Читать книгу Recently Discovered Letters of George Santayana. Cartas recién descubiertas de George Santayana онлайн

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If the reading of this constellation of letters is stimulating for many reasons, the account of their discovery in the “Introduction” by Daniel Pinkas is fascinating. Daniel Pinkas is not only a most attentive and insightful reader of Santayana but an internationally renowned researcher who has devoted a significant part of his scholarly interests to the analysis and interpretation of the philosopher’s work.

Pinkas’ recent discovery of these letters, now published for the first time in English and in Spanish, is a testimony to his dedication and perseverance. As in Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Stolen Letter”, Santayana’s letters can be said to have been there for anyone who wanted to see them. Even if the facts are as Pinkas himself describes them, things are not that simple, and it would be unfair to downplay his astonishing discovery. First, it was necessary to know that these letters existed and to feel intrigued by their absence from the volumes devoted to Santayana’s correspondence in the MIT edition of his collected works. Then, what was also needed was to know how to decipher the signs pointing to the place where they were kept. Daniel Pinkas modestly attributes this wonderful finding to a combination of coincidence and causality, or chance and necessity, which he sums up as a result of serendipity. Even if this were so, it is worth remembering that this fortunate concurrence of events was preceded by much previous research and excellent documentation work, for only with constant and conscious attention is it possible to keep track and establish the right connections, which are the preconditions for being at the right place at the right time.