Abstract:

Dialogues in Limbo by George Santayana is corrective, dialogical and inheriting as well. Though with rich and deep implications, this work has seldom been studied by researchers home and abroad. By associating it with The Life of Reason in five volumes, the best-known work of Santayana across the world written in his middle age, and the ancient Greek sources of thoughts that Santayana was indebted to, this paper points out that The Life of Reason, which eulogizes reason as the basis of anything good in life, could not best represent Santayana’s final idea of reason, because in Dialogues in Limbo the author questions and corrects his former understanding of reason. Dialogues in Limbo is in fact a criticism of absolute reason. Besides, transforming himself and those ancient Greek philosophers, especially Democritus, Socrates and Aristotle, into literary interlocutors, Santayana at the same time conducts a trans-temporal dialogue about reason in Dialogues in Limbo with these giants. What is more, judging by the choice of the setting, the atmosphere and the characterizations in this work, Santayana is a conscious imitator and inheritor of Lucian, the great Roman writer who, with his Dialogues of Dead, established a sub-tradition of the literary dialogues of the West. Though Santayana never mentions Lucian in this book or elsewhere, the latter’s influence upon the former could not be denied. This study not only examines the ignored academic value of Dialogues in Limbo, but to some extent enriches the existing scholarship about George Santayana and the tradition of literary dialogues of the West.

Keywords: Santayana; Dialogues in Limbo; reason; Lucian; Dialogues of the Dead

摘要：

乔治·桑塔亚纳的《冥府对话》是一部集修正性、对话性和继承性于一体的对话体作品。它寓意深刻,却少被关注。本文将其与桑塔亚纳曾享誉世界的《理性生活》以及影响桑塔亚纳思想和创作的古代源流加以联系,分析发现,《理性生活》不能代表桑塔亚纳最终的理性认知,因为《冥府对话》是对《理性生活》的反思和修正。同时,通过将自身和古代先贤巧妙融入对话角色,《冥府对话》也是桑塔亚纳与先贤们就理性问题展开的跨时代对话。本研究试图挖掘出《冥府对话》被人忽略的学术价值,以期丰富对桑塔亚纳乃至西方对话体文学的认知。

关键词: 桑塔亚纳, 《冥府对话》, 理性, 卢奇安, 《死者对话》