAUTY
Susan Sontag
罗朝晖
School of Foreign Studies, SCNU
2015/7/20
1
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New words
and
expressions
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Lamely: weakly, unsatisfactory,
helplessly
Paradoxical: seemingly selfcontradictory
Seductive: attractive, charming
Pedagogical: teaching
Wary: careful, showing caution
On the defensive: prepare for
disapproval or attack
Demeaning overtones:
implication of humiliation
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New words
and
expressions
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Vestiges: traces 痕迹、残余
To the detriment of: to the
harm of
Throes: a condition of agonizing
struggle of effort,剧痛，痛苦挣扎
Narcissism: excessive
admiration of oneself, abnormal
love for oneself
Obligation: duty, social
requirement that compels one
to follow a certain course of
action，义务
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New words
and
expressions
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Fretful: irritable, complaining,
烦躁的
Pass muster: be accepted as
satisfactory,及格，符合要求
Depreciation: a belittling act or
instance, (opposite of
appreciation)贬低
Censure: v. to express severe
disapproval, especially in a
formal statement，严厉指责，
责备
Preen：trim carefully,打扮，梳
理
Interminable：endless
Do you think “being
beautiful” is the most
desirable quality in women?
Are women concerned about
their outward appearance
only?
 What social discrimination
is implied in the old Chinese
saying “郎才女貌”？
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Prereading
Questions
About
Beauty
Definition of
Beauty:
qualities in a person or object
that give pleasure to the
senses or spirit;
combination of qualities, such
as shape, color, or form, that
pleases the aesthetic senses.

About
Beauty
The 18th-century German
philosopher Immanuel Kant was
concerned with judgments of
taste. Objects are judged
beautiful, he proposed, when
they satisfy a disinterested
desire: one that does not involve
personal interests or needs.
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About
Beauty
It follows from this that beautiful objects
have no specific purpose and that
judgments of beauty are not
expressions of mere personal
preference but are universal. Although
one cannot be certain that others will be
satisfied by objects he or she judges to
be beautiful, one can at least say that
others ought to be satisfied. The basis
for one's response to beauty exists in
the structure of one's mind.
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About
Beauty
The German critic and classical
archaeologist Johann Joachim
Winckelmann maintained that, in
accordance with the ancient Greeks,
the best art is impersonal, expressing
ideal proportion and balance rather
than its creator's individuality. The
German philosopher Johann Gottlieb
Fichte considered beauty a moral
virtue.

"Aesthetics,"
Microsoft?Encarta?Encyclopedia 99. ?19931998 Microsoft Corporation. All rights
reserved.
The Discus Thrower
The
author:
Susan
Sontag
The
author
American essayist, philosopher, novelist,
short-story writer, and filmmaker born
in 1933, known for her philosophical
writings on modern culture. Born in
New York City, Sontag was educated at
the universities of California, Chicago,
and Paris and at Harvard University.
Her 1964 article “Notes on ‘Camp’” in
the quarterly Partisan Review, which
was reported on in news magazines,
brought to national attention her new
definition of “camp” as the “love of the
unnatural, of artifice and
exaggeration.(女人腔，忸怩作态的，夸
张的举止行为；同性恋的）
The
Author
During the 1960s and 1970s
Sontag's essays and
observations had a strong
influence on the American
counterculture. She is a
leading observer of new
trends in literature, art, film,
photography, and culture.
Her essay collections :
Against Interpretation (1966), Styles of
Radical Will (1969), Under the Sign of
Saturn (1980). Her novels:
The Benefactor (1963),
Death Kit (1967),
The Volcano Lover (1992).
Her Nonfiction books:
On Photography (1977),
Illness as Metaphor (1978),
AIDS and Its Metaphors (1989);
A collection of short stories:
I, etcetera (1978).
Some
important
precursors in
Feminist Criticism
Virginia Woolf (1882—1941)
“A Room of One’s Own”
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Virginia Woolf, one of the
important precursors in Feminist
criticism, wrote on women
authors and on the cultural,
economic and educational
disabilities within a patriarchal
society that have hindered
women from realizing their
productive and creative
possibilities.
Simone De Beauvoir (1908-1986)
Simone de Beauvior’s The Second
Sex (1949) distinguishes
between sex and gender. “One is
not born, but rather becomes, a
woman. …It is civilization as a
whole that produces this
creature…which is described as
feminine.”
 More about feminism, please
refer to:
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism

