The Psychoanalysis of Fire

The subject of this unusual book is best described by the author. "We are going to study a problem that no one has managed to approach objectively, one in which the initial charm of the object is so strong that it still has the power to warp the minds of the clearest thinkers and to keep bringing them back to the poetic fold in which dreams replace thought and poems conceal theorems. This problem is the psychological problem posed by our convictions about fire. It seems to me so definitely psychological in nature that I do not hesitate to speak of a psychoanalysis of fire." Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962) was a philosopher whose training in the sciences gave him a unique profile in the world of literary criticism to which he turned. An admirer of Husserl and Jung, he was one of the most original and stimulating thinkers of the twentieth century.