The Romantic Manifesto

by Ayn Rand

In this beautifully written and brilliantly reasoned book, Ayn Rand throws a new light on the nature of art and its purpose in human life. Once again Miss Rand eloquently demonstrates her refusal to let popular catchwords and conventional ideas stand between her and the truth as she has discovered it. The Romantic Manifesto takes its place beside The Fountainhead as one of the most important achievements of our time.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Art, Classics, Politics, Writing, Essays

208 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

Polemical novels, such as The Fountainhead (1943), of primarily known Russian-American writer Ayn Rand, originally Alisa Rosenbaum, espouse the doctrines of objectivism and political libertarianism.

Fiction of this better author and philosopher developed a system that she named. Educated, she moved to the United States in 1926. After two early initially duds and two Broadway plays, Rand achieved fame. In 1957, she published Atlas Shrugged , her best-selling work.

Rand advocated reason and rejected faith and religion. She supported rational and ethical egoism as opposed to altruism. She condemned the immoral initiation of force and supported laissez-faire capitalism, which she defined as the system, based on recognizing individual rights, including private property. Often associated with the modern movement in the United States, Rand opposed and viewed anarchism. In art, she promoted romantic realism. She sharply criticized most philosophers and their traditions with few exceptions.

Books of Rand sold more than 37 million copies. From literary critics, her fiction received mixed reviews with more negative reviews for her later work. Afterward, she turned to nonfiction to promote her philosophy, published her own periodicals, and released several collections of essays until her death in 1982.

After her death, her ideas interested academics, but philosophers generally ignored or rejected her and argued that her approach and work lack methodological rigor. She influenced some right conservatives. The movement circulates her ideas to the public and in academic settings.

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 1 out of 5]

With this one, Rand really jumped the shark for me.

I was willing to try her philosophical essays in The Virtue of Selfishness, and I read a couple of her novels as well. But, the zealous condemning of whole branches of art and literature, because it didn't fit with her idea of what art should do? Condemning Dostoyevski and embracing James Bond? Not that there's anything wrong with Ian Flemming, but still.

To make it clear what I'm arguing AGAINST, let me tell you the thesis Rand is arguing in this one: Art should glorify mankind and relish in his good qualities. It shouldn't attempt to make us empathetic towards those who aren't righteous, because the dregs of society aren't a worthy subject of literature.

If that's what she wants to read, I am fine with that. But I like the dregs! The dregs are so much more interesting! Because it is the imperfect characters that make us work as readers and as writers. Through meditating on imperfection, we are forced to confront our own. And, we are forced to be empathetic (at least a little bit) to characters like Humbert Humbert and Raskolnikov (however you spell his name). So, while we can all look up to that bitter, womanizing 007 for his pimpjuice and his manliness (they may be synonyms, but I'm not going to ask the O.E.D. or Nelly to find out), we can ALSO read about less idealized characters and be reminded that people are complex and most have a combination of good and bad in them.

In sum, I believe that different sorts of art speak to different sorts of people, and equally intelligent people can read for very different reasons. (I know, I know. I've made fun of Twilight in at least five book reviews. But, that's just because it's inconsistent, sappy and perverse . . damn! There I go again. What I meant to say is, it's all in good fun.) So, I think it is remarkably silly for anyone to spend a whole book arguing why one aesthetic sensibility is more valid or morally sound than another.

Says the guy who recommended Killer Crabs. . . .

[Lisa (Harmonybites) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I know a lot of people sneer at Ayn Rand and her admirers. But one would think the one thing they'd acknowledge is that she was a writer who knew how to tell a story. *thinks of reviews she's seen.* OK, maybe not. But even if I'm not an uncritical devotee, I for one do love her style, do, with some reservations, love her novels. And I think the core of her argument here is absolutely true--you can't write fiction without revealing your philosophy and values--even if you try. Ayn Rand is the one who above all made me aware of that. I don't care if you're talking about Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment or Mercedes Lackey's fantasy books about talking horses--I can tell you a lot about the values and worldview of the authors only from reading their fiction--ditto about even the most trite work in pulp romance. That doesn't mean I agree with all Rand's evaluations. Sometimes I think she argued backward to validate her own idiosyncratic tastes, and certainly there are plenty of works of "naturalism" I prefer over works of "romanticism" (I personally found Hugo's Ninety-Three, which I read on her recommendation, overwrought.)

But Rand gets at something basic though: that in a lot of the books we love--that what we look for is our values reflected back at us. That's what resonates, in both low and high literature. And we look for, crave for, heroes. And the lack of them is what makes so many modern works arid to me. I think that's why I, and many others, love science fiction and fantasy so much--they're the last refuge of the hero.

