Jeffrey Carduner, Aesthetic Realism consultant, writes:

Love—with all the articles, books, and films on the subject—is something people still want desperately to understand. What is love? And what gets in the way of having the real, lasting thing? “Love—and a World to Like” provides the true, deep, logical answers to those questions. It begins the serialization of a magnificent lecture by Eli Siegel, The Furious Aesthetics of Marriage. And there is a poem by Ellen Reiss, the Aesthetic Realism Chair of Education and editor of TRO, that will affect you mightily. You’ll have a big experience as you read “Love—and a World to Like,” the latest issue of The Rightness of Aesthetic Realism: A Periodical. 

The commentary by Ellen Reiss begins:

Dear Unknown Friends:

It was on July 10, 1964, in an Aesthetic Realism class, that Eli Siegel gave the talk he titled The Furious Aesthetics of Marriage. Then, shortly after, the Terrain Gallery published it very simply, yet tastefully, in mimeograph form. Many people consider that great lecture a classic (I certainly do), and many more will. It has been out of print for some time, and I’m very glad that it is now being published here in two parts: in the April and May numbers of this periodical.

In that beautiful, vivid talk, Mr. Siegel explains what interferes with love—with an emphasis, here, on married love. The explanation has in it the very basis of Aesthetic Realism, the principle “All beauty is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves.” From one point of view, this great talk is fully philosophic, strictly logical—but oh! it’s not one bit academic or dry. It’s tender; often humorous; warm as it’s exact; utterly kind as it’s critical; wide as it meets, at our center, each of us in all our individuality.

The Purpose of Love

In the history of thought, Eli Siegel is the person who has made clear the purpose of love. It is, through valuing another human being, to see the world itself more truly; to like the world on an honest basis; to be fair to other things and people through knowing closely a particular person. That is the purpose of love and marriage because to like the world honestly is the purpose of our very lives….Read more