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Abstract
This article re-evaluates the place of literature within Giambattista Vico’s ideas about education. It examines his orations De mente heroica (1732) and De nostri temporis studiorum ratione (1709) alongside the Scienza nuova (1744) and Vico’s 1729 letter to Francesco Saverio Estevan, connecting his concept of imaginative universals to his ideas about literary characters. It shows how by problematizing the idea of literary truth and representation, Vico emphasizes fiction’s cognitive and ethical potential. For Vico, literature provides a unique opportunity for both self-knowledge and the study of human society. Because of the link between poetry and common sense, fiction becomes the means that can make it possible to bridge the gap between the particular and the universal. Vico’s notion of realism and his conception of literary characters as ideal types grant fiction the unique power to reshape reality and not merely to represent it.
Notes
1 On Vico’s pedagogical thought in general, see Fornaca (Citation1957), Mooney (Citation1985: 84–169), Verene (Citation2003: 69–95).
2 For the critical edition of the first six orations, see Vico (Citation1982), published as a part of the national edition of Vico’s works promoted by the Centro di Studi Vichiani (CSV). For the English translation, see Vico (Citation1993).
3 The CSV has not yet published an edition of the De nostri temporis studiorum ratione, so I have chosen to follow the edition by Andrea Battistini in Vico (Citation1990a: 1: 87–215). For the English translation, see Vico (Citation1990b), which also includes in appendix Donald Phillip Verene’s translation of “The Academies and the Relation between Philosophy and Eloquence,” which Verene recognizes as the third part of a trilogy on education along with the De ratione and the De mente heroica (Vico, Citation1990b: xvii-xviii).
4 In 1719, Vico delivered an inaugural oration on the topic of universal law. The original text is lost, but the oration, which is mentioned and summarized in Vico’s autobiography, was an early formulation of the ideas he would develop in the Universal Law (1720–22). See Vico (Citation1975: 156–57).
5 “generis humani felicitas.” Unless otherwise noted all translations are my own. When I have made minor changes to a published translation as necessary for clarity and precision, I have noted it as modified. The critical edition of the De mente heroica is Vico Citation1996: 111–75 and 269–315. There are two English translations of this Latin text, Vico (Citation1976) and Vico (Citation2004), but I have provided my own throughout.
6 For Vico’s relevance to contemporary education, see Goretti (Citation1969), Tagliacozzo (Citation1976), and Littleford (Citation1976).
7 “Heros enim philosophis definitur qui sublimia appetit.”
8 “Mens enim […] non potest non agitare sublimia, non conari grandia, non efficere egregia.”
9 “Videte quantum a vobis humana conditione maiora peto.”
10 Vico is likely thinking of the notion of “the human being within” [ὁ ἐντὸς ἄνθρωπος] from Republic IX, 589a (Plato, Citation1997: 1197) together with the idea of philosophy as a purifying process in Phaedo 82d–83b (Citation1997: 72–73). Vico’s notion of the inner human was surely linked to Plato through the Christian tradition of self-writers, such as Saint Paul and Saint Augustine.
11 The utility of Weber’s Idealtypus consists in the fact that, as a logically assembled and coherent whole, it constitutes a sort of touchstone, or rather a basis for comparison when studying specific phenomena. Weber explains that by comparing the ideal type to historical reality, one can register “divergences and similarities,” describe them objectively and “understand and explain them casually” (Citation2011: 43). Whether the Idealtypus refers to individual behavior, one can have, for instance, the “ideal-type Protestant,” or to a collectivity, such as a brothel, its main goal is to provide a better understanding of empirical reality, by clarifying its different facets and developments.
12 “Il Vico, piuttosto che narrare e rappresentare, classifica” (Croce, Citation1922: 156).
13 “Notare queste somiglianze significa negare o rigettare indietro altre più superficiali e aprire la via alla conoscenza dell’individualità, indicando la regione approssimativa dove si trova la verità piena” (Croce, Citation1922: 156).
14 Betti’s Citation1957 article is more easily accessible in English translation in Betti, Citation1988.
15 “At hercule illa [lectione] poëtarum cum ineffabili, quia hominis maxime propria, voluptate, qui suapte natura fertur ad uniforme, personarum in omni vitae genere, sive moralis sive familiaris sive civilis, ad ideam optimam atque ob id ipsum verissimam, graphyce descriptos observate characteres, ad quos vulgaris naturae homines collati, quia vita non constant ubi non constant, ipsi potius falsi esse videantur, eaque ratione in praestantium fabulis poëtarum humanam naturam vel in sua ipsius turpitudine pulcherrimam, quia sibi semper convenientem, sui semper similem, in omni sui parte decoram divina quadam mente contemplemini, uti Deus optimus maximus naturae universae sive errantis monstra, sive malignae pestes, in aeterno suae providentiae ordine et bona et pulchra intuetur.” On the controversy over the translation of the final period, see Gian Galeazzo Visconti’s note in Vico (Citation1996: 283–87).
