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Posted By: of troy beauty and other abstract qualities - 04/21/02 08:05 PM
Lovng beauty as i do, i don't want Dr Bill's idea for an exploration of beauty to be lost in the philopolemica thread..

that thread, began to discuss old scratch, and Dr Bill pointed out,
...In Goethe's "Faust", the Devil promises Faust that he will live, with some special powers, until he sees something so beautiful that he says the fatal words: 'Don't go, you are so beautiful!' I haven't seen the text for almost sixty years, but I remember how surprised I was that the thing of such beauty, Faust forget the penalty , was the idea of building the Panama Canal!
What do you think would be beautiful enough to make a modern Faust forget the penalty?


various thread have touched on beauty, just this week the image of snow on dogwood flowers, or last springs hot rising daffodils.. Keats has been feature in several threads. and blake..

Time -- an abstract quality entranced us. are we also smitten by beauty? Do you find beauty in your life everyday? ever? where and what?

Posted By: wwh Re: beauty and other abstract qualities - 04/21/02 08:14 PM
Beauty is in many things around us much of the time. The problem is that we get so involved in minor annoyances that we don't see the flowers or notice the fragrance.

from Endymion, Book 1

by John Keats

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o’er-darken’d ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
’Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven’s brink.

Nor do we merely feel these essences
For one short hour; no, even as the trees
That whisper round a temple become soon
Dear as the temple’s self, so does the moon,
The passion poesy, glories infinite,
Haunt us till they become a cheering light
Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast,
That, whether there be shine, or gloom o’ercast,
They alway must be with us, or we die.



The Only WO'N!
Posted By: talltales Re: beauty and other abstract qualities - 04/21/02 08:32 PM
To quote from this website: http://www.uh.edu/engines/faust.htm


"...Faust didn't strike a bargain with the Devil. Instead, he made a bet. Faust bet that he could never be lured into settling down on any Earthly pleasure -- that his spirit would remain restless. The Devil agreed to the bet, and that's when Faust uttered those remarkable lines. He said,

When I say to the Moment flying:
'Linger a while -- thou art so fair!'
Then bind me in your bonds undying,
And my final ruin I will bear!

He tells Satan that he'll never settle down on any one good thing. He, Faust, will never be satisfied. The devil says, "Oh, yes, you will."

Faust's claim was a primary Romantic sentiment: Driving restlessness is the mainspring of the creative person. Faust snaps back at Satan, "When did the likes of you ever understand a human soul in its supreme endeavor?""

I find it fascinating that Faust accepts the pact only under one condition: if ever he says to a moment: "stay, thou art so sweet," the devil will have triumphed. Yet at the very end of Faust II, when Faust dies, he has still not uttered these words.

------------

As a writer, I would agree with the idea that life without an outlet for creativity is a living hell in itself.

As for what would be so beautiful as to make me utter those words, I will admit I've had many such moments in my life. Absent a bet with the Devil, I've had that freedom. I've lived at the top of a 10,500 foot mountain, I've worked in a hospital, I've been a law enforcement officer. There have been so many profound and meaningful moments, and so many beautiful scenes in my experience, I couldn't name just one.

In fairness, I must answer your question. What would make me utter those words in Faust's situation? I think it would be the last time I spent a day with my entire family, at a barbecue in my mother's back yard, sharing news, enjoying each other's company, laughing endlessly. That was before the death of my brother-in-law, before my nephew's accident, before several other unforseen events tore my family apart. I might give anything to have that moment back again.





Posted By: musick ...other abstract qualities - 04/21/02 08:38 PM
http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=words&Number=37343

...then there is the *old saying "Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder".

I've had as many discussions about this definition as there were definitions of this discussion. I can't wait for this one to unfold!

Posted By: wwh Re: beauty and other abstract qualities - 04/21/02 08:41 PM
Since the triumph of good over evil is beautiful, I would let the Devil claim me if I could solve the Israel-Palestine problem in a lasting way.

