Chapter 2 Lecture 1: Ease

1. Lightness In the first lecture, I will talk about the opposition between lightness and heaviness; focusing on the value judgment of lightness.It's not that I find heavy values ​​less fascinating, just because I have more to say about the former. After forty years of writing fiction, exploring various paths, and experimenting, it was time for me to seek an overarching definition of my life's work.I want to point out: my approach to writing has always involved reducing heaviness.I have always worked to reduce the heaviness: the heaviness of people, the heaviness of celestial bodies, the heaviness of cities; first of all, I have always worked to reduce the heaviness of story structure and language.

In this lecture, I will try to explain to myself—and to you—why I consider lightness a value rather than a defect, point out in which past works I find ideals for lightness, and show that Where do I place this value now, and how do I project it into the future. Let me start with the last point above.When I began my writing career, the commandment of every young writer was to express their own era.With all good intentions, I endeavor to identify myself with the inexorable -- collective and individual -- dynamics that move the events of the twentieth century.I have managed to find harmony between the adventurous, vagabond inner rhythm that inspires my writing, and the frantic visions of the world that are sometimes dramatic and sometimes ugly.Before long, I realized that there was an increasingly difficult gap between the facts of life that I could write about and the lightness and lightness that I wanted my writing to have.Probably only at this time did I realize the heaviness, inertia and incomprehensibility of the world; and if these characteristics are not avoided, they will be firmly cemented in the work from the beginning.

At certain moments I feel that the whole world is turning to stone; it is a petrification, which varies in degree according to the person and place, but never spares any aspect of life.Just like no one can avoid Medusa's gaze that turns everything to stone.The only hero who can cut off Medusa's head is Perseus, who is good at flying because of his winged shoes.Perseus does not look at Medusa's face, but only at the image of the banshee reflected in his bronze shield (even now, when I am about to fall into this stone vise, it is Perseus who can save me; Whenever I wish to speak of my own past life, no less) let me illustrate with figures from Greek mythology.

In order to cut off Medusa's head without being turned into stone, Perseus relied on the lightest of all things, that is, the wind and the cloud, and fixed his eyes on the indirect reflection, that is, the image in the bronze mirror.Immediately, I could not help seeing this myth as a metaphor for the poet's relation to the world, a method to follow in writing.But I know: any interpretation risks compromising the meaning of a myth, thus suffocating it.For the myth, must not be taken lightly.It is best to keep the mythology in memory, savor every detail of it, think more about it, but maintain the perception of its image language.The reason we understand from a myth lies in the narrative process of literature, not the factors we add to it from the side.

The relationship between Perseus and Medusa is complicated, and it doesn't stop at the banshee being beheaded.From the blood of Medusa was born Pegasus: the heaviness of the stone transformed into its opposite.Pegasus's horseshoe stepped on Mount Helicon (Mount Helicon), and it triggered a clear spring, which is where the goddesses of literature and art drink.According to some other variants of this myth, it was Perseus who rode Pegasus, a flying horse born of the cursed blood of Medusa, but beloved by the goddesses of literature and art. (Coincidentally, even Perseus's winged shoes came from the world of demons; he took them from two other sisters of Medusa-the two sisters share one tooth and one eye.) As for the cut Perseus did not discard the lower head, but hid it in a bag and carried it with him.When his enemies might be on the verge of overcoming him, he has only to grasp the coils of tiny snakes on his head, and the bloody booty becomes in the hero's hand a weapon of defeat.He only uses this weapon when he has to, and only against those opponents who are so wicked that they can only be turned into stone statues.Here the myth must be giving us a revelation, a revelation contained in an image that can only be interpreted in this way.Perseus succeeded in subduing the sinister face of the banshee by concealment; as at first he overcame it by looking at it in the bronze mirror.

The strength of Perseus lies in his ability not to see directly, not in his denial of the reality in which he is destined to live; he takes it upon himself, accepts it as a special burden of his own. We can learn more from Ovid's (Metamorphoses) in terms of the relationship between Perseus and Medusa.Perseus wins another battle: chops a siren to pieces with his sword; frees Andromeda.Now he was going to do one thing--the one thing everyone wanted to do after such a loathsome task: wash his hands.But another problem immediately arose: where to put Medusa's head.Here, a few lines from Ovid (iv. 740-752) seem remarkable to me, showing how careful and thoughtful a man must be if he were to act as Perseus: "In order not to let the coarse sand To damage the head covered with curls of little snakes, he covered the ground with soft leaves and added a layer of twigs from underwater plants, and then he put Medusa's head down, face down." I think, Baixiu The lightness that Sis represents as a hero is vividly reflected in the refreshing gesture of etiquette towards a monster so fierce, so terrifying, and at the same time somewhat fragile and premature.But the most inconceivable thing is the miracle of the soft seaweed being transformed into coral and narcissus at the slightest touch of the Medusa, and, in order to make the coral an ornament, the twigs and seaweed hastily pushed against the That horrible head.

