Water and Dreams

An Essay on the Imagination of Matter

GASTON .BACHELARD

t ranslated from the French by Edith R, F a r r e l l

The Bachelard Translations

The Pegasus Foundation
The Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture
Dallas
 Originally published in 1942 as
L'Eau and les Reees, Essai sur I'imagination de la matiere
Copyright 1942. Librairie Jose Corti, Paris
15th printing, copyright 1982

© 1983 by The Pegasus Foundation, Dallas. All rights reserved

Typeset at The Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture;
printed and bound by Braun-Brumfield, Inc.
Ann Arbor, Michigan.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA

Bachelard, Gaston, 1884 —

1962
Water and Dreams.

Translation of: L'Eau et les reves.

Includes index.
1. Imagination. 2. Water — Psychological aspects.
3. Water in literature — Psychological aspects. 4. Water
in dreams. I. Title.
BF411.B2613 1983 1 5 4.6'3 8 3 - 2 3641
ISBN 0 — 911005-01-3

The Pegasus Foundation publishes works concerned with the imaginative,

mythic, and symbolic sources of culture. Publication efforts are centered at:
The Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture
2719 Routh Street, Dallas, Texas 75201
 Contents

Foreword V11

Acknowledgments X1

Introduction
I magination and M a t t e r
,-1 - — : -

.
19
' Clear~Wters, Springtime Waters and Running Waters
The Objective Conditions for Narcissism
Amorous Waters

2
Deep Waters — Dormant Waters — Dead Waters
"Heavy Waters" in Edgar Allan Poe's Reverie
3 71
The Charon Complex
The Ophelia Complex
4 93
Water in C o m b i n a t ion w it h O t h e r E l ements

~3 ) i,115
Maternal Water and Femin ine W ater
«6'' I(133'
Purity and Purification
Water's Morality

7 151
The Supremacy of Fresh Water
8 159
Violent Water
<.Conclusion ' 187
Water's Voice
Endnotes i197 I,
Author/Title Index 207
Subject Index 211
 Foreword

G AsTQN BAcHELARD caused a mild furor in F r a nce in 1938 when h e

published La Psychanalyse du feu.The audacity of it! In the ten years
s ince he ha d a c h i eved hi s d o c t o r ate w i t h t w o d i s s ertations, t h i s
teacher of philosophy had written eight works pertaining to philos-
o phical questions in c o n t e m p or ary scientific t h i n k i ng , T h a t s a m e
year he had published La Formation de l'esprit scientifique. Now the
title of his new work seemed to indicate a total shift of interest toward
psychology, phenomenology, and literature. But Bachelard never
gave up hi s p e n e tr ating search fo r w a y s t o u n d e r stand s cientific
modes of thought, the fruit of which was five other books on the phi-
losophy of science, four appearing before his death in 1962 and one
posthumously. His work on fire, however, forged a new direction.
Eight subsequent volumes by this compelling thinker pursued the
epistemological question: How does the imagination work? Viewing
his work retrospectively, as we are now in a position to do, provides
the evidence that establishes Bachelard as a pioneer in the field of
phenomenological studies of the imagination.
It is difficult to conceive why such a creative mind and prolific
writer, so well known in France, has remained in relative obscurity in
the English-speaking world. The Psychoanalysis of Firebecame avail-
able in English in 196'f and several of Bachelard's other writings in
the twenty y ears since. M an y o f h i s w o r k s , h o w ever, are un t r ans-
lated. It is to make this rich lode available that The Dallas Institute,
under the sponsorship of the Pegasus Foundation, brings out VYater
and Dreams: An Essay on the Material Imagination, the second of five
books on the elements, which Bachelard calls the "hormones of the
imagination."
What is an "element" for Bachelard? Water — like fire, earth, and
a ir — is an element in a p r e-Socratic sense and is therefore both " i n -
n er" an d " o u t e r . " B y w a t e r , B a c h elard m e an s actual p o nd s a n d
streams, as well as bo dies of w a ter t h a t p o p u l ate our d r e ams and
reveries. Especially the latter, for this book is the first which directs
his reader to the value of reverie.
Bachelard began his study on the imagination with the psycho-
analysis of an element, but, because he found Freudian psychology
 viii • F ORE W O R D