Posted By: talltales Re: beauty and other abstract qualities - 04/21/02 08:50 PM
I'm not sure I would be so noble. I tend to believe that nations, like individuals, have a responsibility to solve their own conflicts. This can be construed as a laissez faire attitude, but I assure you I am just as horrified and disgusted by the situation in the Middle East as is the next person. I am not sure, however, that wanting to "fix" the broken-ness of human relations in the Middle East is worth the loss of one's soul. We are speaking in the hypothetical, I realize, but still... it strikes me as a rather esoteric and self-abnegating choice. Perhaps I place too much value on my own soul as set against the misery of thousands, I don't know.

Great food for thought, Dr. Bill.

Posted By: musick Re: beauty and other abstract qualities - 04/21/02 09:15 PM
Yet at the very end of Faust II, when Faust dies, he has still not uttered these words.

Having not read the werk in question, I wonder... hasn't Faust in (as RUSH so aptly sung it) choosing not to decide still making a choice? The Devil's sweetness is the loss of Faust's specific definition, as Faust's sweetness is also an intellectual one? Truth=Beauty both subjectively and objectively.

I'm sure this has all been *hashed before, but I'm not sure I want to know where. Tell me if you must, but don't expect me to research!

Posted By: Jazzoctopus Re: beauty and other abstract qualities - 04/21/02 09:25 PM
Just a little side tangent really quick, what exactly is the difference between the Faust by Goethe and the Faust by Christopher Marlowe? That's always confused me.

Posted By: talltales Re: beauty and other abstract qualities - 04/21/02 09:31 PM
I'm not sure Faust chooses not to decide. Rather, he places a condition on the Devil's triumph. ONLY if he (Faust) utters certain words - "Stay a while, you are so sweet" is one variation - will the Devil win, and claim Faust's soul. So it's not so much an either/or, as much as a unique twist on the theme. ("The Devil and Daniel Webster" explores that theme from another aspect, that of a lawyer matching wits with Satan. At stake - the soul of Mr. Webster's client).

At any rate, the theme of beauty runs through Goethe's play in the form of temptation. Will Faust find anything so compellingly beautiful as to make him lose his bet? Dr. Bill says the idea of the building of the Panama Canal, of all things, proves to be Faust's undoing. There's that reference again to the question Faust poses to the Devil: "When did the likes of you ever understand a human soul in its supreme endeavor?" After presenting to Faust all manner of temptation in an effort to make him wish the moment would stay, can the Devil understand this passion to control and manipulate the very geography of the Earth?

As Dr. Bill asked in his original post on another thread, what would you find beautiful enough to make you lose your bet with the Devil?

Posted By: talltales Re: beauty and other abstract qualities - 04/21/02 09:36 PM
As given in the link I included above:

"Storytellers took up the legend of Faust and recast him in the language of the Protestant Reformation (which was, just then, running at full force). The Faust we know -- the Faust who sold his soul for knowledge -- took his present form in 1607, in Christopher Marlowe's Tragicall History of Dr. Faustus."

Later:

"The Faust that you and I recognize came later: the Faust of the German poet Goethe, the Faust in the opera. Goethe wrote about Faust two hundred years after Marlowe and Bacon."

Posted By: Alex Williams beauty and other abstract qualities - 04/21/02 11:30 PM
Some things which I have found beautiful:
(1) the dogwoods in blossom currently on my street and all over town
(2) the thunderstorm that is going on outside (I really should turn off the computer)
(3) [e^(i*pi)]+1=0 see http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A346295
(4) calculus in general
(5) Stan Getz Corcovado (Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars)
(6) The Beatles In My Life





Posted By: Keiva Re: beauty and other abstract qualities - 04/22/02 12:34 AM
Do you find beauty in your life everyday? ever? where and what?

Angel's new granddaughter.



Posted By: Angel Re: beauty and other abstract qualities - 04/22/02 12:53 AM
Do you find beauty in your life everyday? ever? where and what?

