BOOKS
"writing" means so many different things, the power of the
printed word , or even that capitalized Word whose significance
had previously escaped me but then made itself suddenly, if
sporadically, plain .
157
Bishop returns promptly to anecdote, but we gather, first , that this
power is not altogether benevolent, that it can be the agent of decep–
tion , offalse hope, of idolatry. Bishop had to symbolically rid herself
of Mr. Margolies, to quit this job, in order to purify writing and go
on. The consequence was an art which offers no platforms, no fan–
fare, no quick fixes or easy intimacies, but an unforgettable record of
a world seen feelingly .
BONNIE
COSTELLO
THE NEW SCIENCE AND THE NEW POLITICS
VICO AND MARX: AFFINITIES AND CONTRASTS.
By
Giorgio
Tagllacozzo. Humanities Press. $34.95.
Was Marx directly influenced by Vico and, if so, how
much? The question is a matter of scholarly debate, but it also raises
issues of much broader interest than many of those which ordinarily
preoccupy Marxologists. In the whole of Marx's writings and cor–
respondence , there are in fact only three references to Vico - in a
footnote to
Capital
Vol. I, in a letter to Engels, and in a letter to
Lassalle. The short answer to the scholarly aspect of the question is
probably: no, Marx wasn't at all strongly influenced by Vico , whom
he may never have read in any depth. But in the relevant passage in
Capital
Marx does fasten upon one of the main themes of Vico's work
which seems to connect it to Marx's own conception of history. Vico
says, as Marx points out in his rendition of the famous phrase in
New
Science ,
that "human history is distinguished from natural history by
the fact that we have made the former but not the latter." Marx saw
himself as initiating a "new science" - historical materialism - no less
than Vico had done; and it seems as though each built his view upon
the same principle.
It is because this is often taken for granted by secondary inter–
preters of Marx that Marx is often portrayed as standing in im-