[sologdin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Part IIII of multi-part review series.

Nutshell: person who has read a half dozen novels and no literary theory writes treatise on literary theory.

Opens with a dictionary definition of manifesto, regarding a declaration of intentions by an organization, then promptly states that this manifesto is “not issued in the name of an organization or movement. I speak only for myself” (v). The title is therefore revealed in the preface to be dishonest. We are accordingly off to a standard start in a Rand book, wherein if her mouth is moving, then she is lying.

Severe Dunning-Kruger effect on display in such comments as “the humanities have been virtually abandoned to the primitive epistemology of mysticism” (15), “The cognitive neglect of art has persisted” (16), and “the principles are defined by the science of esthetics--a task which modern philosophy has failed dismally” (43). These comments prophesy that the entire project here will be completely silly, and later developments completely bear out the prophecy. At least prophetics come true in Rand, if nothing else.

Core of Randian literary theory is naïve beyond reckoning: “The psycho-epistemological process of communication between an artist and a viewer or reader does as follows: the artist starts with a broad abstraction which he has to concretize, to bring into reality by means of the appropriate particulars; the viewer perceives the particulars, integrates them and grasps the abstraction from which they came, thus completing the circle” (35). This theoretical assertion is that authors fill texts with meanings, and readers must extract the meanings therein by reproducing the author’s understanding. Literary theory has long abandoned this model as untenable; it simply is not what happens when one reads--and literary theory had moved on from this cartoonish understanding by the time this essay was written in 1966. Rand nonetheless believes that “what an art work expresses, fundamentally, under all of its lesser aspects is: ‘This is life as I see it’” (35), whatever the hell that means. That’s why a painting of “a beautiful woman wearing an exquisite evening gown, with a cold sore on her lips” is “a corrupt, obscenely vicious attack on man, on beauty, on all values” (34). Huh? There is just no middle ground in this pseudo-philosophy, which draws unwarranted inferences about an author's beliefs by means of cynical assumptions about the text.

But, this “vicious attack on man” is bizarre, considering her comments otherwise about “collectivism.” Consider that an artist “who presents man as a deformed monstrosity is aware of the fact that there are men who are healthy, happy, or confident; but he regards these conditions as accidental or illusory, as irrelevant to man’s essential nature--and he presents a tortured figure embodying pain, ugliness, terror, as man’s proper, natural state” (37). So, here’s the standard Randroid bad pop psychology, imputing to other people motives for which there is no evidence. Worse than the bad pop psych, though, is the bizarre collectivism of the analysis: “man” is presented in the painting of an ugly person, and Rand distinguishes in the same sentence that there are some “men” who are not ugly, like the ugly person in the painting. Why impute the collective representation to the artist? This is not Rand attacking a known evil socialist artist, but rather categorically stating that any painting of a woman with a blemished face is an attack on all humanity. There is no basis for any of it, though of course she can read however she likes--it just comes across as silly, inconsistent, reckless. The basis of her ongoing polemic against alleged naturalism, that it has “bleak metaphysics” (41) that substitute “statistics for a standard of value” (89), may or may not be true--but it appears to apply with full force and effect to her own theory as displayed here.

Adopts Aristotle’s poetics as an explanation of all literature, but distills down the six elements of tragedy: mythos (Rand‘s “plot“), ethos (Rand‘s “characterization“), dianoia (Rand’s “theme“), and lexis, melos, & opsis (collapsed into Rand’s “style“). This particular essay (45-63) is a bad simplification of Aristotle’s concepts, and expansion of them to cover all writings, illustrated with passages from The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Good job!

Rand doesn’t really care about literary theory or Aristotle, though. Rather, important for her is the fifth essay, regarding romanticism, which contains the primary overt political content of the volume (though she is sufficiently undisciplined to fly off the handle on every page otherwise in denouncing altruists or rooting our collectivists or laying down spenglerian denunciations or identifying insufficient moral clarity among her unidentified contemporaries).

That fifth essay opens with the dogmatic insistence that “romanticism is a category of art based on the recognition that man possesses the faculty of volition” (64). Huh? That’s not really a distinguishing feature of romanticism. But her bete noire, naturalism, “denies it” (id.). Alrighty then!

Although nothing can be “causeless” (16) (despite a later contradiction that “man is a being with a self made soul” (28)), it is said that “Romanticism is non-existent in today’s literature” (66), which bears “the crushing weight of the philosophical wreckage under which generations have been brought up--a wreckage dominated by the doctrines of irrationalism and determinism” (66-67). So: strike determinist doctrine, and all that’s left is indeterminism--causelessness.

