Water and Dreams: An Essay On the Imagination of Matter

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, water in combination with other elements, maternal waters, water's morality, violent water, water's voice. The material imagination of water allows us to de-objectify objects and deform forms enabling us to dream and perceive the flow of soul in the world.

THE BACHELARD TRANSLATIONS are the inspiration of Joanne H. Stroud, a Founding Fellow of the Dallas Institute, who in 1981 contracted with Jos Corti to publish in English the untranslated works of Bachelard on the imagination through the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture, Dallas, Texas.

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.