too much of a closed experience, his interest shifted to a more acces-

sible area of human nature. In the zone of active imagination, where
man is a thinking, willing being, an openness is retained. "Here the
depths are not so fearful nor th e h e ights so unattainable." Here we
can retrace, reclaim, retrieve, relive, and even transform experience
in our imaginative selves.
Bachelard never disowned the darker side of our nature. Some
readers, who glide over the surface of his word, believe him to be a
student only of the joyful side of experience, Yet over and over he
reminds us of the "profound and lasting ambivalences" that are char-
a cteristic of all meaningful participation in th e w o r ld , D u a l ity m u st
e xist for the im agination to b e engaged: there must be a " d ual par-
ticipation of desire and fear, a participation of good and evil, a
peaceful participation of black and white" for the material element to
involve the entire soul, Black and white do not remain, in his think-
ing, such lonely opposites. Each involves the other, needs the other.
Just as the subjective and objective world implicate each other, just as
w e need to se e an d t h e w o r l d n e e d s t o b e s e en, so h e r e c l aim s
reciprocity.
To read Bachelard's books on the elements is not to acquire more
knowledge, but to change one's way of looking at the material world.
It i s a transformation d i f f icult to d e scribe to someone who h as not
shared the experience. Just as no prose statement captures a poem, no
amount of paraphrasing will bridge the gap between one who has and
one who has not read his work. Just as we are altered by experiencing
Hopkins or Yeats or Rilke, so it is with Bachelard. With a concern for
the beautiful, offset by a sense of hearty well-being, Bachelard does il-
lumine a way, a joyous way, to r ehabilitate the imagination.
We read and return t o B a chelard, and each time our im agination
expands in a new way. He teaches us to read images centrifugally. He
presses our interior space outward, as if mov ing im aginatively from
the center of a flower. Perhaps more appropriate for a book on water
would be the image of ripples from a center point, constantly expand-
ing our way of seeing. This consciousness of change, or "felt change
of consciousness," in Owen Barfield's term, is never linear or logically
causal, Sometimes the movement is vertical and horizontal, but these
d ynamics are more characteristic of th e elements of air an d e a r t h ,
which will be taken up i n l a ter t r an slations in t hi s series,
 FOREWORD • 1x

The light of understanding that Bachelard offers is not that ofblar-

ing noon. It is like a refracted beam of early morning light seen
through pure water, Bachelard gently urges us to take the lessons of
water to heart, to see by means of water. Water calls for a seeing in
depth and also a seeing beyond: "The lake or pool or stagnant water
stops us near its bank. Its says to our will: you shall go no further; you
should go back to looking at distant things, at the beyond."
W ater is t h e m o s t r e c eptive o f t h e e l e m ents, t hu s i t s s t r o n g l y
feminine characteristics. Water is the spring of being, moth erhood.
Water flows, its constant movement responding to the environment
and to possibility. While the masculine sea calls for tales of adven-
ture, the rivers, lakes, and streams evoke reverie. It is the liquidity in
o ur eyes that c a u ses us t o d r e am . I f a p e r so n f a v or s on e o f t h e
elements as his poetic landscape, then Bachelard claims water as his
own oneiric element.
Reflection, the type of thinking that we are urged to do in psychol-
ogy, is a water term. James Hillman claims that "what matters is that
little syllable 're,' the most important syllable in psychology." Psycho-
logical echoes appeal to Bachelard. Rereading is almost obligatory
with Bachelard, and he encourages us to do so with felicity.
We are renewed when we follow Bachelard's instruction on how to
read the world or h o w t o r e a d a p o em. Hi s m aterial reflections are
lessons in psychological methodology. We see through the barnacles
of complexes that cling to our lives, These include the cultural com-
plexes, which he defines in this book as prereflective attitudes. We
l earn a ne w d e f i n i t io n o f t h e v e r b " t o s e e," so t h a t w e c a n l o o k
beyond our awn narcissism, beyond our own images reflected back to
us, and begin to see, with Bachelard's help, the world looking at itself,
loving itself. "The cosmos, then, is in some way clearly touched by
narcissism," he w r i t es. "The world w a nt s to see itself," to b e seen.
Water reveals, reflects. "The lake is a large tranquil eye,"
Water imagery impels us to seek the profound level of any experi-
ence, Depth always feels like watery depth. We are refreshed by what
Gerard Manley Hopkins, in his poem "God's Grandeur," calls "deep
down things," Linking poetic imagery and dreams, in this book on
water, Bachelard directs his attention to p o etry. Hi s concern is not
f or the whole poem but for isolated images, He is interested in "th at
strange reverie written down and coordinated in writ in g." In order to
 x • FOREWORD

penetrate the complex of creativity, the un i que essence of the poets

we love, Bachelard advises us to take re-soundings like sonar, sounds
of the depths. He explains that, by participating in the resonances,we
hear the poem. Its repercussionsinvite us to give greater depth to our
experience. Once gathered into its reverbations,the poem possesses us
e ntirely in " a v e r i t a ble aw akening of p o etic creation." T h i s i s t h e
methodology by which Bachelard draws us into the central vortex of
creativity.
Bachelard reanimates language — even in translation. Edith R. Far-
rell's careful and ex act t r a n slation ha s p r o d uced th at s ense of the
spoken word so characteristic of Bachelard. He admires images and
words that "sing reality," not merely describe it. For all his inspiriting
of matter, his enlivening of th e w orld, t h ere always remains a
peasant-like cast to his thoughts. He offers to the contemporary mind
a wholeness that we can no l o n ger afford to n eglect.
Joanne H. Stroud
Fellotu, The Dallas Institute
of Humanities and Culture
 Acknowledgments