There is a profound meaning in the collision between the beautiful coral and the brutal and terrifying image of Misessa, and I don't want to damage its meaning by imposing explanations or explanations. All I can do is compare Ovid's lines with those of the modern poet Eugenio Montale.We also find in Montale's "Piccolo testamento" the most subtle elements that can be regarded as poetic symbols "Traces of the color of the snail mother-of-pearl layer / Or the mica flakes like broken glass / Will rise against a A dreadful demon, a demon with pitch-black wings, that descends upon the city of the West".Written in 1953, Montale never in any other poem elicits such a revealing landscape, and it is these faint, glowing traces that make up the foreground: Calamity contrasts: "Even if the lights go out one by one/The dance turns to a ferocious kick/Thou shalt keep its ashes in a box." But how can we stand by and watch the most vulnerable?Montale's poem is a confession of his trust in that which seems doomed to perish, in the moral worth contained only in the faintest traces: "That faint flicker is not a dying match. "

In order to speak of our time, I have gone full circle and used Ovid's frail Medusa and Montale's black-winged devil.It is difficult for a novelist to exemplify his idea of ​​lightness without making the mundane affairs of everyday life the unattainable object of some infinite exploration.This is exactly what Milan Kundera did.He made it very clear, very straightforward.His novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being is actually a bitter acknowledgment of the inescapable heaviness of life, not just the one his country was destined to suffer. In the extreme and all-encompassing situation of oppression, there is also the human destiny in which we are all, although we may be ten times, a hundred times more fortunate than them.For Kundera, the heaviness of life lies primarily in the coercion, the coercion of the web of small holes and meshes of public and private affairs that wraps us more and more tightly.His novels tell us that everything we choose and value in life because of its lightness will soon reveal its unbearably heavy true colors.It is presumably only by virtue of intellectual flexibility and mobility that we can escape this judgment; and it is this quality on which this novel is written, which belongs to a world quite different from the one in which we live.

As long as human nature is enslaved by the burden, I think I should fly into another dimension like Perseus.I don't mean fleeing into dreamscapes or irrationality.What I mean is that I had to change my approach, see the world from a different perspective, use a different logic, use a new way of knowing and examining.The light-hearted image I am looking for should not be dissolved by the reality of the present and the future, and should not disappear like a dream... In the vast world of literature there are always avenues to be explored, and styles and forms, both recent and ancient, can change the image the world gives us.But if literature was not enough to convince me that I was not chasing a dreamscape, I turned to science to cultivate my landscape, for in science all heaviness is lost.Today, every branch of science aims to show that the world is supported by the smallest entities, such as the information contained in DNA, the pulses of neurons, quarks, and neutrons that have roamed space since the beginning of time. son……

And computer science.Indeed, software can only perform its nimble functions through heavy hardware.However, in the end it is software that issues instructions and affects the external world and machines. Machines only exist as functional realizations of software, and the development of machines can realize more complex designs.The second industrial revolution, unlike the first, does not present us with thrilling images of roaring lathes and torrents of molten steel, but rather "bits" of information flowing along wires in the form of electrical pulses.Iron and steel machinery still exists, but must obey the orders of weightless bits and pieces.

