Space And Imagination In Gaston Bachelard's The Poetics Of Space

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In 19th century art, architecture and literature specific spaces such as the attic, studies and private garden were perceived as places of imagination and contemplation within a home. There is no one meaning to the term ‘space’ and throughout time and with the evolution of literature and architecture, space can be seen and understood in many different ways. It can be as literal as erecting walls and a roof creating a surrounded space or in the way Gaston Bachelard in ‘the poetics of space’ so deeply analysis, that it is our own creative minds and imagination in which we create intimate spaces. The house becomes a home from those who inhabit it. In Gilbert and Gubars ‘The mad women in the attic’ and ‘The Yellow wallpaper” by charlotte Perkins …show more content…

It is a phenomenological analysis of the underlying connections we have with our feelings and the spaces within our homes. To analyse his understanding on the relationship between space and imagination one must first understand his own ideas and concepts of the word ‘space’. He interprets space as anything that has been inhabited by a living being, a mental concept of space. “All really imhabited space bears the essence of the notion of a home” (pg5 of poetics of space). A space does not necessarily have to be literal, made up of walls and a roof, but Bachelard’s findings examine how we alone can create spaces with our imagination and our presence and this comes about when he discovers a bird’s nest in his garden. Living birds and their eggs inhabit this nest, so it too was a home. He uses imagination to create the intimacies of the interior domestic spaces of a house. Bachelard aims to separate the general understanding of a house as an object we occupy and more describing it with personal images of experience and our memories. He begins by introducing the attic and cellar to illustrate an overall view of how different rooms evoke different thoughts and feelings. So in understanding a home and its spaces, he can understand the person, as the house is a manifestation of the soul. The cellar and attic are introduced as the polarized space of a house. He discusses the findings of C. G Jung and his different beliefs that the cellar and attic represented fear through the house. When we hear a noise coming from the dark depths of the cellar, it is usually our imagination playing tricks. Whereas Bachelard only focuses on the positive side of these spaces of it being a space of solitude and creativity. As Bachelard is so fixed on understanding the imagination, it is strange that he ignores the same ideas that like C.G Jung discusses and only analysis one side of it. Not all

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