beauty and ugliness are very complex
concepts because they touch on
many other categories. It's about
social and economic norms, it's about
behavior, it's about expectations
it's about race
and of course it's always about gender.
One of the things I come across
over and over in my research is that
women are defined
in terms of their beauty, but beauty is not
applicable to men in the same way
although I have a feeling that in the
contemporary 21st century
all of this is shifting, but in early
modern times
male and female beauty were very different
and they were mainly about behaviors
silence was beautiful for instance for a
woman
for men, not so
male beauty resided in their body
having some use, typically fit for war
the concepts of beauty and ugliness are always
being tested
because the Portuguese always compare
themselves to the other
so it was always: How do we measure up
against europeans? How do we measure up
against the Spaniards?
And they have along rivalry with the
Spanish.
How do we measure up against the Moors?
They were so close in the North of Africa
and then they were always comparing themselves to
the new people that they encounter in the new
world
which they say over and over again in
the letters of discovery
that they are the most beautiful
creatures they've ever seen
but at the same time they also say that
it's a world with much
monstrosity and they claim
what they are eye witnesses to
monsters not yet seen before
for the Portuguese what was most
interesting
is that they encounter people in Brazil
that knew nothing about European lifestyle
and European behaviors and norms
they were naked and they had no shame
yet the Portuguese found them fastening
some of these folks were rather monstrous
so beauty can also be monstrous and  ugliness can also be
beautiful, because there's other concepts
that get into this mix, goodness,
evil, desirability, so these are all
issues that are constantly shifting and
constantly being
reshaped and
redefined
 
 
