-
U13 Beauty
For the
Greeks, beauty was a virtue: a kind of excellence.
Persons then were assumed to be what
we
now
have
to
call---lamely,
enviously---
whole
person.
If
it
did
occur
to
the
Greeks
to
distinguish between a
person’s
“
inside” and
“outside”, the
y still expected that
inner beauty would
be
matched
by
beauty
of
the
other
kind.
The
well-
born
young
Athenians
who
gathered
around
Socrates found it
quite paradoxical that their hero was so
intelligent, so brave, so honorable, so
seductive ---- and so ugly. 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.
美之于古希腊人是一种德性?一种美德。今天看来?他们就是我们如今所谓的“全面的人”
< br>虽然这个称呼有点不理直气壮
,
并且带有嫉妒之意。倘若
让古希腊人区分一个人的“内在”
和
“外在”
< br>?他们仍期望内在美是需要与其他种类之美相匹配的。
那些聚集在苏格拉底身边<
/p>
的雅典青年人发现自己的偶像是如此得聪慧、
勇敢、
正直、
充满诱惑力而同时又那么得丑
这
是多么自相矛盾啊。
而苏格拉底主要的教学手段之
一即为
“丑”
告诉这些天真却拥有毋庸置
疑般美貌的门生?真正的人生是充满悖论的。
They may have resisted
Socrates’ lesson. We do not. Several thousand
years later, we are more
wary of
the enchantments of beauty. 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.
他们或许能够抗拒苏格拉底的学说
。而我们做不到。几千年以后
.
美的魅惑使我们更加疲惫。
我们不仅仅用最容易的方式将“内在”
(
性
格
,
心智
)
和
“外在”
(
外貌
)
割离开来
.
同时我们也对
那些既有
美貌亦有智慧天赋之人
,
感到诧异。
It was principally the influence of
Christianity that deprived beauty of the central
place it had in
classical ideals of
human excellence. By limiting excellence (virtus
in Latin) to moral virtue only,
Christianity set beauty adrift
---- as an alienated, arbitrary,
superficial enchantment. And beauty
has
continued to lose prestige. For close to two
centuries it has become a convention to attribute
beauty to only one of the two sexes:
the sex which, however Fair, is always Second.
Associating
beauty with women has put
beauty even further on the defensive, morally.
美在古典时期是理想的人类美德
,<
/p>
而将其从这中心位置赶走的首要原因来自基督教的影响。
通过美德
(
拉丁语为
virtus)
的概念限定到仅仅指伦理道德的范畴
,
基督教放逐
了
“美”
——
它
成为一种异化的
,
武断的
,
肤浅的诱惑。同时美不断丢失了它原本的名声。到二世纪末的时候
,
美成为一种既定概念
,
< br>仅用于修饰两性之的一个性别
:
这个性别虽然是悦目的<
/p>
,
但却处于第二
位。将美与女性联系起来
,
使得美的概念在道德层面上更加脆弱。
A
beautiful
woman,
we
say
in
English.
But
a
handsome
man
.
“Handsome”
is
the
masculine
equivalent
of
----
and
refusal
of
----
a
compliment
which
has
accumulated
certain
demeaning
overtones, by being reserved for women
only. 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. But the difference, if
one
exists,is of degree only. In every modern country
that is Christian or post-Christian, women
are the beautiful sex ---- to the
detriment of the notion of beauty as well as of
women.
在英语里
,
我们说一位女子是美丽的。但是我们却说一位男子是英俊的。
“英俊”是
其阳性的
等同词
,
同时拒绝一种带有某
些贬义暗示的赞扬
,
而这种赞扬是仅用于女性的。在法语和意大
利语里
,
人们可以称男子是“美丽的”
,
这暗示着这些天主教国家依旧保留了前基督教时期欣
赏“美”的痕迹
,
而这些痕迹在新教国家中已经
荡然无存。但即使存在
,
差别也只是程度不同
< br>而已。在任何一个基督教或者后基督教国家里
,
女性就是
那个美丽的性别——既损害了美这
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
上一篇：九年级(文言特殊句式——倒装句3星)上课讲义
下一篇：带有修辞手法的散文