Is it reasonable to use the method of scientific research to find out what image of the world fits my point of view?If my aspirations here appeal to me, it is because I feel that they may be connected with an ancient thread in the history of poetics. Lucretios' De Rerum Natura is the first great work on poetry; in this work knowledge of the world tends to dissolve its reality, and induces an understanding of all infinite The feeling of small, slight and mobile elements.Lucretius' starting point was to write a poem about the physical world, but from the very beginning he predicted that matter was composed of invisible particles.He is a poet who pays attention to the concreteness of objects, which is found in their eternal and unchanging substances, but the first thing he wants to tell us is that emptiness is also as concrete as real objects.Lucretius' chief concern is to prevent the weight of matter from crushing us.Even while describing the strictly mechanical laws that determine every phenomenon, he feels compelled to preserve the freedom of atoms and of man by allowing atoms to deviate unpredictably from a straight line.Poems about the invisible and infinite, unanticipated probabilities—even poems about nothingness—come from such a poet, a poet who has no doubts about the physical reality of the world. This atomistic attitude towards things extends to all aspects of the visible world (and it is here that Lucretius is a poet at his best): Motes of dust (II. 114-124), those thin shells (II. 374-376) that seem to be the same but are different (II. 374-376) that the waves gently push up on the "white sand that receives the coming" are grouped around us. , and we pass by but turn a blind eye to the spider web (III. 381-390). I have already mentioned that another encyclopedic poem, that of Ovid (written fifty years after Lucretius's The Nature of Things), started not from physical reality but from myth.For Ovid, everything changes into something different, and knowledge of the world means the dissolution of its substance. Also, for him, there is an essential analogy between everything that exists in the world, as opposed to any hierarchy of power and values.If Lucretius' world is composed of unchanging atoms, Ovid's world is composed of qualities, properties, and forms that determine the diversity of all things, whether plants, animals, or people. .But these are but appearances of a single common essence; this essence, once excited by the underlying emotions, becomes a phenomenon quite different from it. It is Ovid's continuation of transformation from one form to another that he shows his incomparable talent.He tells the story of how a woman realized she was becoming a forgetfulness tree: Her feet were planted deep in the ground, a soft bark gradually expanded up to wrap around her thighs, and she He raised his hand to comb his hair, and found that his arm was covered with leaves.He also speaks of the fingers of Arachne; Arachne was an expert in carding wool, spinning the spindle, and threading the needle for embroidery.At one point, we see Arachna's fingers elongate into slender spider legs and begin to weave a web. For Lucretius and Ovid, light is a way of seeing the world based on philosophy and science: for Lucretius the theory of Epicurus, for Ovid , is that of Pythagoras (and Ovid's Pythagoras is very similar to Buddha).In both of them, this lightness comes from the style of writing, from the poet's command of language, completely independent of the philosophy the poet professes to follow. Having said that, I think the concept of lightness is about to start to take shape.First, I hope I have shown that there is indeed a lightness that involves deliberation, just as we all know that there is a lightness that involves indiscretion.In fact, thoughtful lightness can make frivolity dull and heavy. I can best illustrate this with a story in (Decameron, VI.9).One of the characters in the story is the Florentine poet Guido Cavalcanti.Boccaccio describes Cavalcanti as a serious philosopher who often wanders and ponders among marble tombs near a church.And the