Even though romanticists of the 19th century were great individualists, “they were for the most part anti-Aristotelian and leaning toward a kind of wild, free-wheeling mysticism” (68). They “predominantly were enemies of capitalism” (70)--but nevertheless are “champions of volition” (id.)--how’s that work, when volition and capitalism are otherwise equated? Her local commentary on particular works and writers is extremely jaundiced: Tolstoy is “evil” (43); Wells, Verne, & Lewis are “unconvincing” (74); Dracula and Frankenstein belong to “psychopathology more than to esthetics” (78); Shakespeare is the father of the thesis that “man does not possess volition” (80-81), seemingly because he deployed (Aristotelian!) concepts of hamartia, which Rand does not seem to understand, even though she affirms Aristotle otherwise. Overall, romanticism is good because romanticist authors “owe no allegiance to men (only to man)”--Rand’s odd idealist collectivism of humanity (82-83).

Naturalists are death-choosers because they represent “misery, poverty, the slums, the lower classes”--”mediocrity” (90). Modern literature is worse, representing criminals and marginals: “The hopeless love of a bearded lady for a mongoloid pinhead [!]” (id.).

Some unintentional comedy in the pronouncement that “I am referring here to romantic love, in the serious meaning of that term--as distinguished from the superficial infatuations of those whose sense of life is devoid of any consistent values” (32), which is merely the most polite way that she phrases this asinine distinction between “romantic love” and “superficial infatuation,” to which one must respond, “Are you a virgin, or something?”

Even though it is asserted early that “art is not the means to any didactic end” (22), Rand later gets her dogma confused in a nasty contradiction that also reveals the mean-spiritedness of objectivist parenting theory (because they are likely virgins, they probably know nothing of parenting, though, poor things): “Thus the adults--whose foremost moral obligation toward the child, at this stage of his development, is to help him understand that what he loves is an abstraction, to help him break through into the conceptual realm--accomplish the exact opposite. They stunt his conceptual capacity, they cripple his normative abstractions, they stifle his moral ambition” (114). How do these evil altruist-collectivists choose death for their children? “It is easy to convince a child, and particularly an adolescent, that his desire to emulate Buck Rogers is ridiculous” (id.). Seriously? Really? Is this the Colbert Report?

Recommended for dipsomaniacs, drug addicts, sexual perverts, homicidal maniacs, & psychotics, and for bearded ladies in love with mongoloid pinheads.

[BJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ayn Rand should be read by Christians and atheists alike. I wholeheartedly disagree with the end for which she writes--the glory of man--yet find inspiration in much of the means she uses to get there. She despised much of what was called art and literature in her own day, and thus wrote for the purpose of projecting "an ideal man" (162). She will not settle for the ordinary-ness of humanity. She wants to call people up to something great.

As a Christian, I resonate with this. Humanity is not ordinary, and needs to be called up. However, humanity cannot because the image of God, the greatness of man, has been fractured by sinfulness, and only the ideal man--the God-man--Jesus restores man to be all he should be. The glory of man is indeed possible, but only when he reflects the glory of God. Contrarily to Rand, the glory of man is never an end in itself. The end of man, as the Westminster Confession puts it, is to "glorify God and enjoy Him forever."

At times Rand is almost Scougalian, just in the inverse, she writes:
"Just as a man's esthetic preferences are the sum of his metaphysical values and the barometer of his soul..." (128). Henry Scougal, in "The Life of God in the Soul of Man" puts it this way: "The worth and excellency of a soul is to bemmeasured by the object of its love." Both authors know the soul, however, Rand stays inside the soul for the glory of man, and Scougal moves out of the soul for the glory of God; yea, the very indwelling of God in the soul of man.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of Rand's opinions about art I happen to disagree with, but overall her ROMANTIC MANIFESTO is, without a doubt, the most cohesive definition of "good art" that I've ever come across. At times, the fact that THE ROMANTIC MANIFESTO is actually a collection of essays which originally appeared in Rand’s newsletter, THE OBJECTIVIST, over a course of several years makes the book feel a little disjointed, but it certainly holds together a lot better than, say, Tolstoy's "WHAT IS ART?", which I read a couple weeks ago. Rand approaches art from a very elitist and humanistic perspective, and much of the book serves as a pointed critique of the modern trend toward "Naturalism" in art. Rand argues that the ideals of the Romantic Era resulted in bringing about the pinnacles of human artistic achievement (such as in the work of Victor Hugo, among others), and that the incremental advances of Naturalism in the arts has only served to dilute the quality of art in the modern age. Rand wraps up the book with a very nice short story about an author who, possessing too much in the way of artistic integrity, finds himself incapable of writing popular fiction.

