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Aesthetic Realism: Life, Love & Learning

Leila Rosen, English Educator & Aesthetic Realism Associate

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Aesthetic Realism

The Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method Successfully Opposes Racism

June 16, 2020 by leirose

Poetry as Justice: Through the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method, Aesthetics Defeats Contempt

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Aesthetic Realism, anti-prejudice, Eli SIegel, poetry, social justice, teaching method

More Maxims by Eli Siegel from Damned Welcome

May 21, 2020 by leirose

Two weeks ago, I pointed to several Aesthetic Realism maxims by Eli Siegel from his book Damned Welcome: Aesthetic Realism Maxims. These statements—many of them swift and pithy—are, he wrote, “meant to bother into appreciation.” I find myself thinking of some of these maxims as I try to make sense of what’s happening in our confusing time.

So here are others that encourage me very much.

“If you have time, remember it’s a privilege.”

“The universe, being clever, has given scientists trouble.”

“Let us not be angry at the way we’re angry.”

“It hasn’t yet been scientifically proved that any lovely thing is really over.”

“We are of the world; our job is to be fair to the preposition.”

Filed Under: About Literature, Uncategorized Tagged With: Aesthetic Realism

Aesthetic Realism Maxims by Eli Siegel

May 7, 2020 by leirose

As we’re all looking to make sense of a world that has beautiful spring flowers and a terrifying pandemic, we need the way of seeing that’s in the study of Aesthetic Realism. A means to this is the wonderful maxims by Eli Siegel in his book Damned Welcome. In the preface to the book, Mr. Siegel writes:

These maxims are…in behalf of a world too often seen as unkind, dull, and just too bewildering for anything. It is better to be bewildered by an Aesthetic Realism maxim about things than by things themselves….

The present maxims…are on the side of a reasoned gaiety, and a spontaneous, bubbling seriousness. They are meant to bother into appreciation.

Here are some that I love, and feel are relevant to our time. More will follow!

“Our loveliest memories can be helped by our most fundamental hopes.”

“Sighs should be efficient; if not, we should long for their departure.”

“A person is courageous who is comfortable in larger territory than is usual.”

“When we don’t want people to get the hard facts about ourselves, we are not in favor of these three things: the facts, people, ourselves.”

“Only a person who loves people can be alone rightly.”

“Being oneself is a lifetime job, not to be shirked when we sleep.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Aesthetic Realism

Primary Sidebar

The Two Powers

What is the power we want most? How is the thirst for ugly power, no matter the cost, hurting the lives of people the world over, including as to economics? When I read this new issue of The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known, in which Eli Siegel discusses Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, I understood more about these matters.

The Two Powers

 

 

 

 

Faustus, Profit, & Our Lives

 

 

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