Earth and Reveries of WillTHE BACHELARD TRANSLATIONS
THE BACHELARD
TRANSLATIONS are the inspiration of Joanne H. Stroud, who in 1981 contracted with José
Corti to publish in English the untranslated works of Bachelard on the imagination.
Gaston Bachelard is acclaimed
as one of the most significant modern French thinkers. From 1929 to 1962 he
authored twenty-three books addressing his dual concerns, the philosophy of
science and the analysis of the imagination of matter. The influence of his
thought can be felt in all disciplines of the humanities - art, architecture,
literature, language, poetics, philosophy, and depth psychology. His teaching
career included posts at the College de Bar-sur-Aube, the University of Dijon, and from
1940 to 1962 the chair of history and philosophy of science at the Sorbonne. One of the
amphitheaters of the Sorbonne is called "L'Amphi Gaston Bachelard," an honor
Bachelard shared with Descartes and Richelieu. He received the Grand Prix National Lettres
in 1961—one of only three philosophers ever to have
achieved this honor. The influence of his thought can be felt in all disciplines of the
humanities—art, architecture, literature, poetics,
psychology, philosophy, and language.
Earth and Reveries of Will
by Gaston Bachelard
Trans. Kenneth Haltman
Although English translations of the other books in the series on the elements - air, water and fire - are available from Dallas Institute Publications, this is the first translation of his 1978 work on earth. Totaling 418 pages, this book is by far the weightiest, perhaps appropriately so, as earth itself is heavy. In Earth and Reveries of Will, Bachelard augments our understanding with vibrant images of earth in its initiating, active role. A companion volume, Earth and Reveries of Repose, will be the final work in this series.
ISBN: 0-911
005-29-3
ISBN:
0-911005-30-7
418 pages, indexed. Paper, $30.00
Air and Dreams: An Essay
on the Imagination of Movement
by Gaston Bachelard
Trans. Edith and Frederick Farrell
Bachelard uses his extensive knowledge of the poetry of Poe, Blake, Shelley, and Nietzsche to amplify the images of the airy elements.
ISBN: 0-911005-13-7
298 pages, indexed. Paper, $25.00
The Right to Dream
by Gaston Bachelard
Trans. J.A. Underwood
A collection of essays on the arts (e.g. Chagall, Monet, Corti, Segal), literature (e.g. Rimbaud, Eluard, Poe, Balzac), and critical principles. Bachelard "speaks of a living world . . . companionable, complete, dense, and enveloping . . . of the gold of alchemy and soft or fat monstrosities, of swamps, of the shapes of things, of Chillida's iron and Monet's water lilies." —Mary Vernon.
ISBN: 0-911005-16-1
190 pages, indexed. Paper, $17.00
The Flame of a
Candle
by Gaston Bachelard
Trans. Joni Caldwell
"This book further-cements his thematic contention that the imagination is a flame, the flame of the psyche." —Joanne Stroud. Chapters include "Poetic Images of the Flame in Plant Life," ''The Solitude of the Candle Dreamer," and "The Light of the Lamp."
ISBN: 0-911005-14-5
89 pages, indexed. Cloth, $18.00
ISBN: 0-911005-15-3
89 pages, indexed. Paper, $16.00 -
OUT OF STOCK
Fragments of a Poetics of Fire
by Gaston Bachelard
Trans. Kenneth Haltman
Bachelard's final work on the element of fire, edited posthumously by his daughter Suzanne Bachelard and appearing for the first time in France in 1988, brings to light his poetics of fire in a critical introduction and essays on Prometheus, the Phoenix, and Empedocles.
ISBN: 0-911005-17-X
197 pages, indexed. Cloth, $25.00
ISBN: 0-911005-18-8
197 pages, indexed. Paper, $18.00
Lautréamont
by Gaston Bachelard
Trans. Robert Dupree
The famous French scientist-psychologist-literary critic provides a virtual bestiary for depth psychology and literary criticism in his study of Isidore Ducasse, known by the pen-name Lautréamont. Includes essays by James Hillman "Baehelard's Lautreamont, or Psychoanalysis without a Patient," and Robert Scott Dupree, "Bachelard as Literary Critic."
ISBN: 0-911005-09-9
150 pages, indexed. Paper, $16.00
Water and Dreams: An Essay on the
Imagination of Matter
by Gaston Bachelard
Trans. Edith Farrell
Gaston Bachelard, master dreamer of the elements, animates the waters of the soul with his stirring, fluid imagination. With the subtlety of a poet, he ranges from the surface of water with its reflective narcissism to the very depths where water flows into death. Clear waters, deep water, the Charon Complex, the Ophelia Complex, water in combination with other elements, maternal waters, water's morality, violent water, water's voice.
ISBN: 0-911005-25-0
213 pages, indexed. Paper, $23.00
