Free Six Memos for the Next Millennium by Italo Calvino

substance is not to be found in images or in language alone, but in the world itself. This plague strikes also at the lives of people and the history of nations. It makes all histories formless, random, confused, with neither beginning nor end. My discomfort arises from the loss of form that I notice in life, which I try to oppose with the only weapon I can think of— an idea of literature.
    Therefore I can even use negative terms to define the values I am setting out to defend. It remains to be seen whether by using equally convincing arguments one cannot defend the contrary thesis. For example, Giacomo Leopardi maintained that the more vague and imprecise language is, the more poetic it becomes. I might mention in passing that as far as I know Italian is the only language in which the word
vago
(vague) also means “lovely, attractive.” Starting out from the original meaning of “wandering,” the word
vago
still carries an idea of movement and mutability, which in Italian is associated both with uncertainty and indefi-niteness and with gracefulness and pleasure.
    To put my cult of exactitude to the proof, I will look back at those pages of the
Zibaldone
where Leopardi praises
il vago.
He says: “Le parole
lontano, antico
e simili sono poeticissime e piace-voli, perche destano idee vaste, e indefinite … (25 Settembre1821)” (The words
lontano, antico
[faraway, ancient], and similar words are highly poetic and pleasurable because they evoke vast, indefinite ideas). “Le parole
notte, notturno
ec, le descrizioni della notte ec, sono poeticissime, perche la notte confondendo gli oggetti, l'animo non ne concepisce che un'immagine vaga, indis-tinta, incompleta, si di essa che quanto ella contiene. Cosi
oscur-ita, profondo
ec. ec. (28 Settembre 1821)” (The words
notte, notturno
[night, nocturnal], etc., descriptions of the night, etc., are highly poetic because, as night makes objects blurred, the mind receives only a vague, indistinct, incomplete image, both of night itself and of what it contains. Thus also with
oscurita
[darkness],
profondo
[deep]).
    Leopardi's reasoning is perfectly exemplified by his poems, which lend it the authority of what is proven by facts. Leafing again through the
Zibaldone
in search of other examples of this passion of his, I come across one entry longer than usual, a list of situations propitious to the “indefinite” state of mind:
    la luce del sole o della luna, veduta in luogo dov'essi non si vedano e non si scopra la sorgente della luce; un luogo solamente in parte illuminato da essa luce; il riflesso di detta luce, e i vari effetti materiali che ne derivano; il pe-netrare di detta luce in luoghi dov'ella divenga incerta e impedita, e non bene si distingua, come attraverso un can-neto, in una selva, per li balconi socchiusi ec. ec; la detta luce veduta in luogo, oggetto ec. dov'ella non entri e non percota dirittamente, ma vi sia ribattuta e difiusa da qual-che altro luogo od oggetto ec. dov'ella venga a battere; in un andito veduto al di dentro o al di fuori, e in una loggia parimente ec quei luoghi dove la luce si confonde ec. ec colle ombre, come sotto un portico, in una loggia elevata e pensile, fra le rupi e i burroni, in una valle, sui colli vedutidalla parte dell'ombra, in modo che ne sieno indorate le cime; il riflesso che produce, per esempio, un vetro colo-rato su quegli oggetti su cui si riflettono i raggi che passano per detto vetro; tutti quegli oggetti insomma che per diverse materiali e menome circostanze giungono alia nostra vista,
udito
ec. in modo incerto, mal distinto, imperfetto, incompleto, o fuor delPordinario ec.
    the light of the sun or the moon, seen in a place from which they are invisible and one cannot discern the source of the light; a place only partly illuminated by such light; the reflection of such light, and the various material effects derived from it; the penetration of such light into places where it becomes uncertain and obstructed, and is not