Here in the Online Library we present essays in which Eli Siegel illuminates some of the least understood aspects of people's lives. They include his classic “The Ordinary Doom.” These essays show with great keeness and compassion the logic that underlies our emotions at their best and worst. And there is the humorous essay, "What Is the Best Punctuation for the Self?" as well as essays explaining Aesthetic Realism in brief. We continue to post more.

• The Ordinary Doom

"If we judge from history, we are doomed not to show our feelings; not to have them known. There have been many, many persons who have lived rather long lives, and who have been in many conversations; who yet did not show what was in their minds, what feelings they truly had..." more

• On Aesthetic Realism As New  

"Here are some of the differences between Aesthetic Realism and some of the important presentations of opposites we have had in the past..." more

• 36 Things about America

"An Arithmetical Assemblage of Notations on the Persisting..." more

• Are Feelings Objects? or, The Alienation of Any Time

"It would seem that feelings are objects, for they can be thought about; and, insofar as they can change, they can have something done to them....If we don't want to see our feelings as objects, or can't see them as objects, we are that much alienated..." more

• Shakespeare's Hamlet: Revisited

From The Prologue:

"It is a new Hamlet because it is a Hamlet who does not care for his father entirely. Insufficient care for a father has much to do with what happens in the play, and what doesn't; also with how the play goes on..." more

• Aesthetic Realism Asks Thirty-Five Questions about Mathematics (Reprinted from The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known, no. 605 (7 November 1984)

"In these questions—presented by the founder of Aesthetic Realism in a class on September 1, 1968—is that relation between art and science which men of thought have looked for. We see through these questions that number, calculation, algebra, trigonometry, calculus are about the very lives of people: our tears, our passion, our turmoil...." more

• What Is the Best Punctuation for the Self? (Reprinted from The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known, no. 1616 (16 June 2004)

"There are some editors and a few other people who think that punctuation is important. However that may be, we have found that punctuation is important as to the greatest of all questions: What is the self? what is my self? and what does it have to do with things that don’t seem to be myself—near and ever so far?... more

• Is a Person an Aesthetic Situation?

A Short Explanation Given by Eli Siegel in an Interview with Lewis Nichols of the New York Times Book Review, January 14, 1969... more