Inauguration day: eager imagination

In reading for my orals exam this Fall 2009, I came across a quote from George Santayana that aptly encapsulates some of the ideas swirling through my reading:

"The idea of Christ himself had to be constructed by the imagination in response to moral demands, tradition giving only the barest external points of attachment. The facts were nothing until they became symbols; and nothing could turn them into symbols except an eager imagination on the watch for all that might embody its dreams."

I found this quote in Patricia Rae's The Practical Muse, a study of the poetics of T. E. Hulme, Ezra Pound, and Wallace Stevens. She used the quote in a footnote to explain how Santayana's notion of poetic inspiration is different than William James's. According to Rae, Santayana is ultimately subjectivist in that he places the impetus for creative endeavor entirely in human desire, whereas James, the consummate pragmatist, contends that a declaration like Santayana's is dogmatic and denies the possibility of the divine.

I'm not interested in this discussion for its theological implications as much as what it has to say about the role of desire in poetry. As a psychoanalytic critic, I'm drawn to Santayana's perspective (and also perhaps because he writes so beautifully), but there are potential problems, as well. Rae critiques Santayana's position on the grounds that it promotes a notion of poetry (and art) as simple wish fulfillments or daydreams. I think it's important to reject that critique because it's tantamount to saying that the desires contained in daydreams are not of value. The manifestation of "eager imagination" is a crucial part of aesthetic production.

And by using the word "production" I might have tipped my hand. My main question about Santayana's perspective is whether or not he investigates how such desires are formed; that is, which social circumstances occasions the rise of particular desires. Which forces structure desire?

My oral exam paper hopes to examine these questions in relation to Ezra Pound's early poetry. The answers are still eluding me at this point, but that's why I started this blog. Hopefully, sustained written responses to my reading list will slowly force out some decent ideas on these topics.