Bulletin of the Santayana Society, No. 01 Fall 1983

              Santayana's Idea of the Tragic
For the purposes of this paper on "Santayana's Idea of the Tragic,* I
shall try to maintain a distinction between "tragedy* and "the tragic* as
nouns, and "tragic* as an adjective. Further, I shall apply "tragedy* to the
literary genres of drama and prose fiction, and reserve "the tragic* to
philosophy, while "tragic* as adjective must serve both camps. Such
pedantry as this is made necessary by the flagrant imprecision of the
words "tragic* and "tragedy* in common speech. An example is one Jeff
Sims, a heavyweight boxer in training for a shot at the title despite the
presence in his large body of four bullets. When asked whether all that
lead doesn't bother him, he answered, "My tragedy don't affect me no
more. I got my speed back, and my stamina. I just got to get my balance
together.*1
Through some manner of wild conjunction, Santayana, too, seems at
first glance to use "tragedy* rather like Jeff Sims. At second and third
glance it becomes clear that Santayana has an entire structure of thought
in mind, but one must follow his work chronologically in order to see
that he began with a philosophical approach rooted in psychology, moved
on to a literary approach, then mingled the two approaches in interesting
ways. I hope thus to raise the question whether "tragedy* and "the
tragic* can indeed be separated in order to conform to our current ways
of specialization, and to suggest, in answer, that Santayana not only gave
up the attempt, but also that in doing so he gained enormously both in
philosophical and literary range and depth.
In The Sense of Beauty (1896), with its emphasis on the philosophical,
and Interpretations of Poetry and Religion (1900), with its emphasis on
literature, the discussions of tragedy and the tragic are conventional,
smacking a bit of the academy that Santayana hated. By the time of the
World War I Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies (1914-1921), and
on into the mid-nineteen-thirties, Santayana's set of mind strikes one as
first philosophical and only secondarily literary, although the two ways
cross and re-cross. With The Last Puritan (1935), we find a complex
philosophical hypothesis posited in the selection of the central figures and
in the narrative as a whole. Finally, in his autobiographical writing and
in the correspondence of Santayana's late years, experience, reflection,
knowledge, and humane-ness combine to form him into his own tragic,
yet always ironic, hero; aware and engaged, authentic and rarely brave,
remote from the monk-like recluse of legend. Of course the neat
progression I outline is too neat; of course The Last Puritan was forty
years in the making; nevertheless, gradations in tone and emphasis are
This paper was read to the Santayana Society, Baltimore, December 28, 1982.
1 New York Times, Nov, 27, 1982.
These and other books of Santayana cited below were published in New York by
Scribner's.