Ayn Rand - A False Romantic Essay -- Biography Biographies Essays

Ayn Rand - A False romanticist The quixotic period at its height extended over just a bit more than a century, from the latter half of the eighteenth century through to nearly the end of the nineteenth century. During this period, a new(a) school of poetry was forged, and with it, a new moral philosophy. But, as the nineteenth century wound down, the Romantic driving seemed to be proving itself far more dependent on the specific cultural events it spanned than many believed that is, the movement was beginning to wind down in time with the ebbing of the industrial and urban boom in much the same way that the movement grew out of the initial period of industrial and urban growth. Thus, it would be easy to classify the Romantic movement as inherently tied to its cultural context. The difficulty, then, comes when poets and authors foreign of this time period-and indeed in contexts quite different then those of the original Romantic poets-begin to label themselves as Romantics. The t wentieth century author Ayn Rand, author of whole shebang such as The Fountainhead, Anthem, and Atlas Shrugged, is one such example of a self-labeled Romantic. In 1971 Rand published a collection of essays in a book she call The Romantic Manifesto. This series of essays, with topics ranging from romantic art to the nature of a novel, carefully lays out Rands conception of Romanticism and her place within it. The question one must(prenominal) ask, then, is how does Rand manage to write a work of nearly two hundred pages on the nature of Romanticism without ever once mentioning any of the key Romantic poets Keats, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, and so on. The obvious answer would seem to be that Rands conception of Romanticism must be diametrically opposed to that of... ...us, while one may draw out valuable insights about some of the potential flaws of the Romantics ideals and philosophy through a comparison with Rand, in the end it truly is a comparison of Rand and the Romanti cs, not a comparison of Rand and her fellow Romantics. Works Cited unfold, Harold and Lionel Trilling, eds. Romantic Poetry and Prose. New York Oxford University Press, 1973. Rand, Ayn. Atlas Shrugged. New York Dutton, 1957. Rand, Ayn. The Romantic Manifesto. New York Signet Publishing, 1975. Footnotes 1 Preface to Lyrical Ballad Bloom & Trilling, p. 595 2 Preface Bloom & Trilling, p. 596 3 Biographia Literaria Bloom & Trilling, p. 649 4 A Defence of Poetry Bloom & Trilling, p. 751 5 The Romantic Manifesto Rand, p. 103 6 The Romantic Manifesto Rand, p. 122 7 Atlas Shrugged Rand, p. 282-283 8 Atlas Shrugged Rand, p. 1036