George Santayana's Poetic Practice of Naturalistic Philosophy

Foreign Literature Studies ›› 2020, Vol. 42 ›› Issue (4): 149-160.

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George Santayana's Poetic Practice of Naturalistic Philosophy

Xie Minmin

Online:2020-08-25 Published:2021-02-25
About author:Xie Minmin is a doctoral student of British and American Literature at the School of Foreign Languages and a teacher at the Research Institute of Languages and Cultures, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, China (410081). His research is mainly focused on English and American literature. Email: minshinedream@163.com
Supported by:
Research on American Literary Thought in the Twentieth Century”(14JD41) sponsored by the major project of The National Social Science Fund of China; “Research on American Novelists' Literary Thoughts from the 1920s to 1940s” (14ZDB088) sponsored by Hunan Social Science Fund Project

Abstract

Abstract: George Santayana had multiple identities as a philosopher, poet, and novelist, who made great achievements in several fields. His system of thought is profound and characterized by diversity and richness. He dedicated himself, all along, to initiating the integration and fusion between poetics and philosophy and made a positive contribution to the development of philosophical poetry. As a proponent of ontological naturalism, Santayana regarded nature as the fundamental source of knowledge and the starting point of thinking, opposed the supremacy of human authority over nature, and dismissed the verifiability of supernatural entities. In the meantime, Santayana's poetics exhibits a reconciliation between experience and reason, which not only endows his poetry with a stable emotional framework and deep implication, but also effectively prevents it from going to the extremes of empiricism and rationalism. During the transitional period from the 19^th century to the 20^th century, Santayana's poetic practice of naturalistic philosophy brought some fresh air to the dreary environment of poetic writing and philosophical atmosphere at that time.

Key words: Santayana, poetic philosophy, naturalism, experience, reason

Xie Minmin. George Santayana's Poetic Practice of Naturalistic Philosophy[J]. Foreign Literature Studies, 2020, 42(4): 149-160.

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George Santayana's Poetic Practice of Naturalistic Philosophy

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