258 / 298
Horst Steinke
258
leaving their unburied bodies instead as a prey to dogs and vul-
tures» (§ 781). Also, the reactions and actions of the heroes of
the
Iliad
are held up as emblematic of “heroic/[barbarous]” ra-
ther than “civil/[civilized]” human nature
548
(§ 783).
Vico clarifies his usage of the term “poetry” by distinguishing
it from the alternative early modern (and modern) usage of “art
imitating life”, in his words, «poetry [as] an imitation besides»
549
(§ 812). Rather, for Vico, “poetry”, as already discussed in con-
nection with Book II, “Poetic Wisdom”, brings “reality”, or the
world of human ideas, actions, and relations, into being in the
first place
550
, and to this creative language Vico refers as “myths”
and “fables”, counterintuitively and perhaps even ironically
551
,
saying that «[t]he fables in their origin were true and severe nar-
rations, whence
mythos
, fable, was defined as
vera narratio
» (§ 814).
In accordance with his “philosophical” and “philological” com-
mitments, these original literary productions were unvarnished
expressions of key aspects of life at the time, their initial
“gross[ness]” (§ 814) in fact testifying to their authenticity
552
.
This has major hermeneutical and methodological implications:
if “poetry/myths/fables” are taken to be originary, they consti-
tute the key determinants in terms of which to understand, and
interpret, the archaic world
553
. The role and use of “context”,
then, takes on a radically different meaning: rather than making
the first ”poetic” creations subject to the putative illuminating
insights from the historical background, the first “poet-
ry/myths/fables” themselves form the underlying “context” in
which everything else is to be elucidated. In this perspective, Vi-
co is turning Spinoza’s historical-critical method on its head
554
.
This interpretive «master key» leads Vico to endeavor to dis-
cern in the ancient poems, myths, and fables «the memories of
the institutions and laws that bind [men] within their societies»
(§ 812), thus embarking on a project of “historical reconstruc-
tion”
555
. That such a project entails stupendous complexity and
problematics needs no special emphasis
556
; therefore, our ap-