On Poetic Imagination and Reverie

 

On Poetic Imagination and Reverie by Gaston Bachelard
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

How does such a slight book pack in so much insight? I think there's a corrollary here between On Poetic Imagination and Reverie and the works it uses for it's examples. Bachelard is careful and particular about using such examples, but is able to expand the readers understanding and appreciation with only a scant selection of representative samples. This fact mirrors his insight into the works themselves, works that don't speak to the reader, but speak with the reader, works that invite the reader between the letters and words immerse the reader in a hidden world that breathes behind the page.

For example, Bachelard cites Poe's "A Descent into the Maelstrom":

On a theme as slight as falling, Edgar Allan Poe succeeds in providing, by means of a few objective images, enough substance forthe fundamental dream to make the fall last. To understand Poe's imagination, it is necessary to live this assimilation of external images by the movement of inner falling, and to remember that this fall is already akin to fainting, akin to death. The reader can then feel such empathy that upon closing the book he still keeps the impression of not having come back up.

Conversely, he states:

The picturesque disperses the force of dreams. To be effective, a phantom should not have bright colors. A phantom lovingly described ceases to act as a phantom.

Which reflects one of the most common charges levelled against Lovecraft,/a>. With his overly-long descriptive passages, Lovecraft holds his terrors too dear, robbing them of both their cosmic aspect and their aspect of horror. This is why I find Aickman's horror so much superior. It is not what is said or how it is said, it is what is unsaid, but apparent to the reader who is paying close enough attention, that generates the real horror. It is the implication, the throbbing background "sound," rather than the brazen crash of trumpets that draws the reader in to be embraced by dread.

And this applies to other human emotions, joy, loss, love. It is more lasting to use an image to imply the unsaid, to, rather than impress the reader with words, to invite the reader through unspoken cues to become embraced by the implications that only images can foster. As the old Deep Purple song says "it's not the kill, it's the thrill of the chase".

The ideal image must seduce us through all our senses and draw us beyond the sense that is most clearly committed.

View all my reviews

________________________

If you like my writing and want to help out, ko-fi me at https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!