flamboyant flamboyants of Florence rode through the city in droves, always seizing the opportunity to have fun.They did not welcome Cavalcanti; Cavalcanti, rich and refined, did not join their festivities; another reason was that his mystic philosophy was suspected of lack of piety. One day, Guido left Piazza San Michele and followed the route he used to take—crossing Via Adamari to San Giovanni.The tall marble tombs that now stand near the Piazza Sant'Reparta were then scattered about San Giovanni.He stood between the church's speckled columns and the graves, the church door closed behind him.At this moment, Master Berto and his companions came galloping on horseback from the Piazza San Leparata.As soon as they saw Guido standing among the tombstones, they said, "Come, beat him." And they spurted on, and galloped up to him, like a stormtrooper, and bewildered him.They opened their mouths and said: "Gido, you ignore us, but you have to understand that if you prove that God does not exist, what can you do?" Seeing that they were surrounded by them, Guido quickly replied: "Everyone Young master, if you want to scold me, go back to your house and scold me." [*] After finishing speaking, he held a large tombstone with one hand, jumped briskly and nimbly, jumped behind the tombstone, and then walked away and got rid of it. them. What interests us here is not Cavalcanti's straightforward answer (it can be explained as follows: the "Epicurianism" advocated by the poet is actually Averroism; this The doctrine holds that the individual soul is only a part of the universal wisdom: the grave is your home, not mine; for whoever can rise to the universal contemplation through intellectual speculation will overcome the death of the individual body).What impressed me the most was the visual scene provided by Boccaccio: Calconti jumped and escaped, really a person as light as a swallow. If I were to choose an auspicious image for the new century, it would be this one: the sharp leap of the philosopher-poet beyond the heaviness of the world, which reveals the secret of lightness despite his weight, It shows that what many consider to be the energy of the age—the din, the assaults, the dogging and the shouting—belongs to the realm of death, like a cemetery of rusty and dilapidated cars. I will continue to talk about Cavalcanti, the light poet, and I want to remind you of the above image.The "dramatic characters" in his poems are not people who sigh repeatedly, not bright, transparent images, and above all, all those immaterial impulses and information that he calls "spirit".Subjects that are by no means "easy" like the pain of love are resolved into imperceptible entities that move between the sensitive mind and the intelligent mind, between emotion and reason, between gaze and voice.In summary, in each case, we can notice three features: 1, extremely slight; 2, constant movement; 3, a vector of information.In some poems, this informant is the text of the poem.In one of the most famous, "Perchi no spero di tornar giammai" (I Never Wish to Return), the exiled poet says of a ballad he is writing: "You are soft and light / Come to me By the maiden's side." In another poem, the writer's tools, the quill pen and the sharpening knife, speak: "We are poor disturbed feathers / Little scissors and sad penknife." In the thirteenth sonnet, the words "spirit" (spirito) or "soul" (spiritello) appear in each line.In an often self-deprecating poem, Cavalcanti's predilection for the keyword is taken to extremes, composing a complex and abstract narrative of fourteen "spirits," each with its own distinct functions, all within the scope of the fourteen lines.In another sonnet the pain of love dismembers the body; but the body still walks like an automaton of copper or stone or wood.A few years ago, in a sonnet, Guinizelli transformed his poet into a bronze statue, a concrete image that draws its strength from the heaviness it imparts. In Cavalcanti, because there are various materials that make up the image of a person, and stones can replace each other, the heaviness of the material is dispelled.A