•What’s the difference
between Roman Catholicism
and Protestantism in the
Christian religion?
•What is a pagan? In What
ways is a pagan different
from either a Catholic or a
Protestant?
Roman Catholicism and
Protestantism in the Christian
Religion:
Roman Catholic Church is the largest
single Christian body, composed of those
Christians who acknowledge the supreme
authority of the bishop of Rome, the
pope, in matters of faith. The word
catholic (Greek katholikos) means
"universal" and has been used to
designate the church since its earliest
period, when it was the only Christian
church.
Roman Catholics may be simply
defined as Christians in communion
with the Pope. Roman Catholicism
holds that the Pope and the Bishops
have in varying degrees the spiritual
authority Christ assigned to his
apostles.(使徒，传道者）The voice
is regarded as infallible when
speaking on matters of faith and
morals.
Protestantism:
Protestantism began as a movement to
reform the Western Christian church in the
16th century, resulting in the Protestant
Reformation, which severed（分离） the
reformed churches from the Roman
Catholic church. The declared aim of the
original reformers was to restore the
Christian faith as it had been at its
beginning, while keeping what they thought
valuable from the Roman Catholic tradition
that had developed during the intervening
(介于中间的)centuries.
Protestantism:
The Protestant movement actually preceded
the 16th-century Reformation. Several
dissident (持不同意见的)movements in the
late medieval church anticipated the
Reformation by protesting the pervasive
corruption in the church and by criticizing
fundamental Catholic teachings.
Martin Luther
– the reformer
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.
Protestant
Europe
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Pagan
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 Roman Catholic
and a Protestant in that the latter
believe in only one god.
How was beauty defined by
ancient Greeks?
 What’s the purpose of citing
the example of Socrates in
paragraph 1?
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Paragraph
1
1.harmonious unity of a
person’s inside and outside
excellence.
2.transit from ancient Greeks
to present “we”.
Socrates (469-399 B.C.)
Socrat
es
(469399
B.C.E.)
Group work (2 paras. For each)
Tasks for each group:
 Read the paragraph;
 Tell the main idea or point of the
paragraph.
 Explain difficult language points;
 Answer questions raised by other
groups or the teacher;
 Comment on the paragraph: its
viewpoint, its language features,
its logic or whatever impresses
you.
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It occur to sb. to do sth.想到要
做某事
If it did occur to the Greeks to
distinguish between a person’s
“inside” and “outside”, 如果古希腊
Paragraph
1
人确实想到要区分一个人的内在和外在
的话，……
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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.
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Paragraph
2
What does the sentence “We do
not” mean?
How do you interpret “…we are
more wary of the enchantments
of beauty”?
What point is the author trying to
state here?
Now we do not believe
that inside beauty and
outside beauty are
harmoniously united as
ancient Greeks held.
Be wary of: be careful of,
be cautious about
 Split off the “inside” from
“the “outside”
 With the greatest facility:
very easily
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Paragraph
2
Admiration for beauty before
the introduction of
Christianity
 The notion of beauty in the
medieval ages(1100-1400)
 Influence of Christianity on
the notion of beauty
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Paragraph
3
After Christianity was introduced
and gradually developed into a
legal religion in Europe through
out the medieval ages, beauty
was considered the attribute of
God. God was the ultimate
source of all kinds of beauty.
God was above everything in the
world. When beauty was
mentioned, no essential contents
