Childhood lasts all through life. It returns to animate broad sections of adult life... Poets will help us to find this living childhood within us, this permanent, durable immobile world.
Gaston BachelardRead
All the senses awaken and fall into harmony in poetic reverie. Poetic reverie listens to this polyphony of the senses, and the poetic consciousness must record it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that poetry connects all of our senses and captures the beauty of their harmony.
Gaston Bachelard's quote reflects the idea that poetry is an immersive experience where all human senses engage and resonate together. In a state of 'poetic reverie,' one listens to and appreciates the myriad sounds and sensations of life, leading to a deeper awareness and understanding that a poetic consciousness thrives on. This implies that the role of poetry is not just to express thoughts but to record the rich tapestry of sensory experiences that life presents.
Themes
PoetrySensesHarmonyReverieConsciousness
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used to open a discussion about the role of the senses in artistic creation.
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In order to dream so far, is it enough to read? Isn't it necessary to write? Write as in our schoolboy past, in those days when, as Bonnoure says, the letters wrote themselves one by one, either in their gibbosity or else in their pretentious elegance? In those days, spelling was a drama, our drama of culture at work in the interior of a word.
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How is it possible not to feel that there is communication between our solitude as a dreamer and the solitudes of childhood? And it is no accident that, in a tranquil reverie, we often follow the slope which returns us to our childhood solitudes.
Gaston BachelardRead
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