ABSTRACT
The contemporary has the effect of introducing an element of heterogeneity and difference into what is or should be homogeneous, self-identical, the self-present as such. Lyotard adds to the discussion of Augustinian temporality a further specifically 'modern' element, derived from the philosophy of the early modem European period. This collocation of Auerbach and Lyotard helps strengthen the claim that a Universal History is, paradoxically, peculiarly devoid of historicity. Aesthetic modernism, by which mean that explosion of aesthetic experimentation across Europe from 1848 to 1939, infiltrating America at the turn of the century, advances a specifically new conception of the priority of the human Subject of consciousness. Walter Benjamin would seem, at first glance, to be an ally in countering the figural or sacred interpretation of history implicit in Eliot's position.