except empty form was included.
Issues on nature and realistic
society were excluded.
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Paragraph
3
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Did the limitation Christianity
placed on the meaning of the
word “beauty” give it any sexual
bias?
What does the author mean by
“And beauty has continued to
lose prestige”?
What gives sexual bias to the
meaning of “beauty”?
Deprive A of B:剥夺属于A的B
It was principally the influence of
Christianity that deprived
beauty of the central place [it
had in classical ideals of human
excellence.] (relative clause)
 Set beauty adrift as…使“美”
的概念发生了偏离，失去了原来的
意义
 It has become a convention to
attribute beauty to only one of
the two sexes: …把漂亮仅仅归属
于两性中的一个性别已经成为一种
社会常规。
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Paragraph
3
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Paragraph
4
Interpret the third sentence.
Do you think the author will agree
that “handsome” mean to men what
“beautiful” mean to women?
Why does Sontag think that
regarding women as the beautiful
sex is detrimental to both the notion
of beauty and that of women?
“Handsome” is the masculine
equivalent of – and refusal of –
a compliment which has
accumulated certain demeaning
overtones, by being reserved
for women only.
It implies that the word
“handsome” is used as a
compliment for men, but it has
no demeaning overtones as in
the case of women when we use
“beautiful” as a compliment for
women.
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Paragraph
4
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Paragraph
4
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That one can call a man beautiful
in French and in Italian suggests
that catholic countries – unlike
those countries shaped by the
protestant version of
Christianity – still retain some
vestiges of the pagan admiration
for beauty.
参考前面关于天主教、新教和异教
以及基督教对美这一概念的影响等
介绍。
II. Origin & implication of the modern myth
of beauty (para. 3-4)—Christianity
Origin—
concerning
Christianity
How can
beauty
defend/justify
its relevance
to excellence?
 How can
women
defend/justify
their
relevance to
excellence?
Separating
physical from
moral
Beauty=
Physical
Excellence
=moral virtue
consequence
Attributing
beautiful to
female only
Premise:
beauty=physical
≠ excellence
women=Second
≠important
Implication
What about those
non-Christian
countries?
II. Origin & implication of the modern myth
of beauty (para. 3-4)—non-Christian context
Language
difference: using
beautiful to
describe men
↓
Retain pagan
admiration for
beauty
Difference?!
No evidence to
substantiate
difference of
language
usage=no bias
against beauty &
women
Sontag’s opinion: attributing beauty to
women only=detriment to the term
beauty & to women
Paragraph
5
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What’s the point of this paragraph?
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Explain the following sentence:
It does not take someone [in the
throes of advanced feminist
awareness ]to perceive {that the way
[ women are taught to be involved
with beauty ] encourages narcissism,
reinforces dependence and
immaturity.}
It does not take someone to perceive
that…
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Narcissus
Narcissus spurned the
love of both youths and
girls. A nymph(居于山林
水泽的仙女, 美丽的少女),
Echo, loved him, but she
could never get his
attention. Afterwards He
was riveted (fixed) to the
water‘s edge, entranced
(使神魂颠倒，入神) by
the beautiful boy he
thought he glimpsed
within. Narcissus thought
the image in the water
was real and pined away
（消瘦，憔悴） with
desire, eventually
transforming into the
flower that bears his
name.
Identify A with B: 将A和B等同、
看成是一致
 Given these stereotypes, it is no
wonder that beauty enjoys, at
best, a rather mixed reputation.
由于这些成见的存在，美最多
只能享有一种褒贬混合的声誉，
这也就不觉得奇怪了。
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Paragraph
5
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Paragraph
6&7