metaphor does not give us a hard image, and not even a word like "stone" adds weight to a line.Here we also see some of the equivalence of the existing that I spoke about when I commented on Lucretius and Ovid.The critic Gianfranco Contini called it "Cavalcanti's equivalence of real objects," referring to Cavalcanti's putting everything on the same level.The most earnest example of Cavalcanti's equality of all things is found in one of his sonnets, which begins with a list of beautiful images, all destined to be surpassed by the beauty of a beloved woman: Beautiful women and beautiful minds, A knight in armor, but gentle and reverent, The chirping of the birds and the pouring out of love, The bright ship glides at full speed on the sea. Fresh air flows through the breaking dawn, And the snow falling slowly, silent and windless, Flowing water murmurs, flowers bloom in the meadows, Ornaments are gold, silver and light blue crystals. The line "And the snow falling slowly, silent and windless" is quoted by Dante in Inferno (XIV. The poems are almost identical, but the ideas expressed are quite different.In these two lines, the snow on a still day expresses a light, silent movement.But that's where the similarities end.In Dante's line, place ("in the hills") is important, showing the mountain landscape, while in Cavalcanti, the adjective "white", which may seem redundant, and the verb "to fall" - completely Predictable—dissolving a landscape into a dazed anticipation.However, it is the first word of the two lines that makes the difference.The conjunction "and" used by Cavalcanti places the snow on the same plane as the other landscapes before and after it; it is a series of images like a catalog of the beautiful things in the world.In Dante, the adverb "as" encompasses the whole scene in the figurative sphere, but within that sphere it contains a concrete reality.The torrential rain in hell is equally specific and dramatic, and he uses the metaphor of fire as falling snowflakes.In Cavalcanti everything moves so fast that we don't experience its constancy, only its effects.In Dante everything has constancy and stability: the heaviness of things is justly determined.Even when Dante speaks of light things, he seems to want to express this lightness of heaviness: "As snow falls on a windless mountain." In another very similar line, sinking into the water and The heaviness of the disappearing body seems to be suppressed, and the descent slowed, "like a heavy body in deep water" (Paradiso, III. 123). Here we should remember that the notion that the world consists of weightless atoms is surprising precisely because we know exactly how heavy things are.In the same way, if we cannot appreciate language with a certain heaviness, we will not be good at savoring the lightness of language. We could say that for centuries two opposing tendencies have competed in literature: one has been devoted to turning language into something like a cloud, or better yet, a fine mote, or Even better, some kind of weightless factor that hovers outside the object like the lines of force in the magnetic field.Another tendency strives to give language a sense of heaviness, density, and concreteness of things, bodies, and feelings.Already in the early days of Italian literature, indeed European literature, the first tendency was initiated by Cavalcanti, and the second by Dante.The comparison is generally valid, but requires complex analysis, because Dante's writing is extremely rich and his versatility is extraordinary.One of Dante's sonnets filled with the most earnest lightheartedness (Guido, ivorrei che tu e Lapo ed io) is actually dedicated to Cavalcanti Yes, it is no accident. In the "New Life" Dante writes of the same subject matter as he writes of the old friend, the old hero; certain terms, themes, and ideas are found in both poets. Even in the "Divine Comedy", Dante's description of ease is also unprecedented, but his real genius lies in the opposite aspect: he is good at extracting from language the full potential of sound, emotion and feeling, and in different layers of poetry, all