Either it is the translation or my lack of deeper knowledge of other works of Bachelard or phenomenology. But it has been an extremely difficult read. The language of the text is just strange. I liked a bit here or there, but overall I don't really know how I really feel about this book.
Sumptuously written and evocative.
1) ''This delicate little Aeolian harp that nature has set at the entrance to our breathing is really a sixth sense, which followed and surpassed the others. It quivers a the merest movement of metaphor; it permits human thought to sing. And when I let my nonconformist philosopher's daydreams go unchecked, I begin to think that the vowel a is the vowel of immensity. It is a sound area that starts with a sigh and extends beyond all limits.''
2) ''All important words, all the words marked for grandeur by a poet, are keys to the universe, to the dual universe of the Cosmos and the depths of the human spirit.''
3) ''Philosophy makes us ripen quickly, and crystallizes us in a state of maturity. How, then, without 'dephilosophizing' ourselves, may we hope to experience the shocks that being receives from new images, shocks which are always the phenomena of …
1) ''This delicate little Aeolian harp that nature has set at the entrance to our breathing is really a sixth sense, which followed and surpassed the others. It quivers a the merest movement of metaphor; it permits human thought to sing. And when I let my nonconformist philosopher's daydreams go unchecked, I begin to think that the vowel a is the vowel of immensity. It is a sound area that starts with a sigh and extends beyond all limits.''
2) ''All important words, all the words marked for grandeur by a poet, are keys to the universe, to the dual universe of the Cosmos and the depths of the human spirit.''
3) ''Philosophy makes us ripen quickly, and crystallizes us in a state of maturity. How, then, without 'dephilosophizing' ourselves, may we hope to experience the shocks that being receives from new images, shocks which are always the phenomena of youthful being? When we are at an age to imagine, we cannot say how or why we imagine. Then when we could say how we imagine, we cease to imagine. We should therefore dematurize ourselves.''