Angel's new granddaughter.


Bless you Keiva. And thank you.

Posted By: belMarduk Re: beauty and other abstract qualities - 04/22/02 01:01 AM
Yes Helen, I find beauty in everyday life. It is amazing what is all around you. Some days I wake up and the birds are chirping away outside and I find that beautiful – and I smile.

Pancakes from my son on my birthday are beautiful. My Mother’s smile is beautiful. The love in my Father’s eyes every time he looks at my Mother is beautiful. My husband, waiting for me to get safely into my car before heading to his, is beautiful.

Winter storms, with snowflake jewels falling from the sky are beautiful. Summer days where the sun is so bright everything looks polished, are beautiful. And in the spring and the fall the ducks migrating are beautiful and I am awestruck.

I’ll tell you what, in my worst hour, when I thought life too heavy a burden to bear, it was ducks in a scraggly v-formation heading south, that reminded me that there is an endless rhythm to our souls and our selves and that life goes on. I was awestruck by the beauty of it and smiled for the first time in months. I always stop to watch the ducks go by.

Every day something beautiful shows itself to me and I smile.


Posted By: wwh Re: beauty and other abstract qualities - 04/22/02 02:19 AM
Dear Alex: If you think e to the minus Pi i = minus one is beautiful, old B.O.Pierce would have loved you.

Posted By: Jackie Re: beauty and other abstract qualities - 04/22/02 02:30 AM
Ok, Alex, I was with you all the way to #3. (We were in the same storm front, my dear, and I DID turn off my computer, having had it taken out by lightning twice. A word of warning, if I may: if you have a dial-up connection, you should unplug the telephone wire, and if you have a cable connection, you should unplug the cable wire from your modem. That's how lightning got my computer--I learned the hard way that it isn't enough just to turn them off and trust in the surge protector.) Anyway--I looked at #4, and opened the link in #3, and thought, "Alex, you're weird!"

Every day something beautiful shows itself to me and I smile.
Oh yes, oh yes! Every time I think of you, bel, I smile. And, and, oh! How I wish each of you had a place where I feel like I do at church. Such a sense of belonging. And, and--isn't it beautiful, that we are all lucky enough to be able to own computers? That is, that makes it pretty much a given that we have enough to eat and a roof over our heads. And isn't it beautiful, the things we can do? Compared to someone like my mother-in-law who just had a hip replacement, and for whom getting out of bed is a major ordeal. And I just read in one of the Chicken Soup books about a 77-year-old lady who was a double amputee. She MADE the doctors fit her with artificial legs, learned to use them, and was utterly thrilled when she was able to do something as simple as accompany someone out to dinner, when everyone in her family and all the medical people had expected her to lie in bed till she died. Oh yes, for all our troubles, we lead very good lives indeed.







Posted By: inselpeter Re: beauty and other abstract qualities - 04/22/02 02:37 AM
<<Since the triumph of good over evil is beautiful, I would let the Devil claim me if I could solve the Israel-Palestine problem in a lasting way.>>

Your good sentiments duly acknowledged.. You are a sly one, Dr. Bill, for with the triumph of good over evil, there will be no Devil left to whom you might give yourself. I won't say you're a man who likes to have his cake and eat it, too, but only that you seem one. ;)

Posted By: wwh Re: beauty and other abstract qualities - 04/22/02 02:51 AM
Dear IP: I have no fear of Hell, so many of my friends are going to be there.

