The poetics of reverie

About this book

In this, his last significant work, an admired French philosopher provides extraordinary meditations on the relations between the imagining consciousness and the world, positing the notion of "reverie"as its most dynamic point of reference. In his earlier book, "The Poetics of Space, "Bachelard considered several kinds of "praiseworthy space" conducive to the flow of poetic imagery. In "Poetics of Reverie "he considers the absolute origins of that imagery: language, sexuality, childhood, the Cartesian ego, and the universe. Approaching the psychology of wonder from the phenomenological viewpoint, Bachelard demonstrates the aurgentative "potential "of all that awareness. Thus he distinguishes what is merely a phenomenon of relaxation from the kind of reverie which "poetry puts on the right track, the track of expanding consciousness""