Lesson Seven

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Lesson Seven

• The Libido for the Ugly
• --- H.L. Mencken

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Objectives of Teaching

1. To comprehend the whole text
2. To lean and master the vocabulary and expressions
3. To learn to paraphrase the difficult sentences
4. To understand the structure of the text
5. To appreciate the style and rhetoric of the
   passage.

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Aims

1. To know the author, Henry L. Mencken
2. To learn the writing technique of description
3. To appreciate the language features

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Teaching Contents

• 1. Henry Louis Mencken
• 2. Description
• 2. Detailed study of the text
• 3. Organizational pattern
• 4. Language features
• 5. Exercises

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Time allocation

• 1. Background information (15 min.)
• 2. Detailed study of the text (120 min.)
• 3. Structure analysis (15 min.)
• 4. Language appreciation (15 min.)
• 5. Exercises (15 min)

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Henry Louis Mencken

• (1880--1956)
• American educator, author, critic

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Henry Louis Mencken

• His life
• He was born and spent most of his life in the
  city of Baltimore, Maryland. He was the son of
  German immigrant parents. He completed high
  school but did not attend university, only
  graduated from Baltimore Polytechnic Institute at
  16. He became a reporter on the Baltimore Morning
  Herald.

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Henry Louis Mencken

• A few years later, he joined the staff of its
  rival newspaper, the Baltimore Sun or Evening
  Sun, first as a reporter, then as its drama
  critic and editor, a position which he held until
  1941.

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Henry Louis Mencken

• He helped to found and edit two literary
  magazines which were highly influential among
  intellectuals.
• The Smart Set
• http//www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0895262312/refsib
  _dp_pt/104-2478532-5338368reader-page
• 2) The American Mercury

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Henry Louis Mencken

• He was a central figure in American intellectual
  life during the 1920's. He launched the most
  cutting attacks of any writer against America's
  middle class culture. He invented the
  word"booboisie", combining the two words
  "bourgeoisie" and "booby" (an awkward, foolish
  person).

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Henry Louis Mencken

• In caustic, witty essays, he derided (mock) the
  institution which supported the middle class. He
  enjoyed controversy and tried to arouse his
  antagonists with his direct and devastating
  attacks.

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Henry Louis Mencken

• 1) He hated narrow-minded religion. He believed
  strongly in intellectual freedom and fought all
  attempts to censor literature and drama. He felt
  that the greatest threat of censorship came from
  the country's religion "fundamentalists", whose
  opinions were all based on their interpretation
  of the Bible.

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Henry Louis Mencken

• 2) He hated commercialism.
• 3) He did not support democracy because he
  considered the masses too ignorant and greedy to
  exercise it wisely.

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His works

• Mencken's essays were received with delight or
  horror, depending on the reader's point of view,
  he was also highly respected for his literary
  criticism and he exerted a powerful influence on
  American literature.

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His works

• The American Language 1918
• Prejudices (6 vols) 1919--1927
• Happy days
• Newspaper Days 1940--1943 autobiography
• Heathen Days
• 25 Books and thousands of articles

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Henry Louis Mencken

• He was a leading scholar in the field of
  language. His monumental book "The American
  Language" is considered an outstanding work of
  philology.

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"The American Language"

• a) It examined the development of the English
  language in America,
• b) It contrasted English and American expressions
  and usage.

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"The American Language"

• c) It explained the origin of many American
  idioms,
• d) It traced the influence of immigrant languages
  on American English.

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"The American Language"

• He made a large contribution to the study of
  language and particularly encouraged scholarly
  study of the American branch of English.

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His Style

• He is well-known for his bombastic style and acid
  tongue

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His Style

• He wrote with verve(strong feeling), gusto (eager
  enjoyment) and exaggeration. His exuberant and
  extravagant use of the language was so amusing
  and startling that even his most violently
  critical essays became acceptable to his readers.

