The received tradition: the Enlightenment and the problem of historical consciousness. The historical imagination between metaphor and irony -- Hegel: the poetics of history and the way beyond irony -- Four kinds of "realism" in nineteenth-century historical writing. Michelet: historical realism as romance -- Ranke: historical realism as comedy -- Tocqueville: historical realism as tragedy -- Burckhardt: historical realism as satire -- The repudiation of "realism" in late nineteenth-century philosophy of history. Historical consciousness and the rebirth of philosophy of history -- Marx: the philosophical defense of history in the metonymical mode -- Nietzsche: the poetic defense of history in the metaphorical mode -- Croce: the philosopical defense of history in the ironic mode