[Jenna · Rating 5 out of 5]

My third most favorite book of Ms. Ayn Rand " The Romantic Manifesto"(Esthetics), it's the pillar of her foundation, and so was her Epistemology. Once, you read this book the way you look arts will change. Arts become meaningful especially of undestanding "Romanticism" and realize how arts relates the world around you.

Romanticism---is a category of art based on the recognition of the principle that man possesses the faculty of volition. It deals, not with the random trivia of the day, but with the timeless, fundamental, universal problems and values of human existence. It does not record or photograph; it creates and projects. ~Ayn Rand~

As Ms.Rand said, the course of mankinds progress is not a straight automatic line, but a tortuous struggle, with long detours or relapses into stagnant night of the irrational. Mankind moves forward by the grace of those human bridges who are able to grasp and transmit, across years of centuries, the achievements men had reached and to carry them further.

As for the present I am not willing to surrender the world to the jerky contortions of self-inducedly brainless bodies with empty eye sockets, who perform, in stinking basements, the immemorial rituals of staving off terror, which are a dime a dozen in any jungle and to the quavering witch doctors who call it "art".

Our day has no art and no future. The future, in the context of progress, is a door open only to those who do not renounce their conceptual faculty ; it is not open to mystic, hippies, drug addicts, tribal ritualist or to anyone who reduces himself to a subanimal, subperceptual, sensory level of awareness.

Will we see an esthetic Renaissance in our time? I don not know. What I do know is this: anyone who fights for the future, lives in it today.....Ayn Rand.

[Kishore · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I could give this more than 5 stars - or just re-evaluate everything else I've read, such are the standards set by Ayn Rand.
The theme of the book is the importance of art in man's life, but to me it was more on the lines of "the meaning of life". There are several questions I have hopelessly grappled with throughout life, apart from these rare moments when an artist comes along and...it all just makes sense, which for me is a profoundly rare and exultant feeling. Ayn Rand is one of those artists, and now I know Damien Chazelle is another for making Whiplash and La La Land. They represent and celebrate the glory of Man's excellence.

Of course, I do not expect many readers to share her refreshingly honest views on what counts as art. Be advised that this is a perfectly sensible book, and forget whatever vague notions are nowadays associated to art.

To quote a line from the preface: "Those who feel that art is outside the province of reason would be well advised to leave this book alone: it is not for them."
Not only is this is one of the best books I've ever read, but I know it will prove to be one of the most defining ones in my life.

[Chris Dietzel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This started off rough, with the first two essays falling completely flat. But it picks up after that and becomes typical Rand (compelling and easy to read). I don't always agree with a lot of what Rand says but I always enjoy reading about her philosophy on things.

In this one, she combines a series of previously published essays relating to her idea of what romanticism as an artistic movement means to her. One of the most interesting parts for me were her thoughts on which authors she loves (Victor Hugo, Dostoevsky, Wolfe, Sinclair Lewis) and which she detests (Tolstoy, Balzac, Spillane) and why.

[Deb Seksay · Rating 5 out of 5]

In a word, for me, phenomenal. A short book on what I love about art, music, and literature, and what I hate about most of the reading, art, and music that people recommend to me. I do not believe that my life is meant to be full of suffering: I've done that part already, and I'm watching people older than me letting life happen to them as opposed to engaging or participating therein. This is a handy little ho- to guide for identifying people that will violently object to morality or naming their values (can't find them), and why they make you crazy. I wish I had read this sooner, like while I was languishing through art school having every crap-tastic parrot-a-modern-artist pseudo aesthetic hoop placed in front of me to jump through? Craft? Why would you have good craft? What if you want people to understand that your art should feel like random paint on cardboard run over by a car? Like the torture of humanity? BECAUSE I DON'T THINK IT IS HEALTHY FOR PEOPLE TO WANT TO STAY THERE!! I do art as an expression of my pleasure and to give my values, morals, and dreams a shape that I can show to people and be understood. What kind of masochist wants to go on wallowing their life away in suffering, and more importantly, why haven't people asked this sooner?!