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His Style

• He employed a huge vocabulary and liked to insert
  unusual or unexpected words, for surprise or
  comic effect, into otherwise normal sentences.
  Although his style is occasionally difficult to
  read, Mencken is still considered one of the best
  and liveliest essayists of this century.

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His Style

• Bombastic style and acid language
• exaggeration
• hyperbole
• over rhetorical pompous
• Language--- biting \sharp

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The literary style

• It is typical of description
• http//www.io.com/gibbonsb/mencken/

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Description

• Description is painting a picture in words of a
  person, place, object and scene.

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Description

• It conveys the sensations, emotions and
  impressions that affect a writer experiencing a
  person, place, object or idea. The writer
  describes what he sees, hears, smells, feels or
  tastes, and it often includes his emotional
  reactions to the physical sensation of the
  experience.

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Description

• The soul of description
• minute details, specific concrete words to appeal
  to the reader's sense of sight
• smell
• taste
• hearing
• touch

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Description

• How to develop description?
• By space order
• Things can be described from a moving position
  through space
• a fixed position in space

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Description

• A. The description of a person
• 1) a person's appearance
• 2) what the person does, says, how he behaves to
  others to reveal the person's character

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Description

• B. The description of a place
• 1) for its own sake, for the purpose of
  describing it, such as on a visit to famous
  scenic places
• 2) for the purpose of revealing the personality
  and character of a person
• (A clean tidy room shows the occupant is an
  orderly person)

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Description

• 3) for the purpose of creating a feeling or mood
• The howling of a chilly wind
• The falling of autumn leaves help to build up a
  sombre mood and increase the feeling of
  depression.

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Description

• C. The description of an object
• WE have to depend on our senses.
• 1) You need to mention
• size color shape taste
• texture smell
• ---- create a clear visual image

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Description

• 2) You need to tell how it is used if it is
  useful
• What part it plays in a person's life if it is in
  some way related to him
• But emphasis should be placed on only one aspect
  of the object, such as its most important
  characteristics.

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Description

• D. The description of a scene
• When describing a scene, the writer should try to
  create a dominant impression. So before he
  begins to write, he must make up his mind as to
  what effect he wants the description to achieve.

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Description

• three basic factors
• the setting
• the people
• the action

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Description

• appropriate adjectives and adverbs
• old square roughly
• young circular more or less
• short triangular not very
• thin heavy fairly
• fat large extremely
• kind small
  approximately
• encouraging red about
• helpful blue just

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Description

• 2 kinds of description
• 1) objective \ impersonal
• realistic
• When topic is viewed from an objective point of
  view, the writer paints a verbal picture of the
  realistic world, like a camera.
• factual words

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Description

• 2) subjective \ personal
• impressionistic \ emotional
• The writer wants to share with the readers a kind
  of dominant impression. The dominant impression
  may be a sense impression or an emotion

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Description

• emotional words
• In this lesson, Mencken is very subjective and
  personal. His description is strongly
  impressionistic and highly emotional.
• The dominant impression --- ugliness
• Westmoreland is the ugliest place not only in the
  US but also in the world.

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Detailed study of the text

• Libido ---
• Do you think it is a general word?
• No. It is a specific word used in psycho-analysis
• It is a technical term in psychology. (Freudian)

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Libido ---

• Meaning
• psychic energy generally
• specifically that comprising the positive loving
  instincts
• the sexual urge
• strong desire, great passion, great lust

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Libido ---

• Why does the writer choose this term?
• -- in order to give his subject scientific
  coloring.

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Why

• He wants to demonstrate that what he describes
  has psychological and scientific foundation.
  Usually, people love things beautiful, but a
  group of people in the US love things ugly for
  its own sake (because they are ugly) Why? There
  must be some scientific and psychological reasons.