THE DALLAs INsTITUTE o f Humanities and Cu l t ure br ings together a

diverse group of people with a remarkable range of talents. The pres-
ent volume would never have been possible without the assistance of
many associates. Jose Corti, Bachelard's French publisher, granted us
the American copyrights. The project flowered due to the sustained
concern of James Hillman, Gail T h omas, Robert Sardello, and
Donald Cowan. Colette Gaudin and Louise Cowan took time away
from teaching to check our text carefully. Ki Kugelmann coordinated
our efforts with efficiency. But most especially it was Robert Dupree,
in his poetic editing, and Susan Dupree, with her m eticulous atten-
tion to each phase of the book, who worked to make this much
needed translation available.
J,H.S.
Introduction

Imagination and Matter

Let us help the hydra clear away the fog.
STEPHANE MALLARME, Di Uagations

THE IMAGINING PowERs o f our mind develop around two very dif-
ferent axes.
Some get their impetus from novelty; they take pleasure in the pic-
turesque, the varied, and the unexpected. The imagination that th ey
spark always describes a springtime. In nature these powers, far from
us but already alive, bring forth flowers.
Others plumb the depths of being. They seek to find there both the
primitive and the eternal. They prevail over season and history. In
nature, within us and with o ut, they produce seeds — seeds whose form
is embedded in a substance, whose form is internal.
By speaking philosophically from the outset, we can distinguish
two sorts of imagination: one that gives life to the formal cause and
one that gives life to the material cause — or, more succinctly, a formal
imagination and a material imagination. Thus abbreviated, these con-
cepts seem to me indispensable for a complete philosophical study of
poetic creation. C auses arising from th e feelings and the heart must
become formal causes if a work is to possess verbal variety, the ever-
changing life of light. Yet besides the images of form, so often evoked
by psychologists of the imagination, there are — as I will show — images
of matter, images that stem directly from matter. The eye assigns them
names, but only the hand truly knows them. A dynamic joy touches,
moulds, and refines them. When forms, mere perishable forms and
vain images — perpetual change of surfaces — are put aside, these im-
a ges of matter are dr eamt substantially an d i n t i m a t ely. T hey h a v e
weight; they constitute a heart.
Of course, there are works in which the two imagining powers
cooperate, It is not even possible to separate them completely. Even
the most fleeting, changing, and purely formal reverie still has
 2 • I N TRO D U C T I O N

elements that are stable, dense, slow, and fertile. Yet even so, every
poetic work that penetrates deeply enough into the heart of being to
find the constancy and l o v ely m o n o t on y o f m a t t er, t hat d er ives its
strength from a s u b stantial cause, must bloom and b edeck itself. It
must embrace all the exuberance of formal beauty in order to attract
the reader in th e f irst place.
B ecause of this need to fascinate, the imagination ordinarily wor k s
where there is joy — or at least one kind of joy — produced either by
forms and colors, variety an d m e t a m or phosis, or by w h a t s u r f aces
become. Imagination deserts depth, volume, and the inner recesses of
substance.
However, it is to th e i n t i m ate imagination of these vegetating and
material powers that I would like to pay most attention in t his book .
Only an iconoclastic philosopher could undertake the long and dif-
ficult task of detaching all the suffixes from beauty, of searching
behind the obvious images for the hidden ones, of seeking the very
roots of this image-making power.
In the depths of m a t ter t h ere grows an obscure vegetation; black
flowers bloom in matter's darkness. They already possess a velvety
touch, a formulafor perfume.

When I began meditating on the concept of the beauty of matter, I

was immediately struck by th e n eglect of the ma terial cause in
aesthetic philosophy. In particular it seemed to me that the individ-
ualizing power of matter had been underestimated. Why does every-
one always associate the notion of the in d i v i dual with fo rm? Is there
not an individuality in depth that m akes matter a totality, even in its
smallest divisions? Meditated upon from the perspective of its depth,
matter is the very principle that can dissociate itself from forms. It is
not the simple absence of formal activity. It remains itself despite all
distortion and division. M o r eover, matter may be given value in two
ways: by deepening or by elevating. Deepening makes it seem un-
fathomable, like a mystery. Elevation makes it appear to be an inex-
h austible force, like a m i r a cle. In b ot h c ases, meditation on m a t t e r
cultivates an open imagination.
Only after studying forms and attribut ing each to its proper matter
will it be possible to visualize a complete doctrine on human imagina-
 I MAG I N A T I O N A N D M A T T ER i 3

tion. Then one can appreciate the fact that an image is a plant which
needs earth and sky, substance and form. Images discovered by men
evolve slowly, painfully; hence Jacques Bousquet's profound remark:
"A new image costs humanity as much labor as a new characteristic
costs a plant." M an y a t t e m pted images cannot survive because they
are merely formal play, not truly adapted to the matter they should
adorn.
Therefore I believe that a philosophic doctrine of the imagination
must, above all, study the relationship between material and formal
causality. The poet as well as the sculptor is faced with this problem;
poetic images also have their matt er.