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is probably may favorite of all of Ayn Rand's nonfiction works, because despite her rationality and intellectuality, she deals here with esthetics or art, and in my view the fundamental source of that is creativity itself, a process which she treats quite well from a disciplined intellectual perspective but whose source I think might remain unable to be pinned down by the intellect, much as the mind itself might remain ultimately non-graspable by the intellect. I came away from this book especially remembering her explanation that man needs art as a concrete expression of his highest goals and deepest yearnings of his spirit (Rand equates spirit with mind); she says that in contemplating a work of art that speaks to him, a man takes a brief rest from his nearly endless toiling at the task of actually making his ideals take form in his life, through his own hard work.

[Yogeeswar · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are two aspects of man’s existence which are the special province and expression of his sense of life: love and art.

Reading this book made me think and I was glad to realize that, I would support a Romantic over a Naturalist or a Classicist. Rand, for me is one of those authors, to whom I would nod yes to all of her opinions. It is her conscious reasoning that makes her the best. For example, her articulate ability to denounce photography as an art of any kind makes me angry and love her at the same time.

[Shikha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before writing this review, I have (probably for the first time) read through many reviews. The only reason being, I am very curious on various takes of readers on this book. When I read this book again after a few years, I am sure my takeaway would be divergent from what I interpret today; and that’s the beauty of this book. Strong argument about how Rand understands truth of art and its relationship with human life, makes you question and reexamine many of your beliefs. The collection of essays in this book does not only hold true for various art movements and theories discussed, but also equate you with your emotional and intelligence quotients. This is definitely one of the most influential books I have read.

Here are a couple of reviews, which I think does justice to the book:

1) From “Soul of Atlas” –
“In this beautifully written and brilliantly reasoned book, Ayn Rand throws a new light on the nature of art and its purpose in human life. Once again Ayn Rand eloquently demonstrates her refusal to let popular catchwords and conventional ideas stand between her and the truth as she has discovered it. The Romantic Manifesto takes its place beside The Fountainhead as one of the most important achievements of our time.”

2) From Wikipedia –
“At the base of her argument, Rand asserts that one cannot create art without infusing a given work with one’s own value judgments and personal philosophy. Even if the artist attempts to withhold moral overtones, the work becomes tinged with a deterministic or naturalistic message. The next logical step of Rand’s argument is that the audience of any particular work cannot help but come away with some sense of a philosophical message, colored by his or her own personal values, ingrained into their psyche by whatever degree of emotional impact the work holds for them.”

3) From Kirkus Reviews –
“These are articles from Miss Rand's publication, The Objectivist (cf. earlier political essays from the same provenance - Capitalism: also, The Virtue of Selfishness) and once again there are the same deep contralto pronunciamentos. "One does not have to agree with an artist (nor even to enjoy him) in order to evaluate his work. In essence, an objective evaluation requires that one identify the artist's theme." True enough, but this is very difficult to do when, in the early chapters, Miss Rand is writing on the "Psycho-Epistemology of Art" or "Art and Sense of Life" ("A sense of life is a pre-conceptual equivalent of metaphysics, an emotional, subconsciously integrated appraisal of man and of existence."). If she lost you there, you'll find her only too easy to follow when writing about romanticism, romantic art, and the basic principles of literature. Miss Rand dislikes the contemporary "cultural sewer"; also the "unsanitary backyard" of Tolstoy; and firmly admires Victor Hugo, Mickey Spillane and Ian Fleming. She also returns again and again to The Fountainhead of her original beliefs in the "ideal man" reprinting scenes and excerpts thereof, along with the one negligible short story or sense?”

[Buck Wilde · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sweet Aynnie in full force. Not big into pulling punches, this one. I walked in expecting it to be a defense of actual Romanticism. In parts, it was, but most of it was a scathing critique of contemporary art and literature, working her way around to her favorite, constant implication: "Ya'll are inauthentic, and you sound like a bunch of pussies."

The first third of the book was spectacular. I was highlighting every other page or so. The second third of the book is a veneration of Victor Hugo so thorough, conscientious, and soaking wet that it belongs on Pornhub. The last was a return to stated Objectivist philosophy, and an incredible short story where a writer tries to talk himself into writing a trite, subpar story so he can pay the rent, rather than the excellent (and notably Randian) story that he wants to write and no one will care about.

I liked how she defined art, since no one else will. "Art is a concretization of metaphysics. Art brings man's concepts to the perceptual level of his consciousness and allows him to grasp them directly, as if they were precepts." Nice.

One of my favorite parts was when she used classical Greek and middle ages statuary as allegories for man's cultural self-perception. The Greek statues were heroes and gods, because they believed that men were, deep down, too. The middle ages offers agony and horror because that's what they thought lied within. Athena approves.