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Pittsburgh

• http//www.city.pittsburgh.pa.us/
• 7image-45
• A city in southwest Pennsylvania , It is one of
  the most important industrial cities of America,
  and a center of rail and river transportation.
  Termed the Steel City of Smoky City, it is
  the center of rich bituminous-coal region,
  producing also natural gas, oil and limestone, a
  large part of US steel and iron is produced here.

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Westmoreland county

• A county on southwest Pennsylvania
• Its county seat is Greensburg. It is a mining and
  manufacturing region.
• 7image-6

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appalling

• causing fear, shocking, terrible, dreadful
• Something that is appalling is so bad or
  unpleasant that it makes you fell disgust or
  dismay
• Some of these people live in appalling conditions.

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desolation bleakness

• A quality of a place which makes it seem empty
  and frightening
• Empty of people
• Lacking in comfort

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Here was the very heart

1. metaphor heart --- center of industrial
   America
2. hyperbole richest, grandest nation on earth
3. antithetical contrast

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Contrast

• richest grandest region
• hideous, bleak, forlorn scene

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lucrative

• profitable, money making, bringing in plenty of
  money

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hideous

• very ugly, filling the mind with horror

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bleak

• It applies to landscapes or houses, especially,
  suggests a bare or unpleasant prospect.
• the bleak, unpainted house that seemed almost
  uninhabitable
• the bleak, ice-encrusted mountains of the Andes
  ?????

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desolate

• suggests an under populated starkness
• eg. only a few farmhouses strung out over the
  desolated countryside.
• suggests solitariness or friendlessness
• eg. a girl left desolate in the strange city.
• ??????????????????

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barren

• --- suggests a complete absence of life
• Barren rocks where the smallest shrub could find
  no foothold.
• ???????????????
• Uninhabitable and unfeatured landscape.

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joke

• --- if you say someone or sth is a joke, you mean
  that they are ridiculous and not worthy of
  respect.
• His colleagues regard him as a joke.

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aspiration

• --- a persons aspirations are their ambitions
  or desires to achieve something

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unbroken ugliness

• --- the ugliness is continuous and uninterrupted
• It is ugly wherever you go and look

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agonizing ugliness

• --- ugliness that caused great pain to people who
  saw it
• People could not imagine or calculate the amount
  of wealth that was to be found in this region.
  And in this same region there were such terrible
  and disgusting houses that even homeless, mongrel
  cats would feel ashamed to live in them.

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lacerate

• --- to hurt to tear (the flesh, an arm, the
  face) roughly as with fingernails or broken glass.

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pretentious

• --- if you say that someone or sth is
  pretentious, you mean that they claim to be
  important, but you do not think that they are
  important.

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Para 2

• Describe the houses more specifically
• How many buildings did the writer describe in
  details?
• churches, stores, warehouses etc.
• like a mans face shot away

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the houses

• a little church
• like a dormer-window on the side of a bare
  leprous hill
• dormer-window --- a window set upright in a
  slopping roof
• the headquarters of the veterans of Foreign Wars

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the houses

• a steel stadium
• like a huge rat-trap

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What impression can you get?

• shabby ugly hideous

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in form

• --- in appearance, shape, geographically

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It is thickly settled

• --- in this area a great number of people live
  closely together, but it doesnt give the
  impression of being overcrowded.

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If there were architects of any .

• It sarcastically emphasizes the fact that there
  were no architects worthy of its name in this
  region. There were no architects worthy of the
  honor or the high standards demanded of by its
  profession. If there had been such architects
  they would naturally have built Swiss-type houses
  which would lie low and clinging to the hillsides.

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Chalet 7image-78

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Detailed study of the text

• All the houses they built looked like bricks
  standing upright.

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clapboard

• AmE. weatherboard
• A type of covering for the outer walls of a
  house, to protect the walls from rain
• 7image-9

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dingy --- dirty and faded

• these brick-like houses were made of shabby, thin
  wooden boards and their roofs were narrow and had
  little slope

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pier

• --- a pillar of stone, wood, metal etc. esp. as
  used to support a bridge, or the roof of a high
  building

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preposterous

• --- completely unreasonable or improbable
  laughably foolish in manner or appearance
• How do people build the house on the hillside?

