Ode on this Greek Vase Thingy

Keats wrote "Ode on a Grecian Urn" very much with Herbert's "Jordan (1)" in mind. "Is there in truth no beauty?" George Herbert asks his readers.

Well, what shall we answer him?

Wait, what was the question? Is he asking us if beauty is real? Probably secondarily. I think his primary question (in the context of a poem (which is inherently embellishment) about embellishment) is whether truth itself contains enough beauty without adding conceits and puns and innuendo. When I was thirteen, I would have scoffed. Truth was bare and ugly to me then. If you want to know how I feel now, read my previous post about taste (Ostensibly, the Word of Wisdom).

Herbert's question joins a discourse well in motion by the time he wrote, though, which centered around the now extremely controvercial idea that aesthetic value indicates some essential moral value, or "goodness." But how can that possibly be true? How could something as shallow as beauty have anything at all to do with truth? Do we judge our doctrines by their attractiveness? Do we judge someone's honesty by his or her face? Well, yes. Most people do.

But SHOULD we?

Yes.

I actually believe that beauty and truth are inextricably entwined, but we humans are just really, really bad at judging beauty. We work on an entirely different scale at the moment, and down here on earth, true beauty is hidden behind true stupidity (and cosmetic surgery, and a thousand kinds of paint). I think beauty is underneath. I think we should all learn how to judge true beauty, and thereby truth. We could reject sin simply because it is no longer attractive to us.

Wouldn't that be my little Utopia.

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