And then she figured out why I hate shitty experimental twanging:
"A man with an active mind regards mental effort as an exciting challenge; metaphysically, he seeks intelligibility. He will enjoy the music that requires a process of complex calculations and successful resolution. He will be bored by too easy a process of integration, like an expert in higher mathematics who is put to the task of solving problems in kindergarten arithmetic. He will feel a mixture of boredom and resentment when he hears a series of random bits with which his mind can do nothing. He will feel anger, revulsion and rebellion against the process of hearing jumbled musical sounds; he will experience it as an attempt to destroy the integrating capacity of his mind."
Yeah, so when you crank your reverb up all the way and play your atonal little non-scales? I'm standing there with a bass, trying not to do the same thing? You're personally insulting me. Fuck you.

Appetite whetted, she gouges further into hipsters:
"Color as such (and its physical causes) is not an entity, but an attribute of entities and cannot exist by itself.

This fact is ignored by the men who make pretentious attempts to create "a new art" in the form of "color symphonies" which consists in projecting moving blobs of color on a screen. This produces nothing, in a viewer's consciousness, but the boredom of being unemployed."

Devastating! It doesn't even apply to me, and I was reeling from the impact. And then... and THEN!

"Something glued on a flat surface" is not a definition of any art. There is no art that uses glue as a medium. Blades of grass glued on a sheet of paper to represent grass might be good occupational therapy for retarded children -- though I doubt it -- but it is not art."

Savage.

It is in the chapter The Goal of My Writing that Ayn Rand rails against any kind of art that is not hero worship, which made me feel uncertain. I was in agreement with her for most of the book, but I don't think it's a personal or moral failing to occasionally want to consume grey vs grey art. I get how big she is into the dichotomous good and evil, but I'm shot through with too much existentialism (which she also hates, because she hates most things). It isn't light and shadow for me, and while I can appreciate a lot of stories where it is, I like the diversity of antiheroes fighting without a lofty value. Variety is the spice of life, after all.

In her own words, "It is a significant commentary on the present state of our culture that I have become the object of hatred, smears, denunciations, because I am famous as virtually the only novelist who has declared that her soul is not a sewer, and neither are the souls of her characters, and neither is the soul of man."

Well, yeah. It's your arrogance that academia hates you for. Also, your pronounced lack of communist intent. I found that sweet Aynnie is reviled by everyone in college, but almost none of them have read any. It's a pop culture trope not to like her. Which, I mean, she would absolutely love.

Let's wrap this up with the strongest sound bite I found:
"In the privacy of his own soul, nobody identifies himself with the folks next door, unless he has given up."

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was (.) this close to highlighting the whole book. Highly recommended to everyone -no exceptions.


Can not wait to read the author's other work.

[Mirela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Portrayal of art unlike any other. Just as always, clear, purposeful, eloquence that brings light to most complex things in life.

[نوفل عبدالله · Rating 4 out of 5]

Observe that every religion has a mythology—a dramatized concretization of its moral code embodied in the figures of men who are its ultimate product. (The fact that some of these figures are more convincing than others depends on the comparative rationality or irrationality of the moral theory they exemplify.) This does not mean that art is a substitute for philosophical thought: without a conceptual theory of ethics, an artist would not be able successfully to concretize an image of the ideal. But without the assistance of art, ethics remains in the position of theoretical engineering: art is the model-builder.

[Diana · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm sorry!!!! It's too thick of a read for me!!!!!!!! My brain is too tiny for manifestos right now!!!!

[grllopez ~ with freedom and books · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ayn Rand was born too late. In TRM she declared the Romantic period or art (art, music, literature, and performance) a time when man was moving in the right direction. When literature and art portrayed man as capable of greatness. Her complaint: Naturalism killed Romanticism, treating man like a prisoner of his environment, unable to excel. As she feared, man has never escaped the mire of Naturalism; it has only gotten worse.

[Scott Forbes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite book, with the possible exception of Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil. It is Ayn Rand's esthetics book. It is extremely lucid and direct. There are no questions as to where Ayn Rand stands. She is brilliant and at times very poetic. She interrupts your life to give out a free course in how to think like an artist or philosopher concerning not beauty or art proper, but why there has been a decline and her solution. She prescribes, as is standard with Rand, objectivism. In my limited understanding, objectivism is basically Nietzsche's egoism refined somewhat. There is an underlying esthetic to objectivism, that of rationalism, of a certain flavor. She says that no one should be coerced to do anything that they don't have a reason to do before, so there is no doubt about motive or agenda, and so people avoid the plague of emotive responses which are too predictable and ineffective. She prescribes selfishness of the good kind, the kind that she prescribes as a cultural antidote to the common selflessness that is the ideal of the person who is unsuccessful at achieving his goals. She is opposed to altruism as some kind of not-so-well thought type of category mistake. She think selfishness has a reason at least that is morally good and superior to any other. There is lots more and I'm still reading it as far as chapter 2 goes. I highly recommend this book if you want to make it as an artist of any kind. It contains a very thought-provoking defense of art in the romantic vein (which is very forgiving, actually, considering what she finds abhorrent about the trends of the 20th century.)

