The Poetics of Space

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Bachelard also discusses psychoanalysis and the work of the psychiatrist Carl Jung. Comparing the psychoanalytic and phenomenological approaches to his subject matter, he sees merit in both, but finds the phenomenological approach preferable. [2] Publication history [ edit ] It wasn't Bachelard's preoccupation with psychoanalysis, although that hasn't aged very well -- the nattering on about psychoanalytical approaches to phenomenology sounded silly and smelled moldy, and was about as engaging as reading about phrenological approaches (actually, that might have been more interesting). Every book reflects the intellectual fashions of the time, so I was willing to give him a pass on that. I had the usual rough worldly Baptism by Fire, but I burned only as long as did the mythical Phoenix, rising out of the ashes to the New Life of the Spirit. To read and enjoy Bachelard's work takes a great deal of mental visualization, which some people can do more naturally than others, do not be discouraged. For example, his statement that a poet will "seek warmth and the quiet life in the arms of a curve" made me picture Allen Ginsberg on a swing. It takes special conjecture to move further. One has only to look at pictures of ammonites to realize that, as early as the Mesozoic Age, mollusks constructed their shells according to the teachings of a transcendental geometry […] A poet naturally understands this esthetic category of life.

It is in the expressions of humanity that Bachelard seeks his resonances with the physical world. Language is the beginning of all things human, the starting point where truths emerge from silence, therefore anything expressed contains a kernel of truth, and a kernel of humanity. It is in response to silence that words, and therefore humanity, takes form. Silence is far more abundant than language, but even small amounts of language contain more than silence. This type of interchange between man and world is pursued by Bachelard through countless aspects of inhabiting the world, expanded and expounded into regions as diverse as hermetic huts, corners, the composition of shells and bird’s nests in the animal world, the “miniaturization” of fairy tales, the dialogue between inside and outside beings, immensity and diminution, the “warm” properties of curves and the “cold” properties of sharp angles, the “roundness of being”. The house shelters daydreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace." Bachelard’s introduction elucidates his conception of the poetic image (“a sudden salience on the surface of the psyche”), and the importance of the novelty of the image, that it is something essentially without causality, without a personal historic precedent, yet which can be transferred from mind to mind and still reverberate. The idea of reverberation is of utmost importance to Bachelard, this idea that a unique image can bring new vitality to the intellect and the imagination, that a wholly original concept can react within a psyche like “a new property of the universe”. Here is the launching point of his entire thesis, that there is an ontology of the imagination that works outside the realms of psychology and psychoanalysis, that the poetic image is not given potency and validation through a referential history, that “the poet does not confer the past of his image upon me, and yet his image immediately takes root in me”. This enigmatic moment of joy, this shiver of recognition that sets atremble our entire being in the presence of the sublimely poetic, even if as yet not fully comprehended (that nameless feeling which is so familiar to lovers of literature and the arts) is the focal point of Bachelard’s exploration of space, the initiator and signifier of a personal resonance. Every corner in a house, every angle in a room, every inch of secluded space in which we like to hide, or withdraw into ourselves, is a symbol of solitude for the imagination." – Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of SpaceFirst published in French in 1958, the book's English translation appeared in 1964, and went on to become a classic. Richard Kearneyholds the Charles B. Seelig Chair of Philosophy at Boston College and has served as a Visiting Professor at University College Dublin and the University of Paris (Sorbonne). He is the author of 25 books on European philosophy and literature. I used to retain a vivid and unmistakable memory of lying in bed as an infant in a dark, warm room and hearing the ominous and mysterious double booms - first low-pitched, then even lower - of a nearby fog horn. One of the most resonating passages from the book discusses the concept of the house as a repository of memories: "Memory aids the individual in the dense texture of dreams. It is an abundance of history that the soul loves and by which it is enriched.", Something I couldn't agree more.

Gaston Bachelard, The Psychoanalysis of Fire, trans. Alan C. M. Ross (Boston: Beacon Press, 1964), 1, 6. I had had a sensory key given to me - just as Proust was given the grace of a little cake of Madeleine to permit an instant of exact recall... I can understand why so many people consider The Poetics of Space to be such an important book, but I found it rather uneven. The most interesting section, far and away, is the introduction. Bachelard begins the book by laying out his theory of the poetic image. Unlike metaphor, which is merely an intellectual comparison, the true poetic image causes a deep resonance in the reader. Upon glancing a poetic image for the home, for example, all of the homes of the reader's past well up in his imagination. The poetic image makes reading active - experiencing poetry is the mapping of your own memories onto the poet's text. As such, Bachelard's favorite word in the book is "daydreaming" - the course that your mind is set on after reading a particularly resonant image. As a teenager I used to think “I CAN’T have just dreamed that up!” I used to remember it when listening to Beethoven, for some strange reason.I've failed to explain Bachelard to so many people by now that I should know better. I should write some sort of meta-review/hymn/grocery list here, but I'm afraid. I'm afraid to wash the freaking hem of this book.

