“Poetry, rather than being a phenomenology of the mind, is a phenomenology of the soul.” — Gaston Bachelard Copy Share Image
The great function of poetry is to give back to us the situations of our dreams. — Gaston Bachelard Copy Share Image
Poetry is one of the destinies of speech... One would say that the poetic image, in its newness, opens a future to… — Gaston Bachelard Copy Share Image
True poetry is a function of awakening. It awakens us, but it must retain the memory of previous dreams. — Gaston Bachelard Copy Share Image
The philosophy of poetry must acknowledge that the poetic act has no past, at least no recent past, in which its preparation… — Gaston Bachelard Copy Share Image
We are never real historians, but always near poets, and our emotion is perhaps nothing but an expression of a poetry that… — Gaston Bachelard Copy Share Image
All the senses awaken and fall into harmony in poetic reverie. Poetic reverie listens to this polyphony of the senses, and the… — Gaston Bachelard Copy Share Image
Childhood lasts all through life. It returns to animate broad sections of adult life… Poets will help us to find this living… — Gaston Bachelard Copy Share Image
It is through the intentionality of poetic imagination that the poet's soul discovers the opening of consciousness common to all true poetry. — Gaston Bachelard Copy Share Image
In living off all the reflecting light furnished by poets, the I which dreams the reverie reveals itself not as poet but… — Gaston Bachelard Copy Share Image
We believe we can also show that words do not have exactly the same psychic "weight" depending on whether they belong to… — Gaston Bachelard Copy Share Image
“Memories of the outside world will never have the same tonality as those of home and, by recalling these memories, we add… — Gaston Bachelard Copy Share Image
The reverie we intend to study is poetic reverie. This is a reverie which poetry puts on the right track, the track… — Gaston Bachelard Copy Share Image
Nobody knows that in reading we are re-living our temptations to be a poet. All readers who have a certain passion for… — Gaston Bachelard Copy Share Image
It is quite evident that a barrier must be cleared in order to escape the psychologists and enter into a realm which… — Gaston Bachelard Copy Share Image
Sometimes, when I am tired of so many oscillations, I look for refuge in a word which I begin to love for… — Gaston Bachelard Copy Share Image
“Words are little houses, each with its cellar and garret. Common-sense lives on the ground floor, always ready to engage in "foreign… — Gaston Bachelard Copy Share Image
Whoever lives for poetry must read everything. How often has the light of a new idea sprung for me from a simple… — Gaston Bachelard Copy Share Image
In contrast to a dream a reverie cannot be recounted. To be communicated, it must be written, written with emotion and taste,… — Gaston Bachelard Copy Share Image
We comfort ourselves by reliving memories of protection. Something closed must retain our memories, while leaving them their original value as images.… — Gaston Bachelard Copy Share Image
“Here the phenomenologist has nothing in common with the literary critic who, as has frequently been noted, judges a work that he… — Gaston Bachelard Copy Share Image
“Pierre-Jean Jouve writes: "poetry is a soul inaugurating form". The soul inaugurates. Here it is the supreme power. It is human dignity.… — Gaston Bachelard Copy Share Image
Of course, a psychologist would find it more direct to study the inspired poet. He would make concrete studies of inspiration in… — Gaston Bachelard Copy Share Image
Dreaming by the river, I dedicated my imagination to water, to clear, green water, the water that makes the meadows green. — Gaston Bachelard Copy Share
If we did not have a feminine being within us, how would we rest ourselves? — Gaston Bachelard Copy Share
The image can only be studied through the image, by dreaming images as they gather in reverie. It is a non-sense to claim to… — Gaston Bachelard Copy Share
If there is any realm where distinction is especially difficult, it is the realm of childhood memories, the realm of beloved images harbored in… — Gaston Bachelard Copy Share
In scientific thought, the concept functions all the better for being cut off from all background images. In its full exercise, the scientific concept… — Gaston Bachelard Copy Share
It is through the intentionality of poetic imagination that the poet's soul discovers the opening of consciousness common to all true poetry. — Gaston Bachelard Copy Share
In writing, you discover interior sonorities in words. Dipthongs sound differently beneath the pen. One hears them with their sounds divorced. — Gaston Bachelard Copy Share
Here we are at the very core of the thesis we wish to defend in the present essay: reverie is under the sign of… — Gaston Bachelard Copy Share
There are children who will leave a game to go and be bored in a corner of the garret. How often have I wished… — Gaston Bachelard Copy Share
Ideas are refined and multiplied in the commerce of minds. In their splendor, images effect a very simple communion of souls. — Gaston Bachelard Copy Share
In our view any awareness is an increment to consciousness, an added light, a reinforcement of psychic coherence. Its swiftness or instantaneity can hide… — Gaston Bachelard Copy Share
Imagination is a tree. It has the integrative virtues of a tree. It is root and boughs. It lives between earth and sky. It… — Gaston Bachelard Copy Share
Irony gives us, at little expense, the impression that we are experienced psychologists. — Gaston Bachelard Copy Share
