These seven lectures are printed as they were delivered, complete with all the original digressions, asides and reminiscences He gave them on consecutive nights in Buenos Aires in 1977 and they represent the plunder of a lifetime's reading and untrammelled and ingenious reflection His subjects are Dante's Divine Comedy, nightmares, 'The Thousand and One Nights', Buddhism, poetry, the 'Kabbalah' and blindness He is blind himself in one eye