Platonists, Poets, and the God's-Eye View: Reading Santayana's "On the Death of a Metaphysician"

Douglas McDermid, Trent University

Let us add that there is an old quarrel between philosophy and
poetry.
—Plato

We cannot rise above ourselves unless a superior power raise us.
—St. Bonaventure

Not finitude, but the denial of finitude, is the mark of tragedy.
—Stanley Cavell

1.0 Introduction: Philosophy and Poetry

I AM NO EXCEPTION. Like many another philosopher with "an appetite for poetry," I am keenly aware of the ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry—a quarrel grown old, we are told, by Plato's day—and Socrates' most caustic remarks about poetry's interpreters leave me feeling stung and vaguely ashamed. Thus it is with a double dose of anxiety and trepidation (if not with actual fear and trembling) that I propose here not only to analyze a poem but also to present it as a provocative indictment of Platonism and the Platonist critique of poetry.