Il muto e il barbarico. Poetica e mitologia in Vico secondo Alain Pons

THE MUTE AND THE BARBARIC. POETICS AND MYTHOLOGY IN VICO ACCORDING TO ALAIN PONS. This article sets out to analyse, throu- gh Alain Pons’ interpretation of it, the category of the barbaric in Vico’s work. Emphasising one of Vico’s fundamental discoveries, namely the revaluation of the poetic as a key to interpreting the world, Pons shows how in Vico wisdom is not ascribable only to the rational dimension, and that it is in the field of the symbolic, synthesis of fantasy and expression, that the link between truth and metaphorical power must be ‘discovered’. In this sense, the ‘barbaric’, with its mutism and archaisms, its mythologies and poetry, regains a ‘productive’ con- notation, assuming a fundamental relevance in understanding the course and history of origins.