Portrayal of Beauty in Literature

[Name of the Instructor]

Portrayal of Beauty in Literature

Introduction to Beauty

The phenomenon of beauty has been elucidated through various aspects in different pieces of literary artwork including poetry, painting and writing etc. Various intellectuals have described beauty with different approaches, some has taken visual aspects to explain beauty, whereas, some have gone rather abstract and taken intangible emotion, traits, uniqueness and individuality as the actual beauty. In general, beauty is the intrinsic characteristic of any individual or place, which gives insightful experience of contentment and pleasure. Beauty is perceived when an individual interpret some person, place or thing in balance with the harmony in the nature. However, beauty is a subjective understanding, which is why it is said that “beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder”.

This composition will enlighten the concept of beauty as portrayed in English Literature. The continuum of English literature is quite extensive. Several era and ages have come and gone, which brought various authors, play writers, poets, dramatist etc. Every individual possesses its unique style of representation, and every individual has different understanding and approach of explaining and sensationalizing the notion of beauty. The depiction of beauty in literature is fundamentally an important aspect, and almost every genre of literature integrates this belief into practice. While considering beauty in literature, the first thing that comes to our mind is romance. Beauty and romance can never be treated as two separate passions. Drama, Folklore, Romance and Realistic fiction are considerably the vastly beauty portraying genre of English literature. There are several novels, poems and plays that can be considered while discussing the phenomenon of beauty in literature.

Beauty in English Literary Context

Beauty as an aesthetic is usually associated with woman. In majority of the literary work, women are considered to be prime aspect of beauty. However, some authors described beauty as internal traits of any individual, but most authors associated beauty with external appearance, or even sexuality.

Vladimir Nabokov was a French-British novelist, who wrote various literary works during his life span. “Lolita” is amongst the most famous novel of Nabokov. This novel is principally about a controversial sexual relation between a stepfather and his daughter. In this novel, the stepfather got sexually involve with his 12 year old daughter, Dolores Haze, to whom he privately calls Lolita. In this novel Nabokov has presented beauty as physical, which has made this name an iconic character in the world of literature. Lolita was describes as a slim, white girl with blonde hair and dark eyes, who is a sexually attractive girl of age between 9 - 14 years. Whiteness is always associated as the symbol of beauty. Even in this contemporary era, beauty is associated with whiteness. It is merely because of the presentation of this whiteness as beautiful in the early media of print and literature. Like the most common type of beauty portrayal, Nabokov also uses physical aspects to sketch beauty. According to Nabokov, bring slim and tall is also a fundamental characteristic of beauty ...