I really enjoyed “On Beauty and Being Just” by Elaine Scarry, as the book swept you up and carried you along a winding but rational journey through the ages to think about that which most people have rarely thought about; what is beauty, why is it that way, and what can it teach us? As was mentioned in class, Scarry definitely jumps around a lot and crams a lot of information, thought-lines and questions into each section, expertly juggling them until she can finally put the piece into place. I really did get some interesting “conversation”, if you will, from reading this book, and I found myself rethinking in the ways that Scarry invites us to. I did not come to anything too life-changing, but I had thoughts that I had never had before and enjoyed thinking about them, which is really all you can ask for in a read such as this.
As for the purposes of our Capstone class, I also think that “On Beauty and Being Just” was a fantastic overall example of how to effectively use the work of others, with an extra component of doing so in an aesthetically-pleasing manner. Scarry blended the work of ancient scholars with more recent academics and even her current friends, to paint a rather complete picture of the different feelings and ideas regarding the world of beauty. One specific instance I would like to point to is when she used Kant’s separation of beauty into two components – the feminine “beauty” and the masculine “sublime”- in which Scarry then counters the point by saying this frames beauty into a constantly “oppositional pair”, setting one as better than another instead of appreciating the overall picture. Another example, and more related to the aesthetically-pleasing manner I mentioned earlier, is her use of original sketches to depict famous artworks instead of the pieces themselves, which really makes the points her own and does so in an artistic way, imitating but also forwarding past work.
As a last word, I really appreciated some of the material used, especially lines from the Odyssey, ancient philosophers such as Plato and Socrates, and Athenian history, as these are right up my alley and hold a special place in my academic and creative heart.
