Steven Weiner, Computer Specialist and Aesthetic Realism associate, writes:

The subjects of Reading and Anger seem so different. But Aesthetic Realism explains both. And that explanation includes something humanity needs desperately to know: what makes any anger—including yours—either good or bad? You can learn the answer to this question, and more, in “Reading, Anger, & Beauty,” the great current issue of The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known.

The commentary by Ellen Reiss begins:

Dear Unknown Friends:

Here is part 3 of the great 1972 lecture Reading Itself Has to Do with Poetry, by Eli Siegel. He is showing that not only the works one might read but the very process of reading is described in this Aesthetic Realism principle: “All beauty is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves.” Looking at passages from the book Good Reading, edited by J.S. Weber, he speaks about spontaneity and order, wandering and point, freedom and plan—opposites that are one in poetry and all art. They are our opposites too, are in us all the time—so often in a way that confuses us, brings us turmoil, has us dislike ourselves.

Here too is part of a paper by Matthew D’Amico, from a recent public seminar titled What Do Men Need Most to Know about Their Anger? He illustrates this fact: Aesthetic Realism is the knowledge that explains anger. It enables us to distinguish between anger that’s good, strengthening, kind, intelligent and anger that’s hurtful, stupid, cruel, shame-making—and enables a person to stop having the latter. The difference depends centrally on this: is the purpose of our anger to respect the world or to have contempt for it?

In the part of the lecture included here, Mr. Siegel speaks briefly about Sappho. And so, to join further the two sections of this TRO, I am going to quote a poem of hers that has anger in it. The poem consists of four lines…. Read more.