Wallace Stevens’ “To an Old Philosopher in Rome,” a meditative eulogy on the last phase of the life of George Santayana, has often been regarded and extolled as one of his best last poems. Based on Edmund Wilson’s article on his visit to the old philosopher in Rome in 1945, it places the focus on the philosopher’s attitude toward death and the significance of his life. Indeed, Stevens’ meditation on the old philosopher’s achievement even at the end of his secluded life served well to the poet in his seventies as an invaluable opportunity to look back on his own life both as a man and as a poet. However, Stevens’ sympathetic reflections on Santayana’s life and work are rendered with his peculiar complex rhetoric and presented in his apparently obscure atmosphere produced by the repetitions and variations of abstract words and phrases. The aim of this paper is to uncover the depth and the wealth of Stevens’ moving reflections in the poem by paying attention to some essential intertexts and examining its thematic and structural aspects.
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