Literature overview and analysis

¶ … Paul Valery [...] Paul Valery quote "Beauty is a way of death. The novelty, the intensity, the strangeness, in a word, all the values of shock supplant it." Beauty is as intense, as strange, as novel as anything we know and appreciate. This paper will answer the question: Why is beauty so difficult to define?

BEAUTY AND NOVELTY

Paul Valery wrote, "Beauty is a way of death." This of course can be defined in many ways. Some beautiful people believe they can trust no one, because they are not appreciated for who they are, but only for their beauty, so no one really knows what is inside them. This is a form of slow death for them - never knowing, never trusting. There are other forms of beauty however, that can be strange, or novel, or intense, and this is what Valery seems to be discussing in his quote. The beauty of a magnificent sunset could be an example of the beauty he is thinking of. A beautiful sunset is novel, for it can never look the same way twice. The colors, the experience, and the moment - they are all intense, and the beauty is fleeting, which makes it strange, and even more powerful and shocking at the same time. Experiencing beauty that we cannot recreate is an emotional and moving experience, and encompasses all the things Valery believes about beauty.

Beauty is also in the eye of the beholder. Some may not appreciate the beauty of a glorious sunset, but they might appreciate the beauty of a fine piece of art or sculpture, of the beauty of a young child at play. Beauty is novel because no two people see it the same way, and no two people define it the same. Therefore, each person's experience of beauty is unique and novel, making it an intense and even strange experience for each individual. Attempting to share the experience with another rarely makes the experience real for them, so beauty is an experience that is totally unique to the individual, making it there very own novelty, special to them, and them alone. This in turn makes beauty very strange, because no two people experience it in the same way, so it is nearly impossible to communicate or share the experience.

Sometimes beauty is so perfect it is shocking to think something so perfect could exist in the universe. The perfection of a beautiful woman, of bright white snow covering the needles of a deep green pine in the forest, the vivid and shocking colors of a sunrise over a mountain lake, all of these are beautiful and perfect in the moment. Beauty is shocking in its intensity, and in the reaction to it. That is a little like death, too. The moment is so perfect there is a little bit of death in it, knowing it will never occur again, and it cannot be held, except in the mind. This is a little like a moment of death and perfection mixed into one.

Beauty is tangible, too. Physical beauty often does not last, and so someone who relies on their beauty for their worth in life may become bitter and angry when they are no longer beautiful. The reaction to their change may be shock or indifference, something they are not used to and cannot cope with. This is also another form of slow torture or death to them, for they are so transformed they know longer know who they are, or identify with what they have become.