Posted By: inselpeter Re: beauty and other abstract qualities - 04/22/02 02:56 AM
<<When I say to the moment flying,
linger a while, thou art so fair!'
Then bind me in your bonds undying,
And my final ruin I will bear.>>

This is such an extraordinary statement, I can't get to the bottom of it. It reminds me of a thread we had months back about time and the paradox of it's minutest division: into moments. In the apprehension of beauty we may experience the peculiar encounter with Beauty, the abstract, the eternal. But the thing in which we encounter it: a flower, a person, is evanescent -- gone, like spring, like youth: before arriving. And here, this stark old realist, the scientist, Faust, never strives to make time stop, to tarry in the embrace of some event of beauty: He never has time, never holds it near to him, only measures with it, lives in it and beyond it at once. But let him say once, "Linger a while," and he is caught in the Devil's bonds undying. The Devil's bonds, what are they then but the abstraction he would seek in that phrase: Beauty. It seems to me, Faust is already bound in Hell. And Hell is modernity.

On a different note: Kant seems to ground ethics in the apprehension of Beauty.

And lastly: daffodils glowing in the light of a sun, low on the horizon, passing through them. Dusk, and the flight of swallows. Strangers passing in joy, or despair, or the absent everyday. Almost anything is beautiful, and to see it: very nearly unbearable.

Posted By: Wordwind Re: beauty and other abstract qualities - 04/22/02 08:12 AM
Whatever beauty is, it is always there for the taking. She will give you the shirt off her back if you'll let her.


Curious this topic is being discussed now--could it be spring that fully wakes us up?

Anyway, here's a list of things that stimulate my sense of beauty--and the list could be one that would keep me here at this keyboard all day, but I'll just jot down a few that have been constant sources of that sense of beauty being aroused:

Jacqueline DuPré's recordings of the Elgar cello concerto...and nearly anything else she's recorded;
Milstein's recordings--anything he plays--sublime beauty;
Beethoven's late string quartets especially;
Brahms' symphonies;
Mozart's Linz symphony and his Requiem;
The 2nd Rachmaninov piano concerto;
The Bruch g minor violin concerto;
The Mendelssohn violin concerto;
The Prokofiev violin concertos;
The Beethoven violin concerto--so beautiful it was, one time when I heard it at a live performance, I had to stuff my tears into a handkerchief because I felt I would weep aloud with great sobs;
The 7th of Beethoven's symphonies holds a special place in my heart for sheer beauty;
Beethoven's Emperor piano concerto--again, hard to hold back tears in live performance...

...many, many more great works of music

Practicing piano in Rocky Run church alone and hearing the pure sound move through that accoustically near-perfect old country church--watching the light come through the stained glass windows--feeling the blessed silence and peace in the place there...

Nature itself in all its seasons, though spring does hold special power--but even in winter, even beyond first fall of snow, just examining the great variety of winter bud shapes on branches brings about both a sense of beauty and wonder at the variety...

Early leaves--watching the first shapes of baby leaves--ah!--the white oaks in early stages are tiny red leaves covered in fine white hair, and soon after turn lime-colored. I used to freeze samples of early spring leaves--freezer was filled with leaf samples--and no food in it--just leaves. My daughter thought this was normal as a child and wondered that other people didn't have leaves in their freezers.

Dayliles--all types--the extraordinary ways they propogate themselves--hi, Helen!

Creeks, ponds, rivers, the ocean, waterfalls--the water on our planet, still, moving, thundererously falling, rain, storms, and, yes, snow...

The sun on my face, the wind through my hair, the grass beanth my bare feet, the farm, the grove...

A dear friend taking me somewhere new to see in the great outdoors--having that friend show me a place of beauty known to him or her unknown to me till then--that act of kindness itself is a moment of beauty as well as the place..

The works of Dickinson and Frost...

Finishing a poem, sending it to a dear friend, and receiving words of having moved the friend--that is eau de vie to me...

Speaking of, sharing a glass of brandy with an old man--that is beauty, too...

The faces of children in wonder and joy...especially dear to me those times of live performance before their parents--what joy!

Hearing Grandma Etta still laugh in these her final days...

Lots more specifics I could mention, but the whole of beauty is that which awakens a sense of wonder and joy in my too often too busy soul and causes me to stop and be happy to be alive--and so grateful that I still breathe.