She suggests if there's a single idea to take away from The Poetics of Space, "it's that your emotional architecture and the architecture of the house are one." Danielewski, Mark Z. (2014). "Foreword". The Poetics of Space. New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-310752-1. When we are at an age to imagine, we cannot say how or why we imagine. Then, when we could say how we imagine, we cease to imagine. We should therefore dematurize ourselves.” calm. From being imagined, calm becomes an emergence of being. It is like a value that dominates, in spite of minor states of being, in spite of a disturbed world."The Poetics of Space was first published by Presses Universitaires de France in 1958. In 1964, the Orion Press, Inc. published the book, with a foreword by the philosopher Étienne Gilson, in an English translation by the writer Maria Jolas. Beacon Press republished the work in English in 1969. In 1994, it republished it in a new edition with an added foreword by the historian John R. Stilgoe. [3] [4] [5] In 2014, Penguin Books published an edition with a foreword by the novelist Mark Z. Danielewski and an introduction by the philosopher Richard Kearney. [6] [7] [8] Reception [ edit ] So Bachelard maintains his points of reference in the world of literature, poetry and imaginative prose, products of contemplation and reflection, and seeks no external justification in the practicality of his arguments. If something exists in the realm of the imagination, it exists with no further need of validation. There is a reality beyond the positive, material world, that contains just as much vitality and energy as physical objects, just as much prescience of an actuality as an idea turned into a material thing. Words create solidity, images evoke a concreteness, there is a realness to every written thing, no matter how abstract, and the mind reaches toward comprehension of each potent image; it is in these realms that the work of art reigns, expressing our humanity in dynamic, personalized terms. The Poetics of Space is mainly concerned with the dialectic between these regions of the imagination and the places in which they are nurtured and developed. For British writer and social historian Ken Worpole, Bachelard's book grows in importance, particularly as populations age. When Worpole began working with architects and designers in the field of hospital and hospice design, he turned to The Poetics of Space as a guide. Bachelard points out that there’s a real house and a dream house. We always build a dream house in our minds. Moreover, we also inhabit the spaces of that dream house. We design it, know its location, and inhabit it particularly in moments of nonconformity. Our soul is an abode. And by remembering houses and rooms, we learn to abide within ourselves." – Gaston Bachelard 'Home has a soul'

Other authors who have praised The Poetics of Space include Gilson, [15] Stilgoe, [16] Kearney, [17] and the philosopher Gary Gutting. [18] Gilson credited Bachelard with making "one of the major modern contributions to the philosophy of art". [15] Stilgoe praised his discussion of "the meaning of domestic space". [16] Kearney described The Poetics of Space as "the most concise and consummate expression of Bachelard's philosophy of imagination." [17] Gutting credited Bachelard with subtly explaining the meaning of archetypal images. [18] See also [ edit ] Bachelard] is neither a self-confessed and tortured atheist like Satre, nor, like Chardin, a heretic combining a belief in God with a proficiency in modern science. But, within the French context, he is almost as important as they are because he has a pseudo-religious force, without taking a stand on religion. To define him as briefly as possible – he is a philosopher, with a professional training in the sciences, who devoted most of the second phase of his career to promoting that aspect of human nature which often seems most inimical to science: the poetic imagination …”Tranquil foliage that really is lived in, a tranquil gaze discovered in the humblest of eyes, are the artisans of immensity. These images make the world grow, and the summer too. At certain hours poetry gives out waves of Why does it matter? Why do we need to localize, contain, or even imagine things like memory? For understanding. A different facet of anything helps us gain perspective—literally—and, thus, understand notions that might otherwise overwhelm and be ignored. Of all aspects of self-awareness, our mortality might be the most difficult. It is common for writers to anchor concepts of death and mortality in physical spaces. From Joan Didion, who wrote about "twilight blue nights" after her daughter's death, to Christopher Hitchens, who imagined, when dying, that he crossed over to a "land of the ill." He compares a home to a nest or a shell. By this, he means that a house is, symbolically, the place where life is created and also where it takes shelter. This being the case, if I were asked to name the chief benefit of the house, I should say: the house shelters daydreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace. Thought and experience are not the only things that sanction human values. The values that belong to daydreaming mark humanity in its depths. Daydreaming even has a privilege of autovalorization. It derives direct pleasure from its own being. Therefore, the places in which we have experienced daydreaming reconstitute themselves in a new daydream, and it is because our memories of former dwelling-places are relived as daydreams that these dwelling-places of the past remain in us for all time.