I have already worked on this problem. In The Psychoanalysis of Fire

I suggested classifying the different types of imagination under the
heading of the material elementswhich inspired traditional philoso-
phies and ancient cosmologies. In fact, I believe it is possible to
establish in the realm of the imagination, a laur of the four elements
which classifies various kinds of material imagination by their con-
nections with fire, air, water, or earth. An d if it is true, as I am claim-
ing, that every poetics must accept components of material essence-
however weak — then again it is this classification by fundamental
material elements that i s b est su ited fo r s h o w in g th e r e l at i onship
among poetic souls. If a reverie is to be pursued with the constancy a
written work requires, to be more than simply a way of filling in time,
it must discover its matter. A ma te rial element must provide its own
substance, its particular rules and poetics. It is not simply coinciden-
tal that primitive philosophies often made a decisive choice along
these lines. They associated with their formal principles one of the
four fundamental elements, which thus became signs of philosophic
disposition. In these philosophic systems, learned thought is linked to
a primitive material reverie, serene and lasting wisdom is rooted in a
substantial invariability. If we still find these simple and powerful
philosophies convincing, it is because by studying them we may redis-
c over completely n a t u ral i m a g i n ative p o w ers. Th e s ame p r i n c i pl e
always holds true; in philosophic matters, only by suggesting fun-
damental reveries, by providing a means of access from thoughts to
dreams, can one be convincing.
 • I NTRO D U C T I O N

Dreams, even m or e t h a n c l ea r i d eas and c o n scious images, are

d ependent o n t h e f o u r f u n d a m e n ta l e l ements. T h er e h a v e b e e n
countless essays linking the doctrine of the four material elements to
the four o r g a nic t e m p eraments. T h u s t h e a n c i ent a u t h o r L e s sius
writes in The Art of Long Life:
Thus some, who are cholerick, are chiefly affected in their Sleep
with the imaginary Appearances of either Fire or Burnings, Wars or
Slaughters: Others, of more melancholy Dispositions, are often
disturbed with the dismal Prospect of either Funerals, or Sepul-
chres, or some dark and doleful Apparitions: The Phlegmatick
dream more frequently of R a i ns, L akes, Rivers, Inundations,
Drownings, Shipwrecks; and the Sanguine abound in d i fferent
Kinds of Pleasantries, such as Flying, Courses, Banquets, Songs,
and amorous Sports.
Consequently, persons governed by choler, melancholy, phlegm, and
blood are ch aracterized by f i re , earth , w a t er, an d ai r r e spectively,
Their dreams usually elaborate on the material element which char-
acterizes them. If we admit t ha t an o b v i ous — though quite generally
a ccepted — biological error c a n c o r r e spond t o a p r o f o u n d o n e i r i c
truth, then w e ar e r eady t o i n t e r p ret d r eams materially. Therefore,
along with the psychoanalysis of dreams there should be a psycho-
physics and a psychochemistry of dreams. This intensely materialistic
psychoanalysis should return to the old precepts that held elemental
diseasesto be curable by elemental medicines, The material element is
t he determinin g f a c to r i n t h e d i s e ase, as i n t h e c u r e . W e s u f f er
through dreams and are cured by dreams. In a cosmology of dreams,
the material elements remain the fu n d amental ones.
In a general way, I believe that the psychology of aesthetic emo-
tions would gain fro m a s t ud y o f t h e zone of m at erial reveries that
precede contemplation. D r e ams come before contemplation. Before
becoming a conscious sight, every landscape is an oneiric experience.
Only those scenes that have already appeared in dreams can be
viewed with an aesthetic passion. And T i eck was right to recognize in
human dreams the preamble to natural beauty, The unity of the
landscape appears "as the fulfillment of an often-dreamed dream"
(~ie die Erfultung eines oft getraumten Traums). But the one iric land-
scape is not a &ame that is filled up with impressions; it is a pervading
substance.
 I MAGI N A T I O N A N D M AT T ER •5

I t is un d erstandable, th en , t h a t a m a t e r ial element such a s f i r e

could be linked to a type of reverie that controls the beliefs, the pas-
sions, the ideals, the philosophy of an entire life. We can speak of the
aesthetics of fire, of the psychology of fire, and even of the ethics of
fire, A poetics and a philosophy of fire condense all these teachings,
In th emselves, th ese tw o c o n s t i t ut e t h a t p r o d i g i ous, a m b i v alent
teaching which upholds the heart's convictions through lessons
gleaned from reality and which, conversely, lets us understand the
life of the universe through the life of our own heart.
All the other elements abound in similarly ambivalent certitudes.
They hint at close confidences and reveal striking images. All four
have their faithful followers — or more exactly, each is profoundly and
materially a system of poetic fidelity. In exalting them, we may think
that we are being faithful to a favorite image; in reality, we are being
faithful to a primitive human feeling, to an elemental organic reality,
a fundamental oneiric temperament,