forms Grasping the world in the attributes conveys such an image that the world is an organized system, an order, and a hierarchy in its proper place. I may have exaggerated the comparison a little, but I still want to say, Dante gave substance to even the most abstract mental speculations, while Cavalcanti dissolved the concreteness of real experience in each word of the rigorously metered line, and thoughts seemed to burst out of the darkness like rapid flashes. . The above discussion of Cavalcanti can be used to clarify what I mean by "ease", at least for me.For me, slightness is precise and definite, not vague and accidental.Paul Valery said: "It should be light like a bird, not like a feather." I quote Cavalcanti's example of lightness in at least three senses.The first is the lightening of language; the expression of meaning through the seemingly weightless mechanism of language results in the same diluted concentration of meaning itself.You can find examples of this yourself.Emily Dickinson, for example, has much to offer: A receptacle, a petal and a thorn, On an ordinary summer morning— The dew on the flask—two bees— A breath of wind—the gently swaying woods— And me, a rose! Second, it is a description of the train of thought or mental process in which subtle and imperceptible factors are active, or any description involving highly abstract activities.Among more recent writers, we can look at Henry James, opening any of his books: The two sides of these gaps are often connected by very strong components although they are very light, and even though the slight swirling air currents sometimes cause vibrations; it seems that these gaps sometimes need a probe hammer to be dropped in order to stabilize their nerves, so as to measure the abyss In the depths of the world, one fact has been invariably present, and that is that she never seems to have felt the need to refute his reproach for a thought she had kept secret in her heart and dared not speak; Only then was he confided. ([Jungle Beast], The Beast in the Jungle, Chapter 3) Third, the light and easy visual image has symbolic value, such as Cavalcanti jumping over the tombstone with light legs and feet in the story of Boccaccio.Some literary innovations impress us with their lexical inflections rather than their actual words.And the scene in which Don Quixote thrusts his spear into the blades of a windmill, and is himself pulled into the air, takes only a few lines in Cervantes' novel.It can be said that the author only writes the smallest part of the material into the novel.Yet it is one of the most famous passages in all of literature. With these insights, I thought I could browse my library for examples of lightness.In Shakespeare, I noticed right away, Mercutio's entry point (I.iv.17-18): "Thou art a lover; on the wings of Venus / Above the ordinary, fly free." Romeo and Contrary to this, Mercushaw replies: "I am sinking under the burden of love." The way Mercushaw travels is easily seen in the verbs he uses: dance, fly, gallop.The human face is a mask, "a visor."As soon as he was on the scene, he felt compelled to explain his philosophy, not through a theoretical exposition, but through the narration of a dream.Queen Mab, midwife of the fairies, appears in a chariot made of "a hollow lemon pit": The spokes of her chariot are the slender legs of great spiders, The canopy is made of grasshopper wings, The bridle is the thin thread spun by the little spider, The collar is silvery moonbeams, The whip is the leg bone of the cricket and the whip is the thin strip of membrane Don't forget that the cart was drawn with a team of little atoms (atomies in the original text, another meaning of the word is "atoms").In my opinion, this vivid detail allows Queen Mab's dream to unite Lucretius' atomism, Renaissance Neoplatonism, and Celtic folk tales. I also want Mercus Shaw's dance steps to accompany us across the threshold of the next millennium.The era that forms the setting for Romeo and Juliet is in many ways not dissimilar to our own: the bloody and violent struggles of the cities are as pointless as the