In her ethics Ayn Rand extolled the virtue of selfishness—and in her theory of art she was no less radical. Piercing the fog of mysticism and sentimentality that engulfs art, the essays in The Romantic Manifesto explain why, since time immemorial, man has created and consumed works of art. Ayn Rand argues that objective standards in art are possible because art is not a subjective luxury, but rather a critical need of human life—not a material need, but a need of man’s rational mind, the faculty on which his material survival depends. Ayn Rand explains the indispensable function of art in man’s life (ch. 1), the objective source of man’s deeply personal, emotional response to art (ch. 2), and how an artist’s fundamental, often unstated view of man and of the world shapes his creations (ch. 3). Turning to her own field of artistic creation, Rand elaborates (ch. 5) on her distinctive theory of literature and identifies principles by which to judge an artwork objectively. “What is Romanticism?” (ch. 6) sheds new light on the nature and philosophy of the school of literature under which Rand classified her own work. Later essays explain how contemporary art reveals the debased intellectual state of our culture (ch. 7, 8 and 9). In the final essay Rand articulates the goal of her own fiction writing as “the projection of an ideal man, as an end in itself”—and explains that she originated her philosophy as a means to this end. Table of Contents Introduction The Psycho-Epistemology of Art Philosophy and Sense of Life Art and Sense of Life Art and Cognition Basic Principles of Literature What Is Romanticism? The Esthetic Vacuum of Our Age Bootleg Romanticism Art and Moral Treason Introduction to Ninety-Three The Goal of My Writing The Simplest Thing in the World Index
Author
Polemical novels, such as The Fountainhead (1943), of primarily known Russian-born American writer Ayn Rand, originally Alisa Rosenbaum, espouse the doctrines of objectivism and political libertarianism. Alisa Rosenbaum entered into a prosperous Jewish family before Russian revolution. When the Bolsheviks requisitioned the pharmacy that Fronz Rosenbaum, her father, owned, the family fled to the Crimea. Alisa returned to the city, renamed Leningrad, to attend the university, but relatives already settled in America and in 1926 offered her the chance of joining them. With money from the sale of jewelry of her mother, Alisa bought a ticket to New York. On arrival at Ellis Island, she changed into Ayn (after a name of some Finnish author, probably "Aino") Rand (a supposed abbreviation of her Russian surname). She moved swiftly to Hollywood, where she learned English, worked in the RKO wardrobe department and as an extra, and wrote through the night on screenplays and novels. Because her original visa as a visitor expired, she also married a "beautiful" bit-part actor, called Frank O'Connor. Rand sold her first screenplay in 1932, but nobody bought We the Living (1936), her first novel and a melodrama, set in Russia. Her first real success was The Fountainhead (rejected by more than ten publishers before publication in 1943). She started a new philosophy, known as objectivism, opposed to state interference of all kinds, and her follow-up novel Atlas Shrugged (1957) describes a group who attempt to escape conspiracy of mediocrity of America. Objectivism has been an influence on various other movements such as Libertarianism, and Rand's vocal support for Laissez-faire Capitalism and the free market has earned her a distinct spot among American philosophers, and philosophers in general.
