The effort to penetrate the literary surface of Vico’s Autobiography exposes us to questions worthy of the best minds. What could it mean to understand our own lives as the ordered content of our own Ideas? What if, prior to being appropriated by forms imposed upon them from without, our lives possessed their own original and inalienable forms? What if human life were essentially one interpretative ascent to its own native form? What if Ethics coincided with the “writing” in which (...) the original dignity of one’s own life found its truly human vindication? What if human “reading” were in its essence the providential act of civil religion’s God? (shrink)

The late Narthrop Frye (1912-1991) stands out as one of the most acclaimed and influential literary critics of the twentieth century. Among the authors from whom Frye acknowledged to have drawn inspiration we find the political philosopher Giambattista Vico (1668-1744). But Frye’s appreciation of Vico came with significant reservations. While Frye found Vico useful to the extent that the Italian philosopher could be very freely adapted to Frye’s literary vision, beyond that point Frye would not “buy” what Vico had to (...) say. While being fully aware that his adaptation of Vico did not harmonize with the philosopher’s overall theoretical position, Frye set out to put some elements of Vico’s work to use outside of their original argumentative setting. (shrink)