Skip to content

WA2. Charles Simic

Statement

Please look briefly at each and pick the one that will give you the most rewarding experience to learn more about.

  • Auguste Comte (1798-1857) French
  • Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) German
  • John Scotus Erigena (810-877) Irish
  • Thich Nhat Hanh (1926 – 2022) Vietnamese
  • Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) U.S. President
  • Charles Simic (1938 – present) Yugoslavia

In the paper, identify your Philosopher of choice and give a short biographical paragraph describing him, another paragraph (or two) for the era and culture within which they were influenced, and a third introductory topic paragraph (or two) about the reason you selected him

From there:

  • Describe their Metaphysical challenge
  • Give several examples of their view
  • Close with your opinion about this view
    • Why is it still something the modern student of philosophy would be compelled to study?
    • Give a personal reaction, your personal opinion based on your own background and culture, about the metaphysical discourse offered by your selected scholar

Answer

The text chose Charles Simic as the philosopher of choice.

Charles Simic is a widely recognized poet, his poetry won numerous awards. He wrote mainly in English; but also published many translations of French, Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian, and Slovenian poetry. He was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in 1938, and experienced the honors of the second world war as a child. He then moved to the United States; and published his first book in the early 1960s (UNH Library, 2008).

Most of his poetry paints dark pictures of the world, as his childhood experiences and memories are greatly reflected in his work. He had to watch his city get bombed multiple times; he and his family were forcibly displaced multiple times between Yugoslavia, Italy, France, and then the United States where he settled; continued his education and started his career as an English teacher and creative writer (UNH Library, 2008).

I chose Charles Simic because I am personally interested in stories from the Second World War, and how people managed to survive physically and mentally, as we see mental health issues are of huge concern today during peacetime; I always wonder about the state of mental health during the second world war.

Metaphysics, or beyond physics, is the branch of physics that studies existence; it is a wide branch that deals with existence, modality, identity, time and space, cause and effect, free will, and determinism (Carneades.org, 2015). Simic approach to metaphysics is through realism in his poetry; he mixes time and space (existence) with his humanity (personal identity) to create a full image that reflects his view of the world (EduBirdie, 2022).

An example of his views comes from his poem of 2000: “A Fly in the Soup” where he described the world during the war: “…we were all inmates in a nut house. Events like this confirmed what he already suspected. In the meantime, there were the night scents of a country garden in full bloom, the stars in the sky, the silence of a small village” (Harp, 2004). The sentence reflects the reality of the war where participating is madness, but despite that, there is little room for beauty and peace.

Another example comes from the 2003 poem “The Voice at 3:00 A.M.”; where he says: “Since man naturally desires happiness, According to St. Thomas Aquinas, Who gave irrefutable proof of God’s existence and purpose, I loaded trucks in the Garment Center. A black man and I stole a woman’s red dress”. The sentence reflects his metaphysical belief in God’s existence (Harp, 2004).

Another example comes from the 2003 poem “The Voice at 3:00 A.M.”; where he says: “Wore part of my destiny like a carnival mask. I’m Bartleby the Scrivener, I told the Italian waiter. Me, too, he replied. And I could see nothing but overflowing ashtrays The human-faced flies were busy examining”. The metaphor of human-faced flies is a reflection of his metaphysical belief in the existence of the human soul (Harp, 2004).

The modern student of philosophy would be compelled to study Simic’s metaphysical discourse because it is a good example of a philosophy that was famous in the previous century, but it is fading slowly as people, more and more, turn back to science to explain the world and get answers, or close answers, to their metaphysical questions (Oxford, 2013).

I personally believe in God; thus, I don’t think that a thinker should invent a metaphysical belief, but rather explain or simplify existing beliefs and make them more accessible to a larger portion of the population. I think that Simic’s metaphysical discourse is a good example of how a person would present his suffering and beliefs in a way that more people can truly feel and understand.

References

‌