IV
We shall find confirmation for this hypothesis, I believe, as we
study the substantial images of water and create this psychology of
" material i m a gination " f o r a n e l e m en t m o r e f e m i n in e an d m o r e
uniform t ha n f i r e , a m o r e c o n st ant on e w h i c h s y m b o l izes human
powers that are more hidden, simple, and simplifying. Because of this
simplicity, our task here will be more difficult and more varied. The
poetic sources for water are less plentiful and more impoverished
than those for ot her elements. Poets and dreamers have been more
often entertained than c a pt ivated by th e superficial play of w aters.
Water, then, is an embellishment for their landscapes; it is not really
the "substance" of their reveries. Philosophically speaking, water
poets "participate" less in the aquatic reality of nature than do poets
who hear the call of fire or earth.
To bring out t hi s p a r t i c i p ation" t h a t is the very essence of water-
related thoughts, of this mater mind-set,we shall be forced to dwell on
a few, all too rare examples. But if the reader can be convinced that
there is, under the superficial imagery of water, a series of progres-
sively deeper and more tenacious images, he will soon develop a feel-
i ng for t h i s p e n e tr ation i n h i s o w n c o n t e m p l ations; beneath t h e
imagination of forms, he will soon sense the opening up of an imagi-
 6 i I NTRO D U C T ION

nation of substances. He will recognize in water, in it s substance, a

ype of intimacy that is very different from those suggested by the
"depths" of fire or rock. He will have to recognize that the material
imagination of water is a special type of imagination. Strengthened in
this knowledge of depth of a material element, the reader will under-
stand at last that water is also a type of destiny that is no longer simply
the vain destiny of fleeting images and a never-ending dream but an
essential destiny that endlessly changes the substance of the being.
F rom that p o i n t o n , t h e r e a der w i l l u n d e r stand m or e i n t i m a t ely ,
more painfully, one of the characteristics of Heracliteanism, He will
see that th e H e r a c l itean flu x i s a co n c retephilosophy, a co m plete
philosophy. One cannot bathe twice in th e same river because
already, in his inmost recesses, the human being shares the destiny of
flowing water. Water is tr uly th e t r a n sitory element, It is the essen-
tial, ontological metamorphosis between fire and earth. A b e i ng
dedicated to water is a being in flux. He dies every minute; something
of his substance is constantly falling away. Daily death is not fire's ex-
uberant form of death, piercing heaven with its arrows; daily death is
the death of water. Water always flows, always falls, always ends in
horizontal death. In innumerable examples, we shall see that for the
m aterializing i m a g in ation , d e at h a s s ociated w i t h w a t e r i s m o r e
dream-like than death associated with earth: the pain of water is in-
finite.

V
Before giving the broad outline of my study, I should like to explain
its title, for this explanation will shed light on its purpose. Although
the present work, following The Psychoanalysis foFire, is another il-
l ustration of the law of the four poetic elements, I have not kept th e
title "The Psychoanalysis of Water" that would have matched the
earlier essay. I chose a vaguer title: Water and Dreams.Honesty re-
quired it. In order to speak of a psychoanalysis, I would have had to
classify the original images without allowing any of them to bear the
traces of their original rights. The complexes that have long united
desires and dreams would have had to be pointed out and then taken
apart. I feel that I did just this in The PsychoanalysisfoFire. Perhaps it
is surprising that a rationalistic philosopher would pay so much at-
t ention t o i l l u s i on s an d e r r o r s an d t h a t h e w o u l d b e c o n s t a n t l y
 I MAGI N A T I O N A N D M A T T ER •7

obliged to present rational values and clear images as corrections of

false notions. In point of fact I see no solid basis for a natural, direct,
elemental rationality. Rational knowledge is not acquired all at once,
nor is the right perspective on fundamental images reached in the
first attempt. Rationalist? That is what we are trying to become,not
only in our learning generally but also in the details of our thinking
and the specific organization of our familiar images. That is how,
through a psychoanalysis of objective knowledge and image-centered
knowledge, I became rationalistic toward fire. To be honest, I must
confess that I have not achieved the same result with water, I still live
water images; I live them synthetically in their original complexity,
often according them my unreasoning adherence,
I always experience the same melancholy in the presence of dor-
mant water, a very special melancholy whose color is that of a stag-
nant pond in a rain-soaked forest, a melancholy not oppressive but
dreamy, slow, and calm. A minute detail in the life of waters often
becomes an essential psychological symbol for me. Thus, the odor of
water mint c a lls fo rt h i n m e a s o r t o f o n t o l o g ical correspondence
which makes me believe that life is simply an aroma, that it emanates
f rom a being as an o d o r e m a n ates from a s u b stance, that a p l a n t
growing in a stream must express the soul of water. ... If I were to re-
live in my own way the philosophical myth of Condillac's statue,
which finds its first world and primitive consciousness in odors, I
would have to say, "I am, first of all, the odor of mint, the odor of
mint water," instead of saying as it did, "I am the odor of rose." For
being is before all else an awakening, and it awakens in the awareness
of an extraordinary impression. The individual is not the sum of his
common impressions but of his unusual ones. Thus, familiar mysteries
are created in us which are expressed in rare symbols,It is near water
and its flowers that I h a v e best un d erstood that r everie is an ever-
emanating u n i v e r se, a fragrant b r e at h t h a t i s s ue s f r o m t h i n g s
through the dreamer. Therefore, if I intend to study the life of water
images, I must allow the river and springs of my home a dominant
role.
I was born i n a s e c t ion o f C h a m p a gne n oted for it s streams, its
rivers, and its valleys — in Vallage, so called because it has so many
valleys, The most beautiful of retreats for me would be down in a
valley, beside running water, in the scanty shade of the willows and
 8 0 I NTRO D U C T ION

