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

5 the house. from cella.,. to garret. the significance of the hutIectical game of the I and the non-I. In fact, they know theuniverse before they know the house; the far horizon before the resting-place; whereas the real beginnings ofimages, if we study them phenomenologically, will give concreteevidence of the values of inhabited space, of the non-Ithat protects the I.Indeed, here we touch upon a converse whose images weshall have to explore: all really inhabited space bears theessence of the notion of home. In the course of this work,we shall see that the imagination functions in this directionwhenever the human being has found the slightestshelter: we shall see the imagination build "walls" of impalpableshadows, comfort itself with the illusion of protection-or,just the contrary, tremble behind thick walls,mistrust the staunchest ramparts. In short, in the mostinterminable of dialectics, the sheltered being gives perceptiblelimits to his shelter. He experiences the house inits reality and in its virtuality, by means of thought anddreams. It is no longer in its positive aspects that the houseis really "lived," nor is it only in the passing hour that werecognize its benefits. An entire past comes to dwell in anew house. The old saying: "We bring our lares with us"has many variations. And the daydream deepens to thepoint where an immemorial domain opens up for thedreamer of a home beyond man's earliest memory. Thehouse, like fire and water, will permit me, later in this work,to recall flashes of daydreams that illuminate the synthesisof immemorial and recollected. In this remote region, memoryand imagination remain associated, each one workingfor their mutual deepening. In the order of values, theyboth constitute a community of memory and image. Thusthe house is not experienced from day to day only, on thethread of a narrative, or in the telling of our own story.Through dreams, the various dwelling-places in our livesco-penetrate and retain the treasures of former days. Andafter we are in the new house, when memories of otherplaces we have lived in come back to us, we travel to theland of Motionless Childhood, motionless the way all Im-