things only literature can give us by means specific to it
the subtraction of weight - from people, from cities, from language
entire world turning into stone – sparing no aspect of life
no one can escape the stare of medusa – perseus, the only hero able to cut of medusa’s head – looks at her reflection in his shield rather than looking at her directly, avoiding petrification
fixes gaze on only what can be revealed by indirect vision – perseus, rather than escape reality, overcomes heaviness by indirect means – perseus’ strength is to not look at reality directly
Ovid – wrote the metamorphosis - Knowledge of the world means dissolving the solidity of the world
Guido Cavalcanti lightness (walking in a graveyard and is approached by brigade of upper-class Florentines on their horses who are resentful of him because Guido refuses to socialise with them. Gentlemen you may say anything you wish to me in your own home, then resting his hand on one of the great tombs and being very nimble he leaped over it and landing on the other side made off and rid himself of them – the sudden, agile leap of the poet-philosopher who raises himself above the weight of the world) vs Dante
Light, silent movement on both – here the resemblance ends:
Guido – and white snow falling without wind (and puts the snow on the same level as the other visions that proceed and follow, unaware of consistency only its affects - dominated by resemblance of a place in the Alps, mountainous landscape.)
Dante (inferno 14) – as snow falls in the mountains without wind (as encloses the entire scene in the frame of a metaphor, a concrete reality of its own – weight of things are established - adjective white dissolves the landscape into an atmosphere of suspended abstraction
Chariot made of empty hazelnut