water-willows, And w h e n O c t ober c ame with it s f ogs on the

r iver. . . .
I still take great pleasure in following a stream, in walking along the
banks in the right direction, the way the water flows and leads life
elsewhere — to the next village. My "elsewhere" is never farther away
than that. I was almost thirty when I saw the ocean for the first time.
And so, in this book, I shall not do justice to the sea. I shall speak of
it indirectly, heeding what poets have said of it in their pages, and re-
main under the influence of those schoolbook commonplaces that
relate it to infini ty. For in my own r everie, it is not infinity that I find
in waters but depth, Furthermore, does not Baudelaire say that six or
seven leagues, for a man dreaming by the sea, represents the radius of
infinity> Vallage is eighteen leagues long and twelve wide. It is, there-
fore, a world. I do not know it in its entirety; I have not followed all
its streams.
But the region we call home is less expanse than matter; it is granite
or soil, wind or d r y n ess, water or light. It is in it t h a t we m aterialize
our reveries, through it that our dream seizes upon its true substance.
From it we solicit our fundamental color. Dreaming by the river, I
dedicated my imagination to w a t er, to clear, green water, the water
that makes the meadows green. I cannot sit beside a stream without
falling into a profound reverie, without picturing my youthful happi-
n ess... . I t d o e s n o t h a v e t o b e t h e s t r eam a t h o m e , w a ter f r o m
home. The nameless waters know all o f m y s ecrets. The same
memory flows from all fountains,
There is another reason, less emotional and personal, for not using
"The Psychoanalysis of Water" for a title. In this book, the organic
nature of materialized images, necessary for a truly deep psychoanaly-
sis, has not been developed systematically. The first psychic interests
which leave indelible traces in our dreams are organic interests, Our
first ardent belief is in the well-being of the body. It is in the flesh and
organs that the first material images are born. These first material im-
ages are dynamic, active; they are linked to simple, surprisingly
primitive wants. Psychoanalysis has caused many a revolt by speak-
ing of the child's libido. The action of this libido would perhaps be
more clearly understood if it were allowed to retain its confused and
general form, if it were linked to all organic desires and needs. The
libido would then appear to be responsible for all desires and needs.
 I MAGI N A T I O N A N D M A T T ER •9

One thing is certain, in any case, and that is that the child's reverie is
a materialistic reverie. The child is a born materialist, His first dreams
are dreams of organic substances.
There are times when the creative poet's dream is so profound, so
natural, that he rediscovers the images of his youthful body without
knowing it. Poems whose roots are this deep often have a singular
s trength. A p o w e r r u n s t h r o u g h t h e m , an d w i t h o u t t h i n k i n g , t h e
reader participates in its original force, Its origin is no longer visible.
Here are two passages where the organic sincerity of a primary image
is revealed:

Knowing my own quantity,

It is I, I tug, I call upon all of my roots, the Ganges, the
Mississippi
The thick spread of the Orinoco, the long thread of the
Rhine, the Nile with its double bladder. . . '

Thus it is with abundance. ... In popular legends, there are in-

numerable rivers which have come into being through the urin ation
of a giant. Gargantua also inundated the French countryside at ran-
dom during all his walks.
If water becomes precious, it becomes seminal. Then the songs
celebrating it are more mysterious. Only an organic psychoanalysis
can illuminate an obscure image like the following;

And as the seminal drop enriches the mathematical

figure, dispersing
The growing attraction of the elements of its theorem
Thus the body of glory desires under the body of clay,
and the night
To be dissolved in visibility.~

Qne drop of powerful water suffices to create a world and to

dissolve the night. To dream of power, only one drop imagined in its
depth is needed. Water thus given dynamic force is a seed; it gives life
an upward surge that never flags.
Likewise, in writings as idealized as Edgar Allan Poe's, Marie
Bonaparte has discovered the organic meaning of numerous themes,

