Taking a line for a walk: an iconic and intertextual reading of T.T. Cloete’s “toepassings van dante” (“applications of dante”) The cycle of poems in T.T. Cloete’s “toepassings van dante” (“applications of dante”) has iconic characteristics but also resonates within wider intertextual and cultural spheres. The interpretation of the poems presented in this article attempts to incorporate textual aspects such as iconicity, referentiality, selfreferentiality and representation as well as the intertextual and cultural meanings generated by the texts. The poems refer directly to Dante’s “Paradiso”, activating the codes of chivalry which informed medieval poetry, but the strong visual nature of the poems also leads the reader to Paul Klee’s esthetic and visual principles and Bachelard’s views on form and space. The coherence as well as the development of themes are discussed. Line, movement and form are depicted as dynamic aspects of creativity but ultimately the paradoxical relation between beauty and functionality is thematised. Nevertheless, it is emphasised that even in the interpretation of the multilayered meanings of the texts, the referential nature of language and the iconic nature of the text are basic and therefore essential aspects of the generation of meaning.