Eli Siegel (1902-1978), great American poet, critic, and founder of the philosophy Aesthetic Realism, is the author of Self and World: An Explanation of Aesthetic Realism; Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana: Poems; Hail, American Development (Poems); Modern Quarterly Beginnings of Aesthetic Realism, 1922-1923; and James and the Children: A Consideration of Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw.
In 1925 his groundbreaking poem “Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana” won the highly esteemed Nation Poetry Prize and swept America. In 1958 his book of poems with that title was nominated for the National Book Award and he was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in poetry. For his centenary in 2002, the city where he grew up, Baltimore, Maryland, celebrated Eli Siegel Day, with proclamations by the mayor and governor and a celebration in Druid Hill Park.
Teaching in New York City for four decades, Eli Siegel gave thousands of thrilling lectures and classes on the arts and sciences, including many on the relation of science and art. Based on the principles he taught, the Aesthetic Realism Foundation provides a variety of classes, currently via video conferencing.
The Rightness of Aesthetic Realism: A Periodical
Many of Eli Siegel’s groundbreaking works are published in The Rightness of Aesthetic Realism: A Periodical (TRO), the international periodical he began in 1973. It explains what is happening in the world, and in people—in you. TRO contains immensely valuable and timely essays, poems, and lectures by Mr. Siegel and articles by Aesthetic Realism teachers and students. In every issue there is an editorial commentary by Ellen Reiss, who Mr. Siegel appointed the Aesthetic Realism Chair of Education. With scholarship and humanity, she has continued his work, together with many others.
Receive email alerts for each new issue of The Rightness of Aesthetic Realism: A Periodical, and announcements of events at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation.
Current issues of TRO:
The World: How Should We See It?
(Issue #2169, February 2026). The new issue of TRO presents in its title the most important question people have: “The World: How Should We See It?” Mostly, people are not aware that they have this question, let alone how urgent it is—and also how beautiful. In this issue, you’ll see thrilling instances of Aesthetic Realism’s landmark principle “The world, art, and self explain each other: each is the aesthetic oneness of opposites.” You’ll learn, too, what in ourselves interferes with answering truly the questions of our lives. Knowledge that humanity thirsts for is here. read
Art and the World Itself
(Issue #2168, January 2026) As a new year begins, we’re proud to present the next issue of The Rightness of Aesthetic Realism: A Periodical, with its fresh, magnificent understanding of the meaning of art for our lives. In January 2026, TRO asks and answers the questions What does art have to do with your own life right now, your worries, confusions, angers, hopes? What does art say about the confusing world we’re in? The way these questions are answered is thrilling to read; and the instances of art that are referred to and commented on are surprising, sometimes funny, and they span centuries. So here, with its kind and immensely needed logic, is the current number: read
Dickens, Scrooge, & a World to Be Liked
(Issue #2167, December 2025). How can a much cared-for custom, and a loved novel that has seemed to represent deeply this time of year, be a means of understanding ourselves and all people? The new issue of TRO magnificently answers that question. Also: What does it really mean to have good wishes? What does it mean to put together criticism and love? And what does Charles Dickens, as artist, do that’s important for us to learn from? To feel honestly hopeful in these days, read this powerful current number. read
Good Will: An Imperative in Everyone
(Issue #2166, November 2025). The November issue of TRO is vital for the holidays ahead—and for all our days ahead. What is more vital than learning what our own deepest desire is—and what in us opposes it? And you’ll read about a seemingly light, jocular, age-old tradition, shown for the first time to have deep importance for everyone’s life. You’ll see humanity and yourself more truly as you read this timely, exciting new issue. read
Selected issues from the TRO Archives:
What Opposes Love?
(Issue #150) “The history of the world and the history of literature tell us that love has been opposed by hate and contempt….The play in French literature that stands for the discomfort of love, the unsettlement of passion, is the Phèdre of Racine…” read more
The Greatest Gift: Authentic Criticism
(Issue #820) “We publish here the great essay ‘Art as Criticism,’ by Eli Siegel….Aesthetic Realism shows…that no amount of praise or ‘acceptance’ will ever have us like ourselves. We want authentic criticism, criticism with enough knowledge in it.” read more
What Is Art For?
(Issue #226) “Aesthetic Realism sees the purpose of art as, from the beginning, the liking of the world more…. [Helen] Gardner’s mighty work, Art Through the Ages… tells carefully of Etruscan art, medieval Russian art, and certainly the art of Renaissance Italy; tells of the art of the American Indian and of United States art.” read more
The Shakespearean Awareness
(Issue #156) “Every dramatist has to be aware of the three great emotions which, when used not in behalf of a more just world but in behalf of a superior self, can do such harm….Shakespeare says much of fear, anger, contempt. Some of the highest points in the world’s literature have Shakespeare’s awareness of these three emotions.” read more
The Two Pleasures
(Issue #162) “One thing that is clear in the history of man is that he has had pleasure of two kinds. Man has had pleasure from seeing a sunset; from Handel’s Messiah; from seeing courage in someone; from a great rhythm in words. He has also had pleasure from making everything he can meaningless….Man, then, praises; he also diminishes.” read more
Aesthetic Realism Is Education
(Issue #12) “Aesthetic Realism believes that a person who doesn’t like the world on an honest basis is not educated. The purpose of all education is, as Aesthetic Realism sees it, to find sense in the world; also honestly to hope to find sense in the world when that finding, as it often is, is difficult.” read more
Knowing Oneself
(Issue #200) “Geoffrey Chaucer, the first unquestionably eminent English poet, said about six hundred years ago in his ‘The Monk’s Tale,’ this: ‘Ful wys is he that kan hymselven knowe!’ Well, even now, Chaucer is not agreed with, though certainly people often act as if they felt it was wise to know oneself.” read more
The Fight
(Issue #151) “The greatest fight man is concerned with, is the fight between respect for reality and contempt for reality that has taken place in all minds of the past and is taking place now. There are three places in literature which make the fight between respect and contempt clearer….Sonnet 66 of Shakespeare; Baudelaire’s ‘O Mort, vieux capitaine’; and Shelley’s ‘Ode to the West Wind.’ read more
Our Dear Minds
(Issue #239) “Perhaps the person who was most successful in philosophic history was John Locke, 1632-1704…. Locke meant a good deal to the plain, money-getting person; and still means a good deal….Today, I deal chiefly with John Locke; but I hope to show that all the philosophers…present a world we can see as usable for our lives, deeply on our side.” read more
