Pagina 21 - BCSV, XXXV, 2005

THE IMAGINATIVE UNIVERSAL 21
suggest that poetic metaphysics is a precondition of poetry itself, which
would, of course, be circular. From what follows, however, where both
metaphysics and signification are presented as products of poetry, it be-
comes clear that what Vico means is that poetic metaphysics and poetic
signification require each other21. Taking first thè description that Vico
gives of poetic metaphysics, this is a much more developed version of
thè account that he gave of thè birth of thè first fable in thè first New Sci­
ence. The conception that he outlines is of a metaphysics «not rational
and abstract like that of learned men now, but felt and imagined», a meta­
physics which arises from men who «without power of ratiocination were
all robust sense and vigorous imagination»22. Unable to understand thè
lightning and thunder which they experienced but whose cause they did
not know, they first raised their eyes to become aware of thè sky23. Then,
«because in such a state their nature was that of men all robust bodily
strength, who expressed their very violent passions by shouting and
grumbling, they imagined thè sky as a great animated body, which in that
aspect they called Jove, thè first god of thè so-called greater gentes»24.
What Vico is doing here is explaining how thè giants carne to see thè
world in which they lived in a particular way, a world in which what they
saw when they looked up to thè sky they took to be a living being and,
as he goes on to describe, what they heard and saw when thè thunder
rumbled and thè lightning struck were his commands. The explanation
is that this is all thè result of thè giants’ imaginative projection of features
of their own nature into thè world as they sensed it. The emphasis given
to thè fact that these early proto-men were all robust sense and vigorous
imagination means that they sensed thè world as they imagined it, i.e. in
accordance with their imaginary idea of it. Hence it is a description of
thè metaphysics of poetic man, thè world as, at thè most fundamental
level, it was perceived and understood.
While stili in thè section of thè New Science devoted to poetic meta­
physics, however, Vico turns suddenly from this conception of meta­
physics to an account of what seems to be more properly an aspect of his
conception of poetic logie. For, after asserting that «in this fashion thè
first theological poets created thè first divine fable, thè greatest they ever
created: that of Jove, king and father of men and gods, in thè act of hurl-
ing thè lightning bolt [...]», he continues: «thè first men, who spoke by
21 See lielow, Sn44, § 400.
22 Ibid., § 375.
25 Ibid., § 377.
24 Ivi. I have slightly modified thè translation of this passage.