fights between the Montagues and the Capulets; The sexual liberation taught by the wet nurse failed to become a model of universal love; the enterprise carried out with the broad optimism of the "natural philosophy" advocated by the Friar Lawrence did not bear fruit: it brought life as well as death. Shakespeare's time acknowledged the subtle forces linking the macrocosm to the microcosm, from the neoplatonic heavens to the spirit of the deformed metal in the alchemist's cauldron.Classical mythology contains many nymphs by the mountains and waters, but Celtic mythology has elves and nymphs, and images of the most delicate forces of nature are richer.This cultural background (and I cannot help thinking of Francis Yates's fascinating study of Renaissance occult philosophy and its echoes in literature) may explain why Shakespeare provided the most insight into my thesis. Full illustration.I wasn't just thinking of the elves and all the dreamscapes in A Midsummer Night's Dream, or Ariel and the "dream-making/stuff".What comes to mind first of all is that particular existential reflection that enables Shakespeare's characters to detach themselves from the drama in which they are played, and thus to dissolve the drama into sentimentality and irony. The weightless heaviness I mentioned when I was talking about Cavalcanti recurred in the time of Cervantes and Shakespeare: this is what Raymond Klibansky, Irving Parc The special connection between melancholy and humor that Erwin Panofsky and Fritz Saxl studied in Saturn and Melancholy (1964).Melancholy is pathos with added lightness, humor is comedy without its physical weight, that dimension of human mundaneness that constitutes the greatness of Boccaccio and Rabelais.A sense of humor questions oneself, the world, and the entire web of relationships involved.Melancholy and humor, intertwined and inseparable, characterize the Prince of Denmark's discourse; such discourse is familiar in almost all the incarnations of the character of Hamlet, which is so numerous in Shakespeare's plays.One of them, Jacques in As You Like It (IV.i. 15-18), defines melancholy in this way: "But this is my own melancholy, caused by a thousand little things, arising from many problems, To be honest, it comes from a lot of what I have seen and heard in my travels; I often think about it all, and I fall into a kind of funny sadness." Therefore, this is not a heavy and depressing melancholy, but a film composed of humor and A veil of mood particles, a fine dust of atoms, like all that makes up the ultimate substance of everything under heaven. I admit that I want to build my own Shakespeare and consider him an atomist, but I also know it would be daring.The first writer in the modern world to explicitly formulate an atomistic conception of the changing universe was discovered some years later in France, Cyrano de Bergerac. Cyrano is a brilliant writer, and deserves to be better known, not only for being the first true pioneer of science fiction, but also for his wit and humanity.He was a supporter of Gassendi's "sensationism" and Copernicus' astronomy, but was first influenced by Cardano, Bruno, Campanella of the Italian Renaissance. ) and other people's edification of natural philosophy, so; is the first atomist poet in modern literature.In the pages of his work, irony cannot conceal a certain genuine cosmic excitement: he celebrates the unity of all things, animate and inanimate; , what he first wanted to express was the sense of instability of the various processes behind all life forms.That is: how man is hardly man, how life is hardly life, how the world is hardly world. You will be amazed at the number of conditions necessary for the creation of man by the haphazard mixing of matter at the whim of chance, and the number of conditions necessary to constitute his existence.However, you should know that on the way to make man, this matter has stopped billions of times, now to create a stone, now a block of lead, a branch of coral, a flower, a comet; all because of design The elements that people need or don't need are either too many or too few.