1. Paul Claudel, Cing grandesodes (Paris, 1913), p. 49.

2. Ibid., p. 64.
 10 • IN T RO D U C T I O N

She offers extensive evidence of the physiological nature of certain

poetic images.
I did not consider myself sufficiently prepared to go so far toward
the roots of organic imagination — to set down, as a subtext beneath
this psychology of water, a physiology of water. That would require
an extensive medical background and, above all, broad experience
with neuroses. As for me, I have only reading through which to know
man — reading, that marvelous means of judging man by what he
writes. I love man, most of all, for what can be written about him . Is
w hat cannot be w r i t ten w o rt h l i v i n g? I have to be content w it h t h e
study of a material imagination that is grafted on, I have nearly
always limited myself to studying the different branches of materializ-
ing imagination above the graft a fter cultu re h as p ut i t s m a r k o n
nature.
To me this is not simply a metaphor. The graft seems to be a con-
cept essential for understanding human psychology, In my opinion it
is the human stamp, the specifying mark of the human imagination,
In my view, mank in d i m a gining is the transcendent aspect of natura
naturans. It is the graft which can truly provide the m a te rial imagina-
tion with an ex h ub erance of forms, which can transmit the richness
and density of matter to formal imagination. It forces the seedling to
bloom, and gives substance to the flower. All metaphors aside, there
must be a union of dream-producing and idea-forming activities for
the creation of a poetic wo rk , A r t i s g r afted nature.
Naturally, when I have noticed a more distant strain in my study of
images, I have made note of it in passing. In fact, it is only rarely that
I have not disclosed the organic origins in the case of very idealized
images. Yet this does not suffice to rank my study among examples of
exhaustive psychoanalyses. My book, then, remains an essay in
literary aesthetics, It has the dual objective of determining the
substance of poetic images and the suitability of particular forms to
fundamental matter.

VI
Here, then, is the general outline of t hi s essay,
To show clearly what an axis of materializing imagination is, we
shall begin with images that do not materialize well; we shall call up
superficial images which play on the surface of an element without
 I MAGI N A T I O N A N D M A T T ER • 11

g iving th e i m a g i n a t io n t i m e t o w o r k u p o n i t s m a t t e r . T h e f i r s t
chapter will be devoted to clear waters, to sparkling waters which
produce fleeting and facile images. Nevertheless, as we shall see,
because of the u n it y o f t h e e l ement, t h ese images are ordered and
o rganized. We shall then a n t i c ipate the tr ansition from a p o e try o f
waters to a metapoetics of water, a transition from plural to singular.
For such a metapoetics, water is not only a group of images revealed in
wandering contemplation, a series of broken, momentary reveries; it
is a mainstay for images, a mainstay that quickly becomes a contributor
of images, a founding contributor for images. Thus, little by little, in
the course of ever more profound contemplation, water becomes an
element of materializing imagination. In other words, playful poets
live like water in its yearly cycle, from spring to winter, easily, pas-
sively, lightly reflecting all the seasons. But the more profound poet
discovers enduring water, unchanging and reborn, which stamps its
image with an indelible mark and is an organ of the world, the
nourishment of flowing phenomena, the vegetating and polishing ele-
ment, the embodiment of t ears. . . .

But, let me emphasize again that by remaining some time near the
iridescent surface, we shall understand the value of depth. We shall
t hen attempt t o i d e n t if y c e r t ain p r i n c i p les of c o hesion t ha t u n i f y
superficial images. Specifically, we shall see how the narcissism of an
individual being fits, little by little, into a truly cosmic narcissism. At
the end of the chapter, I shall also study a facile ideal of whiteness
and grace under the name of the suran complex,wherein buoyant and
loving waters take on a symbolism easy to psychoanalyze.
It is not un ti l th e second chapter — where we shall study the main
branch of Edgar Allan Poe's metapoetics — that we shall be sure of
reaching the el ement itself, substantial w a te r, d r e amed about as a
substance.
There is a reason for t h i s c ertainty, M a t e r ial i m agination l earns
from fundamental substances; profound and lasting ambivalences are
bound up in them. This psychological property is so constant that we
can set forth its opposite as a primordial law of the imagination: a
matter to urhich the imagination cannot give a dual existence cannot play
this psychological role of fundamental matter. Matter that does not pro-
vide the opportunity for a psychological ambivalence cannot find a
poetic double which allows endless transpositions. For the material ele-
 12 • I N T RO D U C T I O N