Beatific regards,
WW

PS: Must add: Preparing either whole duck cooked in a kettle of peanut oil or sauerbraten marinated for five days with gingersnap gravy and red cabbage for beloved ones...acts of beauty that stimulate anticipation...

Posted By: dxb Oh, to be in England....... - 04/22/02 01:33 PM
Spring in England.

My morning commute from Sussex to London starts in the countryside and now the sun is up before me. Blossom, daffodils, leaves of so fresh a green just appearing. Blackthorn hedgerows, noisy birds, thatched half-timbered cottages, spires of village churches against a blue sky (We're lucky with the weather just now), a late fox scurrying out of sight while a bright pheasant struts across the road.
After some 35 miles of motorway I enter Richmond Park - opening earlier as the day does now. Giant old trees, jackdaws open to the main chance, herds of Red and Fallow deer. Out of the Park and still more blossom in the gardens of wealthy households until crossing the fine old bridge at Hammersmith, with crews of eight and single scullers passing beneath, I finally drive into London fumes and yelling traffic.

Pretentious nonsense, but I love it all. Can't wait to go home again this evening! London and Edinburgh are good, but come and drive through our springtime countryside!

dxb

Posted By: johnjohn Re: beauty and other abstract qualities - 04/22/02 02:01 PM
hmmmm, seems everyone's commenting on the ubiquity of beauty - but on the other hand...
"Why should you think that beauty, which is the most precious thing in the world, lies like a stone on the beach for the careless passer-by to pick up idly? Beauty is something wonderful and strange that the artist fashions out of the chaos of the world in the torment of his soul. And whern he has made it, it is not given to all to know it. To recognise it you must repeat the adventure of the artist. It is a melody that he sings to you, and to hear it again in your heart, you want knowledge and sensitiveness and imagination."

But of course he (Somerset Maugham) is talking about man-made (/woman-made) art, not the beauty of nature

After last night's storm, here in Central Kentucky the weather is a bit like the British isles. The sky is clear blue blue blue, with puffs of clouds scooting across the sky in squadrons, the grass is brilliant green, the air is cool (about 59 degrees) and it's quite blustery. A good day for Pooh and Piglet to be out, although Piglet should be careful he doesn't fly away like a kite.

Posted By: Krzysztof Re: beauty and other abstract qualities - 04/22/02 05:39 PM
I think, beauty is everywhere. Each of us see it elsewhere.More than one is remain at your beauty but others look for sometingh else. I come to a conclusion that world is beauty.

Posted By: Keiva Re: beauty and other abstract qualities - 04/22/02 06:23 PM
beauty is everywhere ... word is beauty

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
-- John 1:1-2 (New King James Version)



"Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Hallow the body as a temple to comeliness and sanctify the heart as a sacrifice to love; love recompenses the adorers."
-Kahlil Gibran, "Beauty"

"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart."
-Hellen Keller

"Remember how in that communion only, beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities (for he has hold not of an image but of a reality), and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may."
-Plato, Symposium

"The definition of a beautiful woman is one who loves me."
-Sloan Wilson






The Only WO'N!
Kahlil Gibran on Beauty:

http://www.weddings.co.uk/info/beauty.htm

The Only WO'N!
Posted By: talltales Re: beauty and other abstract qualities - 04/22/02 10:50 PM
Wordwind: An extremely talented music student attending college in Vancouver, Canada told me once that when she hears live classical music being played with complete perfection, it gives her "music shivers". She can tell she has experienced a celestial moment in music when she gets her shivers. She says other people have, upon hearing her speak of it, acknowledged it in themselves, unrecognized until they heard it described.

I have music shivers when I hear live an operatic piece sung perfectly, particularly the most well-known ones for tenors, such as Nessun Dorma, Celeste Aida, and the Tenor's Song from Der Rosenkavalier.