Interpret the sentence “What is
accepted by most women as a
flattering idealization of their sex
is a way of making women feel
inferior to what they actually are –
or normally grow to be”?
What does the use of passive
“women are taught to see…”
imply?
Social convention plays
a role in maintaining
feminine stereotypes.
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Paragraps
6&7
Contrasting para. 6 with 7, do
you think ( Sontag’s) society
is fair in its expectations of
men and women with regard
to their looks?
No. For women
perfection is the goal; for
men a small imperfection
is considered favorable.
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Paragraphs
6&7

Paraphrase the following
sentence:
What is accepted by most
women as a flattering
idealization of their sex is a
way of making women feel
inferior to what they actually
are – or normally grow to be.
What is accepted by most
women as a pleasing way of
making their sex idealized is
actually a way of making women
feel inferior to their actual
value or their potential value.
Robert
Redford
A small imperfection or a
blemish is considered positively
desirable.小小的不完美或瑕疵被
认为是需要的。
 Save …from…: keep …from,
prevent… from
 Think of the depreciation of
women— as well of beauty—
that is implied in that judgment.
Please explain why the author
believes that there is
depreciation of both women and
beauty in that judgment.

Paragraphs
6&7

Paragraph
8
What’s the view of the author
about Cocteau’s remark “The
privileges of beauty are
immense”? Give some
linguistic evidence.

Jean
Cocteau
(18891963)
French poet, novelist, dramatist,
designer, and filmmaker. His versatility,
unconventionality, and enormous
output brought him international
acclaim. He struggled with opium
addiction for most of his adult life and
was openly gay, though he had a few
brief and complicated affairs with
women. Cocteau's films, the bulk of
which he both wrote and directed, were
particularly important in introducing
surrealism into French cinema and
influenced to a certain degree the
upcoming French New Wave genre.
In relation to: in connection
with 和…相关
 This power is not one that
can be chosen freely— at
least, not by women— or
renounced without social
censure.
It is not one power that can be
abandoned without being
severely condemned.
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Paragraph
8
What word can be used to
describe the situation in
which women are involved
(para. 9) ?
 What does the author’s
suggestion (para. 10) mean?
 What does “the mythology of
feminine” mean (para. 10)?
 Interpret the last sentence.

Paragraphs
9 & 10
Paragraphs
9 & 10
Please interpret the following
sentence and tell what does
the word “do” refer to. Is
the word “do” here
ambiguous?
 Damned if they do— women
are. And damned if they
don’t.

Paragraphs
9 & 10
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.—
That interminable …,…women is
the most important evidence of
the dangers of considering
persons as split between “inside”
and “outside”.

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Paragraphs
9 & 10

Translate the sentence:
But to get out of the trap
requires that women get some
critical distance from that
excellence and privilege which
is beauty, enough distance to
see how much beauty itself has
been abridged in order to prop
up the mythology of the
“feminine”.
为了能跳出这个陷阱，女性必须和
完美的实质以及作为特权的外表美
保持足够的距离，以便看清楚，为
了支持所谓女性美的神话，美的概
念究竟删减了多少实质内容。
There should be a way of saving
beauty from women – and for
them.
Why should we save beauty
from and for women at the same
time?
We should try to do something
so that beauty will not be an
exclusive and superficial
enchantment of women, and
women will be considered
beautiful in the true and
complete sense of the word.

Paragraphs
9 & 10

Organization
and
development
Sontag begins her essay by
defining the ancient Greeks’
attitude toward beauty, and goes
on in subsequent paragraphs to
trace the changes in the meaning
of the word. What can you infer
from this etymological(词源学的）
study of the word?
To Sontag, the change that occurred in
the meaning of the word “beauty” is not
merely an instance of semantic
narrowing, but, more significantly, an
instance of the distortion of lexical
meaning of a word inflicted upon it by
social prejudice. It seems that the
ultimate aim of the essay is to expose
and denounce such prejudice.
Degradation
Is the thesis implied or
stated explicitly? Where?
Assignment:
1. Retell and comment on the
author’s point of view, tracing
the changes in the meaning of
the word ‘beauty”.
2. Workbook p.98 II Paraphrase
the following, work out two
versions of paraphrase for each
exercise.