T.S. Eliot "Eliot dissolves the theological pattern into the lightness of irony and in dizzying verbal magic." (I. Calvino,Six Memos for the Next Millennium, "Multiplicity") "And through the dust nebulae, furrowed by the orbits of the constellations, I could already see the wispy evening mist rise in the streets of Santhia, the faint light of a street lamp barely outling the sidewalk in the snow, illuminating for a moment the slim shadow of Giuseppina Pensotti as she turned the corner past the Customs House and disappeared." (I. Calvino,Cosmicomics, "How Much Shall We Bet?") Lightness, the fragility and chance of an individual in the universe. Calvino speaks of the shadow rather than the substance, the miraculous fortune of these atoms combining, cells dividing, the dust swirling to coalesce into a pattern of humanity. Eliot also, the rhythms of day to day life and the slight insubstantiality of ordinary existence. Yet his vision is fraught with the futility of perspective, the impossibility of control over this existence. S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse A persona che mai tornasse al mondo, Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma perciocchè giammai di questo fondo Non torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero, Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo. Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherised upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question – Oh, do not ask, "What is it?" Let us go and make our visit. In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo. The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, And seeing that it was a soft October night, Curled once about the house, and fell asleep. Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?Ö. I should have been a pair of ragged claws Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. ("The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock") Gadda Musil Proust Ovid Goethe Lichtenberg Blumenberg Flaubert  Zola Mann T.S. Eliot Joyce Jarry Bakhtin Valery Borges Queneau Perec Oulipo