[John Reis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found a first edition in a bookstore near Carolyn’s and started it right away. I kept at it until I was finished. She has a great deal of insight into the nature and purpose of art. She also offers a great deal of wisdom on psychological matters here.

“Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist’s metaphysical value-judgments.”

“Out of the countless number of concretes—of single, disorganized and (seemingly) contradictory attributes, actions and entities—an artist isolates the things which he regards as metaphysically essential and integrates them into a single new concrete that represents an embodied abstraction.”

“Art is a concretization of metaphysics. Art brings man’s concepts to the perceptual level of his consciousness and allows him to grasp them directly, as if they were percepts.”

“…a confirmation of his view of existence…”

“Art gives him that fuel; the pleasure of contemplating the objectified reality of one’s own sense of life is the pleasure of feeling what it would be like to live in one’s ideal world.”

“As a re-creation of reality, a work of art has to be representational; its freedom of stylization is limited by the requirement of intelligibility; if it does not present an intelligible subject, it ceases to be art.”

[Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another serving of Ayn Rand's genius, her treatise on the philosophy of art forced me to think about art in ways I had not before. It asked me to define what art is--what it does. Like Francis Schaefer, Rand sees the connection between the art a culture produces and that culture's philosophical outlook. Rand is concerned with ethics and how art reveals one's view of humankind (a high view or a low view). Her premise is found in her (apt, I believe) definition of art as "a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments" or sense of life (8). One's "sense of life" is "an emotional, subconsciously integrated appraisal of man and of existence" or "the integrated sum of a man's basic values" (14, 18) and it is the wellspring of the kind of work an artist will create or how humankind will be represented in that art. In contrasting the opposing senses of life that found naturalist and romantic art, she makes a case for romanticism that is exalting, inspiring, and invigorating. It makes you feel human, in the best sense of humanness. Rand wants us to aspire to greatness rather than wallow in mediocrity. For being an atheist, she holds a high view of the creative power and potential of man, the creative image bearer of the original Creator.

[Kay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Full disclosure -- I read a lot of Ayn Rand when I was about sixteen or seventeen. It's appealing at around that age. Now I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole! I'm giving it three stars (rather than one) for how I (apparently) felt about it back then.

The same applies to Thomas Wolfe, but I still retain a fondness for him even if I can't manage to get through any of his books anymore. Oh, and Hermann Hesse. I read a lot of Hesse, but the only one I was even remotely tempted to reread was The Glass Bead Game.

All these backward glances are certainly instructional. The thing that most strikes me is that when I was younger I looked to books to find the answers. Not that I really found them, mind you, but I was looking.

Now I look to books for comfort, companionship, and entertainment. There are, too, the moments of revelation, but they are unexpected bonuses. Now more things revealed to me when I write than when I read.

Interesting. Or sad, maybe, depending on your viewpoint.

[August V · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of her non-fiction, this one on esthetics/literature is her most well organized, not including For The New Intellectual which was mostly one (brilliant) essay. The only fault in her presentation is that it is a collection of essays, as opposed to a book to present the subject. If it were begun as a book I think the presentation would have been better.

Still, she presented her view on esthetics of literature fully, and to my knowledge is the only philosopher to have discovered the basis for such an existent as "art" and to have established both its basis in human existence and for a future objective criteria of judgement.

[Otto Lehto · Rating 3 out of 5]

The followers of Ayn Rand are liable to think that The Romantic Manifesto is a supreme expression of artistic integrity. In one sense, this is true. It is certainly a forceful expression of Rand's strongly held views. Unfortunately, although the book has some merits, many of its author's views are either bad or silly, and the end result is not a very good manifesto. Actually, it's worse than bad - it's mediocre. And I agree with Rand on one thing: mediocrity is the enemy of goodness. The problem is that Ayn Rand's aesthetic ideals, while inspirational, oscillate between the bland and cartoonish (or "Manichean" if you want to give her a more theological rebuke) and the downright nasty and misanthropic. The philosophical content of the book is mostly recycled from her other essays and it ties together her views on ontology, epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics. She has a knack for expressing things clearly - and always with passion - in a way that few philosophers do. But it is often a case of style over substance. Her theory of how the human mind works (and how it ought to work), as passion enslaved to reason, is rather strange and unscientific. In ethics, she famously thinks that human beings who show too much tolerance or compassion towards weakness are bad people. This cold and brutal attitude also bears on her aesthetic views. While Rand rejects the collectivism and mysticism of fascism, she actually shares its hero worship, the need to despise weakness, and the undying hatred of degenerate art and degenerate people.

