Hermitix Giambattista Vico as Character: Joyce, Jünger, Borges, and the Vichian Recorso with Dustin Peone
May 13, 2026
Dustin Peone, scholar of philosophy and author of Vico and Literature, explores Giambattista Vico’s life and influence. He traces Vico’s three ages, poetic theory, and etymologies. Conversations cover Joyce’s Vico-infused Finnegans Wake, Borges’ circular time, Jünger’s borrowings, and how Vico has been adapted, misread, and politicized across literary history.
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Vico Learned Origins From Poets Not Lawyers
- Vico trained as a law professor but turned from Roman law to poets and myths to access origins that written history obscures.
- He treats mythology and poetic sense as genuine knowledge, not mere bad history, to grasp early institutions and meanings.
Vico's Four Declared Influences And Hidden Debts
- Vico names four explicit influences: Plato, Francis Bacon, Grotius, and Tacitus, shaping his blend of poetics, science, law, and practical history.
- He also quietly inherits humanist and Hobbesian ideas, notably 'verum et factum'—we know what we make.
Vico's Three Ages And The Recorso Pattern
- Vico's 'science of history' posits an ideal eternal history: three human ages—gods, heroes, men—and a later 'recorso' returning to a Christian cycle.
- The circular pattern is common historically, but Vico emphasizes poetic origins and stages rather than precise formulas.
