Whether in verse or in prose, it has a poetic effect, which is also an effect of vocal poetry. It is one of those words that a writer always speaks softly while he is writing it. It is a word that is pronounced, never only read, never only seen in the objects to which it is attached. “In my opinion, for Baudelaire, the word vast is a vocal value. When we dream there, we are in harmony with the irrationality of the depths.” But it is first and foremost the dark entity of the house, the one that partakes of subterranean forces. It will be rationalized and its conveniences enumerated. Here we participate in the carpenter's solid geometry.Īs for the cellar, we shall no doubt find uses for it. In the attic it is a pleasure to see the bare rafters of the strong framework. Up near the roof all our thoughts are clear. Even a dreamer dreams rationally for him, a pointed roof averts rain clouds. Geographers are constantly reminding us that, in every country, the slope of the roofs is one of the surest indications of the climate. A roof tells its raison d'etre right away: it gives mankind shelter from the rain and sun he fears. Indeed, it is possible, almost without commentary, to oppose the rationality of the roof to the irrationality of the cellar. “Verticality is ensured by the polarity of cellar and attic, the marks of which are so deep that, in a way, they open up two very different perspectives for a phenomenology of the imagination.

Bachelard gaston the poetics of space