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George Santayana
(December 16, 1863 - September 26, 1952) Spain - U.S.A.

George Santayana

Philosopher

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Born in Spain, he was christened Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás. He was brought to the US in 1872 he was reared in Boston, studied and graduated from Harvard, where he taught the history of philosophy (1889 -1912). After 1914 he made his home in Europe, first in France and England, and thereafter in Italy.

Some scholars say that Santayana was an active homosexual, based on allusions in Santayana's early poetry and Santayana's association with known homosexual and bisexual friends. Santayana provides no clear indication of his sexual preferences, and he never married. Attraction to both women and men seems apparent in his undergraduate and graduate correspondence.

The one documented comment about his homosexuality occurs when he was sixty-five. After a discussion of A. E. Housman's poetry and homosexuality, Santayana remarked, "I think I must have been that way in my Harvard days - although I was unconscious of it at the time" (Cory, Santayana: The Later Years, 40). Because of Santayana's well-known frankness, many scholars consider Santayana a latent homosexual based on this evidence.

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Photo source: http://members.aol.com/santayana/

His works include:

  • Sonnets and Other Verses (1894)
  • The Sense of Beauty (1896)
  • A hermit of Carmel (1901)
  • The Life of Reason (5 vol. 1905-6)
  • The Realm of Truth (1937)
  • Background of My Life (1945)
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