Kelly
MacPhail
Assistant Professor
University of Minnesota Duluth
University of Minnesota Duluth
Two Cathedrals:
Wallace Stevens and George Santayana's Sonnet Exchange
Wallace Stevens and George Santayana's Sonnet Exchange
The first meeting of Wallace Stevens and Georges Santayana in 1900 produced a fascinating exchange of sonnets arguing for contrasting views regarding the place of organized religion in relation to both the modern world and the natural environment. Stevens, then a young Harvard poet, was gaining a reputation particularly for his sonnets. Santayana, conversely, was the already well-known Spanish-American Catholic philosopher-poet. Following their dinner conversation, Stevens shared one of his sonnets, "Cathedrals are not built along the sea," which argues for the Nietzschean supremacy of nature over religion with the implication that cathedrals must not be built near the sea because religion's shortcomings are made too evident by the comparison. Santayana engaged Stevens' secularism with his own sonnet employing Stevens' exact imagery but insisted that the Church reforms nature to a higher purpose; for instance, stones become a "cross-shaped temple to the Crucified," and wild winds become worshipful organ music. This sonnet exchange represents not only a disagreement between two accomplished poets but their skillful use of the sonnet form as a tool for presenting philosophical and theological arguments. For Santayana, the goal is harmony between God, religion, nature, and humans; for Stevens, there is no God, religion is mistaken and harmful, and nature alone offers healing. Strikingly, the two sonnets differ widely in tone; whereas Santayana maintains an older, more formal style, diction, and worldview, Stevens is already showing his trademark flare for figurative language though words like "jangle" and "gaudy" that mark a freedom not only from traditional poetic strictures but also from patterns of thought that defined both Victorian poetry and religion. For both poets, the American sonnet is not a timeworn tool but rather a flexible instrument for voicing modern concerns with religion, the environment, and poetry's changing role at the turn of the twentieth century.
Kelly MacPhail is an Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota Duluth, where he teaches Philosophy and English literature. His interdisciplinary research focuses on Transatlantic literary modernism, environmental criticism, and belief studies, and he has published on subjects as diverse as animal domestication, Puritan sermons, Classical mythology, and the Western.