Gaston Bachelard 'The Poetics of Space' - WordPress.com

xxiiintroductionpleasure not only from itself, but also prepares poetic pleasurefor other souls, one realizes that one is no longer driftinginto somnolence. The mind is able to relax, but inpoetic revery the soul keeps watch, with no tension, calmedand active. To compose a finished, well-constructed poem,the mind is obliged to make projects that prefigure it. Butfor a simple poetic image, there is no project; a flicker ofthe soul is all that is needed.And this is how a poet poses the phenomenological problemof the soul in all clarity. Pierre-Jean Jouve writes:l"Poetry is a soul inaugurating a form." The soul inaugurates.Here it is the supreme power. It is human dignity.Even if the "form" was already well-known, previously discovered,carved from "commonplaces," before the interiorpoetic light was turned upon it, it was a mere object for themind. But the soul comes and inaugurates the form, dwellsin it, takes pleasure in it. Pierre-Jean Jouve's statement cantherefore be taken as a clear maxim of a phenomenologyof the soul.IIISince a phenomenological inquiry on poetry aspires to goso far and so deep, because of methodological obligations,it must go beyond the sentimental resonances with whichwe receive (more or less richly-whether this richness bewithin ourselves or within the poem) a work of art. Thisis where the phenomenological doublet of resonances andrepercussions must be sensitized. The resonances are dispersedon the different planes of our life in the world, whilethe repercussions invite us to give greater depth to our ownexistence. In the resonance we hear the poem, in the reverberationswe speak it, it is our own. The reverberationsbring about a change of being. It is as though the poet'sbeing were our being. The multiplicity of resonances thenissues from the reverberations' unity of being. Or, to put itmore simply, this is an impression that all impassionedpoetry-lovers know well: the poem possesses us entirely.1 Pierre-Jean Jouve. En miroir, Mercure de France. p. 11.