Posted By: Wordwind Re: beauty and other abstract qualities - 04/22/02 11:03 PM
talltales: I haven't ever had what I would call "shivers" when experiencing those celestial moments you write of here--but I've had those in which my face flushes, heart beat increases...and, if a divine performance, I have to hold back sobbing. I sure canno prevent the tears from streaming down my face, but I do all I can to hold back the sobbing. My dad has told me that when I was a babe in arms I'd do the same thing, but without holding back: I'd simply weep when I heard music that moved me, and often it was my dad's rich baritone voice.

Posted By: plutarch a 2-headed coin - 04/22/02 11:06 PM
Faust is already bound in Hell. And Hell is modernity.
Interesting analysis, inselpeter. If Faust is already bound in hell, he has nothing to fear from the devil.

Can it be that Faust does not want to dwell on a thing of beauty because beauty is wasting? As Nietsche said: "No thorn goes as deep as the rose's, and love is more cruel than lust."

Is Faust tricking the devil, insalpeter, just as Br'er Rabbit tricked Br'er Fox? If hell is perpetual torment custom-designed for each inmate, then what better torment for a man who values beauty so little he will forfeit beauty to escape hell, than to condemn that man to an eternity contemplating beauty without end?

If Faust loses his wager, insalpeter, he will find in hell what he could not find in life: heaven itself.




Posted By: inselpeter Re: a 2-headed coin - 04/23/02 01:00 AM
<<If Faust is already bound in hell...>>

Oh, I like what you have to say about it much better. Thanks!

IP

Posted By: WhitmanO'Neill Re: a 2-headed coin - 04/23/02 02:12 AM
And in that Heaven of all their wish,
There shall be no more land, say fish.


from the poem Heaven, by Rupert Brooke (1887-1915)


The Only WO'N!
Posted By: consuelo One fair morn - 04/23/02 10:09 AM
I have a collection of beauteous experiences. This is one of my favorites. It was a hotter than Hades July and I sought relief in camping in the Upper Penninsula along the north coast of Lake Michigan. My best memory of that trip is of waking up at dawn on the sands of North Lake Michigan, the haze obscuring everything from view. I walked out into the nearly frigid, crystaline waters to perform my morning ablutions. There were small, white, downy feathers floating there. It was as if the angels had just left and I knew heaven, if only for one instant.


Posted By: musick Re: beauty and other abstract qualities - 04/23/02 01:49 PM
I remember a time, about 3 years ago, a close friend needed a car to leave town. So I gave it to her. No really, the whole thing, I did not lend it to her. Two Days later it snowed like crazy and the car was buried under a foot and a half of snow, and the city plows gave it an extra layer of wet dirty snow (just for fun, I guess). It was the end of the second day after the snow and she called me at work to tell me she needed to use the car that evening. I walked the long way home that evening, stopping for a cup of joe to help me with the extra burst of life I needed for shoveling snow, and as I approached the space which my car was parked, I could see it was gone and a row of huge trailers was parked in its spot. "Early Edition" (TV Show) was filming in my 'hood, and the city tow trucks had moved my car.

They cleaned it off and towed it around the corner leaving it in front of my house.

(5) Stan Getz Corcovado (Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars)

Alex - I had a chance to hear Stan play in 1990, he still had *it. 'Corcovado' is one of my favorites, as well.

ps. *Enigma wants 'Getz' to be 'geyser'

pps. We all should define beauty differently!

Posted By: wow Re: beauty, Faust and abstractions - 04/23/02 02:48 PM
Two friend, Sam and Joe, were having lunch and the conversation came 'round to what books they'd recently read.
Sam says "I just re-read a book about a guy who sells his soul to the devil. Haven't read it since High School."
Joe asks "What's it called?"
Sam ruminates, telling Joe much of the plot however he cannot remember the title. Finally Sam throws his hands in the air ..."I'd sell my soul to the devil right now if he could tell me the name of that book."
At that point a man taps him on the shoulder and says "Faust."
Sam pales. The man explains quickly:"I am a lip reader."


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