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How

• The houses are compared to pigs wallowing in the
  mud. Since these houses are built on the hillside
  and set on brick piers, one side is high and the
  other is low. The low sides make them look like
  pigs burying themselves in the mud.

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perpendicular

• --- exactly upright, not leaning to one side or
  the other

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precariously

• --- unsafe, not firm or steady, full of danger,
  unstable, hazardous

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precariously

• The climber had only a precarious hold on the
  slippery rock.
• Something that is precarious is in a dangerous
  state or position because it is not securely held
  in place and seems likely to fall down or
  collapse at any moment
• ????????????????

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one and all

• all the houses, every house

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streak

• --- if something streaks a surface, it leaves
  long stripes or marks of a different color on the
  surface cover
• His moustache was streaked with grey.
• The sun is streaking the sea with long lines of
  gold.
• His face is streaked with dirt .

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streak

• n. --- line
• Her hair had a very pretty grey streak in it.

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eczematous

• Eczema
• --- an uncomfortable skin disease which makes
  your skin itch and become rough and sore.

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Detailed study of the text

• All the house here are covered with dirt, and
  some paint which is not covered up by the dirt
  looks like dried-up scales (??) formed on the
  skin by eczema.
• ????????????,????????,????????????????????

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patina coating

• the patina of an object is a fine layer of
  something that forms or appears on its surface
• The books were piled high, with a patina of
  grey-brown grease.

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ridicule and irony

• generally refers to the beautiful green or
  greenish-blue color. Here Mencken uses patina
  ironically to describe the grime of the mills,
  the dirty smoke from the mills

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long past all hope and caring

• an egg that had long past the time when there was
  some hope that is might still be edible, long
  past the time when people were still concerned
  about it. It was a thoroughly rotten egg.

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red brick

• ---red brick, even in a steel town, looks quite
  respectable and dignified with the passing of
  time.
• Even in a steel town, old red bricks still look
  pleasant.

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uremia

• (urene haima, blood) Greek
• color yellow greenish black reddish

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award this championship

• ---sarcasm and irony.
• I have given Westmoreland the highest award
  for ugliness after having done a lot of hard work
  and research and after continuous praying. I came
  to the conclusion that Westmoreland had the
  ugliest towns and villages only after visiting
  and comparing many places not only in the U.S.
  but also in other countries and after constantly
  praying to God for guidance.

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Pullman

• a railroad car with private compartments or
  seats that can be made up into berths (a sleeping
  place) for sleeping. Its is so-called after US
  inventor, George M. Pullman (1831-97)

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Malarious

• --- malaria-stricken area , mosquito-infested
• a disease of hot countries, caused by a small
  living thing which enters the blood when the
  person is bitten by certain types of mosquito.

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hamlet

• --- a small village

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tidewater

• --- village near the sea affected by the rise
  and fall of tides

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Northern states

• Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts,
  Connecticut, Rhode Island

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Detailed study of the text

• New England --- industry is declining
• Utah, Arizona, Texas --- towns like desert
• dark side of all those towns he had visited.
• He mentioned those places to show his correct
  judgment

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Detailed study of the text

• Newark --- in New Jersey
• Brooklyn --- in New York
• Chicago --- in Illinois
• Camden --- New Jersey
• Newport News --- Virginia

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Detailed study of the text

• Iowa and Kansas
• --- villages are gloomy, abandoned by God
• Georgia
• malaria-infested villages
• Bridgeport. Conn. ---- Los Angeles
• East ------ west

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forsake --- abandon , desert

• a fairly literary word
• if you forsake a person or place, you leave them
  when you should have stayed or stop helping them
  or looking after them.
• Dont forsake me in my hour of need!
• Titanic of great strength, size or power

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aberrant

• --- unusual and not normal, straying away from
  the right path
• aberrant behavior
• ideas

102
uncompromising ---

• firm, steadfast , rigid
• when people are , they are determined not
  to change their opinions or objective in any way
• He was an opponent of the war.
• adv. They were uncompromisingly loyal to certain
  fundamental values.

