PRE-ORDER | The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard

Gaston Bachelard was at home in two worlds: that of the exact sciences and that of literature and poetry. This is perfectly expressed in his classic The Poetics of Space (1957), which has now been translated into Dutch for the first time. The word 'space' in the title refers to certain types of space: protective, beloved, and familiar spaces. Bachelard shows how writers and poets relate to these spaces and thus aims to create a 'poetics'. He makes a topographical analysis of the house, which is also a topography of intimacy, writes about 'the house of things' (drawers, chests, cupboards), and about spaces uninhabitable to us such as shells and nests. He then focuses on the literary and poetic imagination that gives these spaces added value, and that is what Bachelard is concerned with.