The Poetics of Reverie – Michigan Quarterly Review

At least once or twice a year, I read Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962), a French philosopher and literary critic. The best way to read Bachelard is to read Bachelard slowly, preferably in deep afternoon, outside, under some enormous tree, with a turquoise bowl of ice cream in hand. He is impossible to read quickly, and almost impossible to understand without a serious background in mid-century French philosophy–and, yet, here I am, continuing to read him, year after year, with such fondness and tenderness, and only a vague understanding of mid-century French philosophy. Why? The text is not immediately satisfying; the language is dense, weighted down with abstraction after abstraction, words so large and vague that their meanings careen off into nothingness, like a spinning children’s top. I don’t entirely trust the translation from the French: I have the distinct sense that Bachelard is making puns I’m not catching. Nevertheless, I read on, waiting for rare moments of lucidity and delight

At least once or twice a year, I read Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962), a French philosopher and literary critic. The best way to read Bachelard is to read Bachelard slowly, preferably in deep afternoon, outside, under some enormous tree, with a turquoise bowl of ice cream in hand. He is impossible to read quickly, and almost impossible to understand without a serious background in mid-century French philosophy–and, yet, here I am, continuing to read him, year after year, with such fondness and tenderness, and only a vague understanding of mid-century French philosophy. Why? The text is not immedi