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inimical

• conditions that are inimical to someone or
  sth. are hostile and harmful rather than being
  friendly and favorable
• hostile
• unfriendly
• in opposition

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genius

• used ironically to mean an evil genius,
  having great ability to do evil

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hell ---

• the powers of evil or darkness

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grotesquery n.

• Strangeness, ugliness
• grotesque
• --- strange and unnatural so as to cause fear or
  be laughable
• very ugly in appearance hideous
• He was rather to look at.
• Strangely , unnaturally ugly

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• ?????????????,???????,?????????,?????????

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in retrospect

• looking back towards the past ????
• His youth was more enjoyable in retrospect than
  it had actually been when he was going through it.

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diabolical

• devilish dreadful diabolic
• extremely unpleasant and annoying
• It is used to describe something that people
  think is caused by or belongs to the devil.

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concoct

• make sth. by mixing or combining parts , make sth
  unusual

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para. 6.

• The reasons why they love such ugly houses
• Is it because they are igrorant?

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insensate ---

• not capable of feeling
• lacking in human feelings

113
Detailed study of the text

• are the houses so frightfully ugly because the
  valley is inhabited by a lot of foreigners who
  are stupid and unfeeling like animals and who
  have no love of beauty in them?

114
But in the American

• But in the American village and small town, the
  drawing power (desire) is always toward ugliness
  and in that Westmoreland valley people have given
  in to this desire eagerly or almost passionately

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border upon ---

• be very much like
• Your remarks border upon rudeness, sir!
  ??,?????????
• The proposal borders upon the absurd. ??????????

116
masterpiece irony

• It is hard to believe that people built such
  horrible houses just because they did not know
  what beautiful houses were like.
• Mencken uses masterpiece ironically to say that
  the houses were so horrible that no one could
  build worse ones.

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antithesis

• Libido for the ugly libido for the beautiful
  ---
• People in certain strata (social classes or
  division) (sing. stratum ) of American society
  seem definitely to hunger after ugly thins, which
  in other less Christian strata, people seem to
  long for thins beautiful.

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less Christian

• pagans a person who is not a believer in
  Christianity
• Heathen
• Atheist
• Christians long for things ugly

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pagans ---

• long for things beautiful
• But the Christians are supposed to have the
  qualities of love kindness humanity beauty

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put down to

• --- state that sth is caused by sth (attribute
  to) ???
• I put his bad temper down to his recent illness.
• His bad temper was put down to his unhappy
  childhood.

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deface

• damage, spoil the appearance pr surface
• if people deface sth such as a wall or a notice,
  they deliberately damage it by writing or drawing
  unpleasant or offensive things on it.

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inadvertence ---

• carelessness, heedlessness
• you do sth unintentionally without thinking or
  without realizing
• paying no attention to
• by accident

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obscene ---

• nasty, dirty, lewd
• wanton, lustful, indecent ??????, ????

124

• it is impossible to attribute the wallpaper that
  makes the average American home of the lower
  middle class look so ugly to mere oversight
  (carelessness) or to the indecent taste of the
  manufacturers.

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unfathomable --- fml ????

• if sth. is , it is so strange or complicated
  that it cannot be understood or explained
• baffling

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they meet type of mind

• --- these ugly designs in some way that people
  cannot understand, satisfy the hidden and
  unintelligible demands of this type of mind.
• ??????????????????????????????