16 When discussing the portrayal of characters in tragedy, Aristotle prescribes that they be “good” [χρηστὰ], “appropriate” [ἁρμόττοντα], “consistent” [ὁμαλὰ], and “like” [ὅμοια]. There is much controversy about what exactly Aristotle meant by “like,” but the common reading is that it means both in accordance with traditional representations and true to life, or verisimilar, in the sense of possessing universal characteristics. See, for instance, Habib (Citation2005: 59).
17 Vico (Citation1984: 73). “La Mente umana è naturalmente portata a dilettarsi dell’Uniforme” (Citation2013: 70).
18 Vico (Citation1984: 128). “[Le Favole] devon’ avere una significazione univoca, comprendente una ragion comune alle loro spezie, o individui; come d’Achille un’idea di valore comune a tutti i Forti, come d’Ulisse, un’idea di prudenza comune a tutti i Saggi” (Citation2013: 114).
19 Vico (Citation1984: 63). “Il senso comune è un giudizio senz’alcuna riflessione, comunemente sentito da tutto un’ ordine, da tutto un popolo, da tutta una Nazione, o da tutto il Gener’Umano” (Citation2013: 63).
20 Vico (Citation1984: 22) explains that the discovery of the imaginative universal cost him “the persistent research of almost all” of his literary life “because with our civilized nature we [moderns] cannot at all imagine and can understand only by great toil the poetic nature of those first men” [la qual Discoverta (…) ci ha costo la Ricerca ostinata di quasi tutta la nostra Vita Letteraria; perocchè tal natura poetica di tai primi uomini in queste nostri ingentilite nature egli è affatto impossibile immaginare, e a gran pena ci è permesso d’intendere” (Citation2013: 31)]. See also par. 338.
21 Vico (Citation1984: 74, modified). “Le quali [favole] sono verità d’idea in conformità del merito di coloro, de’ quali il volgo le finge; e in tanto sono false talor’ in fatti, in quanto al merito di quelli non sia dato ciò, di che essi son degni: talché, se bene vi si rifletta, il vero Poetico è un vero Metafisico; a petto del quale il vero Fisico, che non vi si conforma, dee tenersi a luogo di falso. Dallo che esce questa importante considerazione in Ragion Poetica: che ’l vero Capitano di guerra, per esemplo, è ‘l Goffredo, che finge Torquato Tasso; e tutti i Capitani, che non si conformano in tutto, e per tutto a Goffredo, essi non sono veri Capitani di guerra” (Citation2013: 70-71). The text of the critical edition reads “infatti” instead of “in fatti,” but I am following the editio princeps. Since the editors do not mention the discrepancy between the original manuscript and the editio princeps, the reading “infatti” must reflect a typographical error in the critical edition.
22 Vico (Citation1984: 131). “le prime favole non poterono fingere nulla di falso; per lo che dovettero necessariamente essere […] vere narrazioni” (Citation2013: 116).
23 Vico (Citation1984: 312). “i caratteri poetici […] nacquero da necessità di natura incapace d’astrarne le forme, e le propietà da’ subbjetti” (Citation2013: 265).
24 Vico (Citation1984: 309, modified). “poterono […] fingersi cert’esempli luminosi di uomini d’idea” (Citation2013: 264).
25 “Poëta vero, quia cum vulgo agit, sublimibus personarum, quas fingit, factis dictisque tamquam exemplis quodammodo excogitatis persuadet. Quamobrem poëtae recedunt a formis veri quotidianis, ut excellentiorem quandam veri speciem effingant; et naturam incertam deserunt, ut naturam constantem sequantur; atque adeo falsa sequuntur, ut sint quodammodo veriores.”
26 “Nec Poetae aliam virtutis formam, quae in rebus humanis non sit, excogitarunt; sed de medio lectam supra fidem extollunt, & ad eam suos heroas conformant.” Vico seems to use the language of Francis Bacon’s De Dignitate & Augmentis Scientiarum here. Cf. Bacon (Citation1623: 108): “Narrative [poetry] completely imitates history, so that it almost deceives, except that it elevates matters almost beyond expectation” [Narrativa prorsus historiam imitatur, ut fere fallat, nisi quod res extollat saepius supra fidem]. Cf. also Bacon’s The Advancement of Learning (Citation2000: 74), written in 1605, where Bacon speaks of the “excesses” of narrative poetry. An alternative translation of Vico’s phrase is in Vico (Citation1988: 96), but it does not take into account his Baconian vocabulary.