在不断变化和搅动的、数量无穷的物质中，我们所见的不多的动物、植物和矿物得以造成，这就不足为奇了；不比掷一百次骰子才得一次对子更令人惊异。的确，全部这类的掺合不可能不导致某物的形成；然而，某种蠢才笨伯竟会对这某物大为惊奇，皆因这种人永远也不明白某一个很小的变化就会把它变成另外一物。 （《月球内部旅行》【Voyage dans la lune】） 依照这一思路，西拉诺就宣称了人与白菜亲缘的关系，因而想象一棵即将砍下的白菜所提出的抗议：“喂，我的骨肉兄弟，我怎么惹你啦，你非让我死不可？……我从土里长出来，开花，向你伸出手臂，把我的孩子——种子奉献给你；我以礼相待，但报答却是处死！” 如果我们注意到，赞扬真正普世博爱的这慷慨激昂文字几乎是在法国大革命以前一百五十年写就的，那么现在我们就能看到，人类意识摆脱人类中心论偏狭心理的极度缓慢性是可以由诗歌的创新于须臾之间消除的。而这一切则都是以登月旅行为背景；在这里，西拉诺的想象力超过了他最优秀的先驱者萨莫萨塔（Samosata）的路齐安（Lucian）和路多维科·阿里奥斯托（Ludovico Ariosto）。在我关于轻逸的讨论中，西拉诺以其感受宇宙重力问题的方式而必定独树一帜（在牛顿以前）。或者可以说，正是逃避重力的问题激发了他的想象力，推动他设想出一系列抵达月球的方法，一个比一个妙，例如，用装满露水的小瓶，因为露水遇阳光就蒸发；他全身涂满牛骨髓油，因为月亮吸食这种油；或者，从一只小船里不断向上抛出磁化球。 至于磁力技术，当然要由乔纳森·斯威夫特（Jonathan Swift）为使拉普塔（Laputa）飞岛浮在空中而加以发展和完善了。拉普塔岛首次飞起之时，亦正是斯威夫特两项热衷所在，在磁力平衡之时刻消散之际。我说的是他讽刺锋芒所指向的理性主义的无形体抽象观念，是躯体的物质重量：“我能够看到它的两侧，都配有几层走廊，每隔一段又有一个楼梯，以供上下行走。我看到在最下一层走廊上有几个人用长鱼杆钓鱼，其他的人在旁观望。” 斯威夫特是牛顿的同时代人，反对牛顿。伏尔泰则拥该牛顿；他想象出来一个叫米克罗美加斯（Micromegas）的巨人；这个巨人不同于斯威夫特大人国里的巨人，之所以大，不是因为身材巨大，而是因为言谈中数字的巨大，用科学论文式严格、冷漠术语罗列的时空品质。凭借这种逻辑和风格，米克罗美加斯成功地穿过太空，从天狼星飞到土星和地球。可以说，在牛顿的理论中，最能激发文学想象力的不是万物不可避免的重量本身对万物的限制，而是俾使天体在空中浮游的力的平衡。 十八世纪的文学想象充满了空中飘游体。决非偶然的是，在十八世纪初，安东·加兰（Antoine Galland）的法语译本《天方夜谭》开启了西方人对东方式奇迹的想象：飞毯、翼马、灯中冒出的魔鬼。在这种漫无界线的想象力发挥过程中，由于冯·敏豪森男爵（Baron von Munchausen）乘炮弹飞行这一情节，想象力在十八纪达到了顶峰；又由于居斯塔夫·多莱（Gustave Dore）的插图杰作，这一形象便永久地固着在我们的记忆之中。敏豪森的这些奇遇——像《天方夜谭》一样，可能有一个作者；或者许多作者，或者全无作者——是对于重力的经常性的挑战。男爵骑鸭子腾空；揪自己假发尾辫而令自己和坐骑离地；攀着一条绳子从月亮下降，绳子还断了几次，却又重新接起。 民间文学中的这些形象，以及我们在作家作品中见到的形象，乃是文学对牛顿理论作出的反响的一部分。贾科莫·列奥帕第（Giacomo Leopardi）十五岁时写作了一部表现出他惊人博学的《天文学史》，在这本书中，他的业绩之一是总结了牛顿的理论。仰望夜空给了列奥帕第写出最优美诗行的灵感，但是仰望夜空却不是一种抒情题材：他在谈论月亮的时候，他是准确地知道他所云为何的。列奥帕第在不断地评论生活的不可忍受的沉重感时候，把很多轻快的形象赋予了他认为我们无法企及的欢愉：飞鸟，倚窗低唱姑娘的歌声，空气的清新，还有首要的月亮。只要月亮一出现在诗歌之中，它就会带来一种轻逸、空悬感，一种令人心气平和的、幽静的神往。我开始构想这几次讲演之时，就想要用一次讲演只谈月亮，追溯一下月亮在古今与各地文学中出现的情况。后来我又转念，认定月亮理论理应全然归于列奥帕第。他的诗歌的妙处就在于他利利落落地抽去了语言的沉重感，竟致使他的语言变得有如月光。月亮在他诗歌中出现，所用笔墨不多，诗句不繁，但是足以把月光洒向全诗，或者向全诗散播月亮隐藏时空中的幽明。 夜色柔和、晴明、风也无踪影， 月光洒遍花园和屋顶， 远处显现出山峦， 寂寥而谧静。 啊，优雅的月亮，我不禁追忆 一年前我曾来到此地 仰望着你，心里一片苦悲。 现在和去年一样，你依伴着这片树林， 让林木披满清辉。 啊，心爱的月亮，在你柔漫的银辉里 兔儿正在林中嬉戏…… 暮色在天空大地流溢， 碧蓝色又旋即泛起， 阴影从屋顶和山峦遁离 新月的白色光辉徐徐飘飞。 月亮，你在做什么，远在那天上。 告诉我吧，啊沉默的月亮； 夜晚你上升；观照荒原， 然后你依然下沉、隐藏。 这篇讲演中是不是有很多的线索纠结在一起了呢？我应该拉哪条线抽出头来呢？有一条线索把月亮、列奥帕第、牛顿、重力和浮力联系了起来。有一条卢克莱修、原子论、卡瓦尔康蒂的爱的哲学、文艺复兴时期魔术、西拉诺的线索。还有作为一个比喻、谈论世界上微尘般细小事物的写作线索。对于卢克莱修来说，文字就像永恒移动的原子一样，通过组合，创造出极多种多样的词汇和音韵。古今许多思想家都使用过这个观念，他们认为，世界的种种秘密都包含在书写符号的种种结合之中：我们不禁会想到莱蒙特·吕黎（Raymond Lully）的《大艺术》（Ars Magna）、西班牙犹太法师的大经书和皮戈·德拉·米兰多拉（Pico della Mirandola）……甚至伽利略（Galileo）也把字母表看作为最小单位一切组合的典范……还有莱布尼茨……我是否应该沿着这条路走下去呢？等待着我的结论看来不是很明显的吗？写作就是现实中每一种过程的模式……的确是我们所能知道的唯一的现实，的确干脆就是唯一的现实……不不，我不会走像这样的路，因为这些路会让我远离我所理解的语词的用法，也就是说，语词是对事物的永恒的迫逐，是对事物无限多样性的永无止境的顺应。 还有一条线索，就是我首先抽出的这一条：文学是一种存在的功能，追求轻松是对生活沉重感的反应。大概甚至卢克莱修也痛感这一需要，甚至还有奥维德；卢克莱修寻求过——或者他认为他寻求过——伊壁鸠鲁的冷漠；奥维德寻求过——或者他认为他寻求过——依照毕达哥拉斯教导所说的轮回。 我习惯于认为文学是一种知识追求。为了进入有关存在的论述，我必须考虑延伸到人类学、民族学和神话学的文字。面对着部落生活的苦难困境——干旱、疾病、各种邪恶势力——萨满的反应是脱离躯体的沉重，飞入另一个世界，另一层次的感受，从而可以找到改变现实面貌的力量。在距离我们较近的世纪和文明中，在女人承担艰苦生活大部分重担的农村，巫婆们夜里骑着苕帚棍飞驰，或者乘坐更轻的车具，如麦穗，或者稻草。在被宗教裁判所列为禁忌以前，这些场景是民间想象力的一部分，或者甚至可以说是生活感受的一部分。我认为这是人类学的稳固特征，是人们向往的轻松生活与实际遭受的困苦之间的一个连接环节。而文学则把人类学的这一设想永久化了。 首先，口头文学：在民间故事里，飞入另一世界是常见的事。在符拉基米尔·普罗普（Vladimir Propp）的《民间故事形态学》（Morphology of the Folktale，1968）中开列的“功能”当中，有一种方法是“人物转移”，说明如下：“通常，被寻求的物体是在'另一个'或者'不同的'国度，这个国度可能在横向上十分遥远的地方，或者，在纵向上，或在高空，或在深海或地下。”接着，普罗普罗列许多人物腾空的例证：骑马或骑鸟，化装为鸟，乘飞船，乘飞毯，坐在巨人或鬼魂肩上，乘魔鬼的车辆。 把民族志和民俗学中记载的萨满教和巫术的功能与文学中包含的形象目录接合起来，也许不是无的放矢的。恰恰相反，我认为每种文学手段背后的最深刻的理性是可以在这种理性所符合的人类学的需要之中找到的。 我想以卡夫卡（Kafka）的《木桶骑士）（Der Kubelreiter）结束我这篇讲演。这一篇在一九一七年写成的第一人称的故事，很短。故事出发点是奥地利帝国战争期间最艰苦的一个冬天中的真实情况：缺煤。叙事人提着空木桶去寻找火炉用煤。路上，木桶像一匹马一样驮着他，把他竟驮到了一座房屋的第二层；他在那房屋里颠簸摇摆得像是骑着一匹骆驼。煤店老板的煤场在地下室，木桶骑士却高高在上。他费尽力气才把信息传送给老板，老板也的确是有求必应的，但是老板娘却不理睬他的需求。骑士恳求他们给他一铲子哪怕是最劣质的煤，即使他不能马上付款。那老板娘解下了裙子像轰苍蝇一样把这位不速之客赶了出去。那木桶很轻，驮着骑士飞走，消失在大冰山之后。 卡夫卡的许多短篇小说都具有神秘色彩，这一篇尤其如此。也许是卡夫卡不过想告诉我们，在战时寒冬之夜外出找煤一事把晃动的木桶变成了游侠的索求，或者一辆大篷车穿过沙漠，或者乘魔毯的飞翔。但是，一只空木桶让你超离既可以得到帮助、又可发现他人利己主义的地方；一桶空木桶，作为匮乏、希求和寻找的象征，又把你带到一个连小小的要求也得不到满足的地方——所有这一切都足以引发人无限的思考。 我读到了萨满和民间故事中的人物，读到了被转化为轻松、使飞翔进入一个神奇的、有求必应的境界这样的事成为可能的困苦。我谈到了乘着普通家常用具——如一只木桶——飞翔的巫师。但是，卡夫卡故事的主人翁看来没有被赋予萨满教或者巫术的力量；大冰山后面的国度看起来是一个空木桶有可能被装满的地方。事实上，那木桶装得越满，就越不可能飞翔。就这样吧，让我们骑上我们的木桶，来面对未来一千年；我们能够往里面装多少东西就装多少，不可抱更大的奢望。例如，轻逸；于轻逸的好处，在这里我已经用尽心思谈论了一番。 [*] 整理者注：参照原文，吉多此句回话大意为“你们这是在自己家里，要怎么骂我都由得你们”。