Part 1 (1/2)

Three Philosophical Poets.

by George Santayana.

PREFACE

The present volume is composed, with a few additions, of six lectures read at Columbia University in February, 1910, and repeated in April of the same year, at the University of Wisconsin. These lectures, in turn, were based on a regular course which I had been giving for some time at Harvard College. Though produced under such learned auspices, my book can make no great claims to learning. It contains the impressions of an amateur, the appreciations of an ordinary reader, concerning three great writers, two of whom at least might furnish matter enough for the studies of a lifetime, and actually have academies, libraries, and university chairs especially consecrated to their memory. I am no specialist in the study of Lucretius; I am not a Dante scholar nor a Goethe scholar. I can report no facts and propose no hypotheses about these men which are not at hand in their familiar works, or in well-known commentaries upon them. My excuse for writing about them, notwithstanding, is merely the human excuse which every new poet has for writing about the spring. They have attracted me; they have moved me to reflection; they have revealed to me certain aspects of nature and of philosophy which I am prompted by mere sincerity to express, if anybody seems interested or willing to listen. What I can offer the benevolent reader, therefore, is no learned investigation. It is only a piece of literary criticism, together with a first broad lesson in the history of philosophy--and, perhaps, in philosophy itself.

G.S.

_Harvard College_

_June, 1910_

CONTENTS

I

INTRODUCTION

_Lucretius, Dante, and Goethe sum up the chief phases of European philosophy,--naturalism, supernaturalism, and romanticism--Ideal relation between philosophy and poetry._

II

LUCRETIUS

_Development of Greek cosmology--Democritus--Epicurean moral sentiment --Changes inspired by it in the system of Democritus--Accidental alliance of materialism with hedonism--Imaginative value of naturalism: The Lucretian Venus, or the propitious movement in nature--The Lucretian Mars, or the destructive movement--Preponderant melancholy, and the reason for it--Materiality of the soul--The fear of death and the fear of life--Lucretius a true poet of nature--Comparison with Sh.e.l.ley and Wordsworth--Things he might have added consistently: Indefeasible worth of his insight and sentiment._

III

DANTE

_Character of Platonism--Its cosmology a parable--Combination of this with Hebraic philosophy of history--Theory of the Papacy and the Empire adopted by Dante--His judgement on Florence--Dante as a lyric poet--Beatrice the woman, the symbol, and the reality--Love, magic, and symbolism const.i.tutive principles of Dante's universe--Idea of the Divine Comedy--The scheme of virtues and vices--Retributive theory of rewards and punishments--Esoteric view of this, which makes even punishment intrinsic to the sins--Examples--Dantesque cosmography--The genius of the poet--His universal scope--His triumphant execution of the Comedy--His defects, in spite of which he remains the type of a supreme poet._

IV

GOETHE'S FAUST _Page_

_The romantic spirit--The ideals of the Renaissance--Expression of both in the legendary Faust--Marlowe's version--Tendency to vindicate Faust--Contrast with Calderon's ”Wonder-working Magician”--The original Faust of Goethe,--universal ambition and eternal dissatisfaction --Modifications--The series of experiments in living--The story of Gretchen fitted in--Goethe's naturalistic theory of life and rejuvenation: Helen--The cla.s.sic manner and the judgement on cla.s.sicism--Faust's last ambition--The conflict over his soul and his ascent to heaven symbolical--Moral of the whole._

V

CONCLUSION

_Comparison of the three poets--Their relative rank--Ideal of a philosophic or comprehensive poet--Untried possibilities of art._

I