27 “Et finem quoque, qui hodie maxime celebratur, nempe verum in idea, sive ex genere, in re poëtica adprime utilem arbitror.”
28 “Nam prudentia in humanis actionibus vestigat verum uti est, etiam ab imprudentia, ignorantia, libidine, necessitate, fortuna: poësis tantum ad id verum spectat, uti natura et consilio esse debet.”
29 The problem of civil education in relation to the search for truth is dealt with in Caponigri (Citation1969). While Caponigri recognizes the importance of poetry insofar as it grounds the useful in the truth (Citation1969: 488–92), he judges Vico’s discovery of poetry as a mere step in the direction of the discovery of history as the principal discipline in civil education (Citation1969: 493).
30 “Et, quod ad prudentiam civilis vitae attinet, cum rerum humanarum dominae sint occasio et electio, quae incertissimae sunt.”
31 The allusion is to the Nicomachean Ethics (V, 10, 1137b), in Aristotle (Citation1995: 2: 1796).
32 “quae non ad se corpora dirigit, sed se ad corpora inflectit.”
33 Vico (Citation1990a: 132) classifies the four attitudes that one can have towards the pursuit of truth through the discussion of four types: the fool [stultus], the illiterate astute [illiteratus astutus], the imprudent learned man [doctus imprudens], and the wise man [vir sapiens]. The latter is the only one who knows how to navigate the uncertainties of human affairs while keeping his eyes on what is true eternally [aeternum verum]. Unlike the others, the wise are able to direct themselves from contingent affairs toward the universal [sapientes vero ex infimis summa dirigunt].
34 See Vico (Citation1990a: 146): “but the philosopher, because he deals with the erudite, explains things according to their kind” [sed philosophus, quia cum eruditis rem habet, id disserit ex genere].
35 This expression is used to illustrate Vico’s understanding of myth in Mali (Citation1992: 199).
36 Referring to both poets and philosophers, Vico says: “Each teaches duties, each describes human customs, each stirs to virtue, and leads away from vice” [Uterque docet officia, uterque mores hominum describit, uterque ad virtutes excitat, et a vitiis abducit].
37 “si condanna finalmente quello [lo studio] de’ poeti, col falso pretesto che dican favole: nulla riflettendosi che le ottime favole sono verità che più s’appressano al vero ideale o sia vero eterno di Dio, ond’è incomparabilmente più certo della verità degli storici, la quale somministrano sovente loro il capriccio, la necessità, la fortuna; ma il capitano, che finge, per cagion d’esemplo, Torquato Tasso nel suo Goffredo, è qual dee esser il capitano di tutti i tempi, di tutte le nazioni; e tali sono tutti i personaggi poetici per tutte le differenze che ne possono mai dare sesso, età, temperamento, costume, nazione, republica, grado, condizione, fortuna; che altro non sono che propietà eterne degli animi umani ragionate da’ politici, iconomici e morali filosofi, e da’ poeti portate in ritratti” (Vico, Citation1953: 137).
38 Descartes (Citation1985: 1: 114): “les fables font imaginer plusieurs événements comme possibles qui ne le sont point […] ceux qui règlent leurs moeurs par les exemples qu’ils en tirent sont sujets à tomber dans les extravagances des paladins de nos romans, et à concevoir des desseins qui passent leurs forces” (Citation1902: 6: 6–7).
39 On Vico’s anti-Cartesian stance on education, see Perkinson (Citation1962) and Bayer (Citation2009).
40 “i personaggi narrativi di successo diventano esempi supremi della ‘reale’ condizione umana” (Eco, Citation1990a: 204). For the association of Eco and Vico and for a discussion of the analogies between Vico’s thought and Eco’s theoretical reflections, see Schaeffer (1992).
41 See Poetics IX, 1451b in Aristotle (Citation1995: 2: 2323).
42 See Vico’s sixth oration (Citation1982: 206), where he invites students to apply themselves first to the study of moral matters, and then to that of civil matters: “study the science of human prudence: first the moral, which forms the man, then the civil, which forms the citizen” [humanae prudentiae (scientiam) studeatis, primum morali, quae hominem, tum civili, quae civem format].
43 On Vico’s idea of the barbarism of reflection, see Verene (Citation1981: 193–221) and Pons (Citation1998).
44 Vico (Citation1984: 424). “accostumati di non ad altro pensare, ch’alle particolari propie utilità di ciascuno” (Citation2013: 343).