Beauty

1. Beauty By: Alexandra Willett Brittany Gaziano MariamAbusbeih

2. Poem “Was never form and never faceSo sweet to SEYD as only graceWhich did not slumber like a stoneBut hovered gleaming and was gone.Beauty chased he everywhere,In flame, in storm, in clouds of air.He smote the lake to feed his eyeWith the beryl beam of the broken wave;He flung in pebbles well to hearThe moment's music which they gave.Oft pealed for him a lofty toneFrom nodding pole and belting zone.He heard a voice none else could hearFrom centred and from errant sphere.The quaking earth did quake in rhyme,Seas ebbed and flowed in epic chime.In dens of passion, and pits of wo,He saw strong Eros struggling through,To sun the dark and solve the curse,And beam to the bounds of the universe.While thus to love he gave his daysIn loyal worship, scorning praise,How spread their lures for him, in vain,Thieving Ambition and paltering Gain!He thought it happier to be dead,To die for Beauty, than live for bread.” Emerson talks about how he loves beauty and he finds it in the little things. For example when he throws a pebble in the water, he sees the sound of the pebble hitting the water as beautiful. Eros is the god of love and he is struggling to “solve the curse”. This curse is how people rank appearance higher than how a person is on the inside. They would rather not have love at all than love some one who isn’t beautiful. In Emerson’s last sentence in his poem, he states that he would be happier to be dead than live without beauty. But, a person should want to live, even without beauty. Beauty should not be the factor that determines the worth of life.

3. Plants • “Our botany is all names, not powers: poets and romancers talk of herbs of grace and healing: but what does the botanist know of virtues of his weeds?” • People have a tendency to focus on what they think is beautiful, and ignore what they do not think has beauty. But, if you look beneath the surface, there is beauty within everything.

4. Science • “All our science lacks a human side.” • Science is all facts that are accepted by everyone and can’t be argued with. However, beauty is an opinion, and every person has a different perspective on what they see as beautiful. • “He has got all snakes and lizards in his phials, but science has done for him also, and has put the man into a bottle.” • Science restricts a person’s creativity, but an opinion allows freedom to believe and express what a certain person thinks. This relates to Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” because conforming to society, or science, causes a person to lose their individual thoughts.

5. Beauty • “All privilege is that of beauty; for there are many beauties; as, of general nature, of the human face and form, of manners, of brain, or method, or moral beauty, beauty of the soul.” • Beauty is not just physical appearances, but it is also how a person acts and thinks along with their appearances.

6. Nature Being Changed • “…-namely, that all beauty must be organic; that outside embellishment is deformity” • The things that are natural are what is beautiful. When something is changed by humans, it causes a loss in beauty because its natural state is changed. For example, if a person cuts off the flower part of a rose, the plant itself lost its beauty.

7. Movement • “How beautiful are ships on the sea!” • When a ship is static, there is nothing special about it. But, when it is moving in water, it creates a more beautiful picture.

8. The French • “Rien de beau que le vrai.” • Translation- nothing is more beautiful than the real • The things that are natural and true are beautiful. How things are found in nature is the state in which they are the most beautiful.

9. Distance • “As the flute is heard farther than the cart, see how surely a beautiful form strikes the fancy of men, and is copied and reproduced without end.” • When things are farther away, they are more beautiful because all of its flaws are unable to be seen. But, when it is seen close up, all of the flaws are able to be seen. This is like when a tree is seen far away it is beautiful , but up close it may be covered with moss.

10. Facial Expressions • “Faces are rarely true to any ideal type, but are a record in sculpture of a thousand anecdotes of whim and folly.” • Appearances aren’t important to a person’s character, but they show either the pain or happiness in a person’s life. For example, laugh lines or wrinkles.

11. Qualities • “We love any forms, however ugly, from which great qualities shine.” • People can love anyone if they have good qualities. Your personality shines over appearances.

12. Beauty and Personality • “Things are pretty, graceful, rich, elegant, handsome, but, until they speak to the imagination, not yet beautiful.” • Beauty is a combination of appearances and personality. Things can’t be considered as beautiful until they show that there is more too them than looks.

13. Surroundings • “Into every beautiful object, there enters somewhat immeasurable and divine, and just as much into form bounded by outlines, like mountains on the horizon, as into tones of music, or depths of space.” • Beauty is the combination of the object and what is surrounding it to create a bigger picture, like the mountains on the horizon.

14. Beauty and the Beast • Emerson’s essay “Beauty” is summarized by Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. This is because Belle learned to love the beast for his personality and not his appearances. She saw something as beautiful that no one else did because she looked deeper than the surface.