In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • The Letters of George Santayana, Book Eight, 1948–1952
  • Frank M. Oppenheim S.J.
The Letters of George Santayana, Book Eight, 1948–1952William G. Holzberger, ed. and introduction. The Works of George Santayana, Vol. 5, ed. William G. Holzberger, Herman J. Saatkamp, Jr., and Marianne S. Wokeck. Cambridge: MIT P, 2008.

The present volume concludes the eight volumes of The Letters of George Santayana. The Letters lie within the more encompassing series of The Works of George Santayana. Special recognition is due to Daniel Cory, first publisher of Santayana’s letters, and especially to the editors mentioned above. As a “critical edition,” the present volume is a precious gem. Holzberger offers a masterful Introduction of twenty-six pages. I find the text factual and flawless. Its footnotes are richly informative—actually, a survey of the history of culture and philosophy. The nine sections of its Editorial Appendix include a detailed chronology of Santayana’s life and a full, well-planned Index.

The interesting and lengthy section of thirteen pages, listing Santayana’s “Addresses,” might mislead a beginner to think of Santayana as a Euro-American traveler or even a bon vivant. One finds that even during his twenty years at Harvard, Santayana quit Cambridge as soon as possible for a “summer away,” that overall he crossed the Atlantic thirty-eight times, that he often lived in hotels, and that he rarely “settled down.” Yet the more careful reader will notice that at the end of 1893, amid “disconcerting events,” Santayana underwent “a fundamental change of heart, resulting in a renunciation of the world” (562). This metanoia expressed itself in Santayana’s art of philosophizing acutely, creating enduring poetry, exercising a refined courtesy, and becoming a significant literary critic. After 1891, Santayana grew continually in literary and philosophical productivity. Though his Harvard period ended in 1912, his career spanned both World Wars. His writing continued after 1941 when he retired to a nursing home operated by nuns of the Little Company of Mary in Rome. From there he completed his Domination and Powers, created a one-volume compendium of his Life of Reason, and lived in one room—an atheist among nuns, visited by his selected friends—until he died in 1952. [End Page 101]

The reader of this volume can “meet Santayana personally” in his final years—1948–1952—living, suffering, working, and receiving guests—usually affably—in that one room in the nursing home. Through his letters, the real person, Santayana, shares himself and his ideas to more than his addressed recipients, since now we, as “eaves-droppers” listening in, can also be enriched by his self-communication. He “comes across” as consistently courteous and grateful. He points out how his philosophy arises out of “animal faith” from the primal will of nature (276). He espouses nature’s variations but avoids any dualism like that of Plato. In his final years, Santayana prefers to live as a literary critic, poet, and historian “rather than as a philosopher talking about essences” (430). Yet he still communicates his philosophy and its insights, using phrases that strive to be yet clearer and more precise (176–77). For instance, he defines himself as a “hard,” non-modern naturalist, akin to Democritus, Epicurus, and Lucretius (233). Writing in self-descriptive, general terms, Santayana acknowledges: “I have never made efforts” (32), have had “nothing to be anxious about” (179), am “not militant,” and “have a good deal of what is Greek, Catholic, English, and American but without fighting for or against it” (264). Santayana recognized that some of his published expressions stemmed from too much “youthful emotion” and lacked an adequate sympathy with the whole of nature. In this volume he suggests still more accurate ways of stating his philosophy—a practice that may remind the reader of the aged Augustine writing his Retractationes.

After acknowledging that he himself loves and admires Socrates, Santayana offers his blockbusting attack on him and his followers. Santayana judges that Socrates “was the first to deflect criticism and educated opinion from the natural path of experience and reasoning, which we call science, or common sense; [while] Plato and even Aristotle immediately recast all knowledge for posterity...

pdf

Share