127
enigmatical

• --- enigmatic mysterious, puzzling and
  difficult to understand
• ?????,?????
• the love for ugliness of the people in
  Westmoreland is
• mysterious to many people
• common, natural from their point of view

128
dogmatic --- opinionated

• Theology
• --- the study of the nature of God of Gods
  influence on people and of religion and religious
  beliefs

129
appreciable --- considerable

• An amount, distance, effect, etc is large
  enough to be important or clearly noticed.
• There had been an appreciable percentage of the
  universitys expenditure.
• adv. The weather had turned grey and is was
  appreciably colder.

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mellow

• --- become soft, warm, smooth esp. worn so by
  time, soften

131
The Parthenon

• A beautiful doric temple built in honor of the
  virgin (Parthenon)goddess Athena on the Acropolis
  in Athena around 5h century B.C.
• ????? image-11parthenon

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for its own sake

• --- because it is ugly
• for the purpose of ugliness

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biology

• --- the scientific laws of the life of a certain
  type of living thing
• biology contains two aspects
• evolution
• degeneration

135
terms

• --- conditions or requirements, specific
  content
• According to the terms of the agreements, British
  ships will be allowed to take a limited amount of
  fish each year.
• ?????????,???????????????
• ---- What are your sales terms?
• ---- Cash
• ---- ???????????
• --- ?????

136
Provat Docent

• --- privatdocent, privatdozent
• In German universities, an unsalaried lecturer
  paid only by his students fees

137
Pathological sociology ---

• ?????
• the study of the disease of human society
• science dealing with the disease of human society

138
in obedience to ---

• Soldiers act in the orders of their superior
  officers.
• ??????????????

139
libido ---

• emotional energy, sexual desire
• a psychoanalytic term describing psychic energy
  generally or specifically basic form of psychic
  energy, comprising the positive, loving instincts
  and manifested variously at different stages of
  personality development
• ???????????,?????????,?????????????????

140
passion

• --- strong feeling or enthusiasm esp of love,
  hate or anger
• usually implies a strong emotion that has an
  overpowering or compelling effect
• He is filled with passion for that girl.

141
Love

• --- warm, kind feeling, fondness, affection
• implies intense fondness or deep devotion and
  many apply to various relationships or objects
• brotherly love ????
• love of ones work ??????
• sexual love ??

142
lust --- desire to possess sth

• a desire, esp. as seeking unrestrained
  gratification, to gratify senses, senses, esp
  sexual desire, evil desire
• He is filled with the lust of power. ????????
• for money/ gold/ power

143
hideous

• ghastly, frightful, ugly, grisly, unsightly,
  loathsome, uncomely, monstrous, revolting,
  unlovely, appalling, misshapen, unseemly, plain,
  horrid, repellent, bad-looking,

144
dirt

• a general word, meaning any unclean matter, as
  mud dust, dung, trash, etc.
• His clothes were covered with dirt.
• How can I get the dirt off the wall?

145
filth

• very nasty dirt, and applies to that which is
  disgustingly dirty disgusting dirt, obscenity
• Go and wash that filth off the floor.

146
soot

• --- black powder produced by burning and carried
  into the air and left on surfaces by smoke
• Youd better sweep the soot out of the chimney.
• The soot and grime of big manufacturing town have
  polluted the air.

147
grime

• --- dirt esp a coating on the surface of sth or
  on the body
• You look at her face covered with grime and sweat.

148
Organizational pattern

• Section I (para 12)
• the general impression of Westmoreland rich and
  ugly

149
Organizational pattern

• Section II (para 35)
• the description of the design and color of the
  houses

150
Organizational pattern

• Section III (para 68)
• the reason and cause why the people in
  Westmoreland love such ugly houses

151
Organizational pattern

• Section IV (para 9)
• Conclusion
• Mencken is being very critical of the American
  race and the American society, which hates beauty
  as well it hates truth

152
Language features

1. choice of words
2. over-rhetorical

153
images

• metaphors
• similes
• hyperboles

154
structure

• repetition
• antithesis
• parallelism

155

• As far as description is concerned, he defeats
  his own purpose by the over use of rhetorical
  devices.