In art, she despises two major currents that she thinks reflect the bad morality and bad epistemology of their creators: 1) All conceptual and abstract art, from painting to music, which she condemns as confused, chaotic, undisciplined, and destructive. She loves to hate on "noise" masquerading as music and all forms of non-representative painting which she dismisses as meaningless blotches on a canvas. 2) All art that depicts unglamorous people, poor and weak people, people with deformities or diseases, and people with cold sores on their lips (I kid you not!). Instead of celebrating the creative potential of experimental and innovative methods, she thinks art should focus on (and anyway necessarily reflects) the conscious illustration of rationally and morally sound philosophical principles and, most interestingly, the underlying "sense of life" of their creators. In literature, this entails her obsessive focus on plot-driven narrative, minimal structural experimentation, and well-developed main characters. She loves the 19th century novel form. But contrary to many of the great 19th century novelists whom she likes, instead of showcasing the fragility of humanity, the ambiguity of experience, Rand believes that literature should concern itself with depicting the heroic and the aspirational. Even good people supposedly need a "resting place" in their life where they can experience what it means to live up to one's highest standards. This kind of idealism and Romanticism certainly underlies her own novels. Reading these essays helps to better explain the inspirational quality to some of her novels and essays. Heroism appeals to ambitious and especially young people looking for ideas to live and die for.

Overall, I have mixed feelings about the book. The Romantic Manifesto is the celebration of what Mr. Rand calls "the sense of life." It celebrates the heroic individual and the power of the rational mind to shape and conquer the world. This remains an important message that people need to hear. The book also contains some beautiful and impassioned passages since Rand is a pretty good writer at times. The cherry on top is the wonderful chapter-length celebration of Victor Hugo. However, at the same time, the book spends too much time needlessly trashing other artists and philosophers, most of whom she dismisses with very minimal engagement or evidence, and many of whom it seems to me she has either misunderstood or misread. While the Romantic Manifesto provides one plausible window into what creates good or at least inspirational storytelling and dialogue, it exudes the intolerance and philistinism of its author. Rand thinks that there is only one acceptable way of doing art and she just happens to be in the possession of the method to it. The book also reflects a failure to understand human motivation or the full creative potential of the human mind. It completely fails to see the social contribution of people to engage in experimental lifestyles (hippies), experimental philosophies (mystics), and experimental methods (abstract expressionists). It therefore fails as a general aesthetic or sociological theory of the nature of art as a social and psychological phenomenon. It reflects, in short, a stunted and uninspired worldview.

One final word. I have been quite harsh towards the book - and, I think justifiably so, based on its weak philosophical and aesthetic merits. But I love something about it. I love Rand's "sense of life." And I love her desire to not give up on the human species. I love that she celebrates greatness and achievement and is ready to defend it against people who wallow in mediocrity, stagnation, and underachievement. If only she would harbour a bit more love and compassion towards her fellows humans, her unique talents could better be used to inspire a healthy love of human greatness.

[Pablo Padilla · Rating 5 out of 5]

What I enjoyed the most from this book was reading the section about how love is not an altruistic but in the contrary, an exchange of values. Ayn Rand has the capacity to weave words with such supreme aggressive-delicacy, that her message is delivered in a most relentless-passionate way. A must-read from Rand's collection.

[Haider Al-Mosawi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A valuable (introductory) book to better understand the philosophy of art, and the Romantic view in art (as opposed to the Naturalist view).

There are some great insights about the elements of a good story, and why art plays an important role in human life.

[Anuj Sethi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Romantic Manifesto is an essential read to understand what is Art, how it plays on our consciousness(mind) and why it is important to man. Further to that it is an exposition of Romanticism as opposed to Naturalism.

If you want to find out what really is the best type of art -- read the book.

[Angela Clayton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Only for die hard Ayn Rand fans.

[Jesse Hackey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am dedicated to the extrapolation and dissemination of the ideas in this book.

[Molly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rand's arguments are thoughtful and well-reasoned. Art should raise the human spirit!