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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33030
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33030
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

First let me say that the notion that a dead face cannot be beautiful is nonsense. Some may never has seen a dead face they found beautiful, but many have, and I see no reason not to believe them.

But whether a dead face is objectively beautiful (supposing you are willing to grant the traditional western view, now not much in favor, that beauty is an objective quality that all properly educated people will see), is irrelevant in a story context. What matters is whether the character sees the face as beautiful, which they may or may not independent of its objective beauty. The faces of loved ones are commonly more attractive to us than the faces of strangers. So, a character may well see the face of a dead loved one as beautiful even if objective observers would disagree, and this is a question about expressing that perception, not about objectively evaluating it.

But to address the question itself, beauty, particularly beauty of a face, is extremely hard to define. You can talk about the shape of the eyes of the length of the nose or the fullness of the lips, but none of that is ever going to bring a particular image of beauty into the reader's mind. (Ugliness is much easier to convey, since blemishes and deformities can be named and instantly create a impression of ugliness.)

There are all kinds of impressions you can create by describing the characteristics of something in words, but there are things you simply can't. We can describe what things taste like, for instance, except by naming things with similar tastes. We have no words for tastes themselves. Sometimes you have no choice but to name the effect. In short, the best way to say that the face of the corpse was beautiful is to say that is was beautiful.

Original score: 3