ment to engage the whole soul, there must be a dual participation of

desire and fear, a participation of good and evil, a peaceful participa-
tion of black and white. We shall see the manichaeism of reverie
more clearly than ever when Poe meditates beside rivers and lakes, It
is through w a ter t h a t P o e , t h e i d e a list, i n t ellectual, an d l o g i cian,
comes in contact with i r r a t i o nal m att er, a "vexed," mysteriously liv-
ing matter.
A study of Poe's work will provide us with a good example of the
dialectic necessary to the active life of language, as Claude-Louis
Esteve understood so well: "If then it be necessary to take subjectivity
out of logic and science, insofar as it is possible, it is no less necessary,
b y th e s am e t o k e n , t o t a k e o b j e c t i v it y o u t o f vo c a b u l ar y a n d
syntax." Because we fail to de-objectify objects and deform forms — a
process which allows us to see the m a t ter b eneath th e o b j ect — the
world is strewn with unrelated things, immobile and inert solids, ob-
jects foreign to our nature. The soul, therefore, suffers from a defi-
ciency of material imagination. By grouping images and dissolving
'''"substances, water helps the imagination in its task of de-objectifying
and assimilating. It also contributes a type of syntax, a continual link-
ing up and gentle movement of im ages that frees a reverie bound to
objects. It is t hu s t h a t e l emental w ater in E d gar A l l a n P o e's meta-
poetics imparts a particular motion to a universe. It symbolizes with a
H eracliteanism tha t i s s l ow , g e n t le, an d s i l ent a s o il . W a t e r t h e n
undergoes something like a loss of impetus, a loss of life; it becomes a
sort of plastic mediator between life and death, In reading Poe, one is
led to a more intimate understanding of the strange life of dead
waters, and language learns the most frightening of syntaxes, the syn-
tax of dying things, dying life.
To characterize accurately this syntax of becoming and of material
things — this triple syntax of life, death, and water — I have selected
two complexes, here called the Charon complexand the Ophelia com-
plex. I have treated them in the same chapter because they both sym-
bolize a meditation on our last voyage and on our final dissolution,
To disappear into deep water or to disappear toward a far horizon, to
become a part of depth or infinity, such is the destiny of man that
finds its image in the destiny of w at er.

3. Claude-Louis Esteve, Etudes philosophiques sur 1'expression litteraire (Patis, 1938),

p. 192.
 I MAGIN A T I O N AN D M AT TE R • 13

Qnce we have thus defined both the superficial and the profound
characteristics of imaginary ~ater, we can attempt to s tu dy t he r e la-
t ion of t hi s element to o t h e r el ements of m aterial imagination. W e
shall see that certain poetic forms are fed by a double substance; that
a dual materialism often works upon material imagination. In certain
~r everies, it seems that every element seeks either marriage or struggle,
episodes that either c alm o r e x c it e i t w l n o t h e r r e v eries, imaginary
water will appear to us as the element of compromise, as fundamental
t o mixtures. That i s wh y I s h a l l p a y c o n siderable attention t o t h e
combination of water and earth that is "realistically" presented under
the guise of "paste," (la p6te). Paste (la p6te) is thus the basic compo-
nent of m a t e r i ality; th e v e r y n o t i o n o f m a t t e r i s , I t h i n k , c l o sely
bound up with it. An extensive examination of kneading and model-
ing would have to be the point of departure for any description of the
real and experienced relationships between formal and material
causes. An idle, caressing hand that runs over well-modeled lines and
surveys a finished scuplture may be charmed by seemingly effortless
geometry. Such a geometry leads to the philosophy of a philosopher
who sees the worker wor k i ng. In th e r ealm of aesthetics, phis visual-
izing of finished work leads naturally to the supremacy of formal im-
agination. Conversely, this working, controlling hand learns the
e ssential dynamic genius of reality wh ile work ing with a m a t ter th at
resists and yields at the same time, like passionate and rebellious
flesh. It amasses all ambivalences, Such a working hand needs an
exact mixture of earth and water in order to realize fully what consti-
tutes matter capable of form, substance capable of life, To the uncon-
scious of the man who kneads the clay, the model is the embryo of
the work; clay is the mother of bron z ~ h er e f o r e I cannot emphasize
too much how important the experience of fluidity and pliability is to
an understanding of the psychology of the creative unconscious. In
experimenting with paste (la pate), water will obviously be the domi-
nant substance. One dreams of water when tak ing advantage of the
docility of clay (l'argile),
To show the capability of water for combining with other elements,
we shall study other compounds, never forgetting that, for the mate-
rial imagination, the exemplary compound is a mixture of water and
earth.
Once we understand that for th e u n c o nscious every combination
 1f i I NTRO D U C T ION

of material elements is a marriage, we shall realize why the naive or

poetic imagination nearly always attributes feminine characteristics to
water. We shall also see how profoundly maternal the waters are.
Water swells seeds and causes springs to gush forth. Water is a sub-
stance that we see everywhere springing up and increasing, The
spring is an irresistible birth, a continuous birth. The unconscious that
loves such great images is forever marked by them. They call forth
endless reveries. In a special chapter, I have tried to show how these
images, impregnated with mythology, still give life naturally to poetic
works.
An imagination c o m p l etely att ached to on e p a r t i cular substance
readily ascribes.value to it. The human mind has claimed for water
v one of its highest values — the value of purity. How could we conceive
o f purity wi t h ou t t h e i m age of clear and li m pid w at er, wi t h out t h i s
beautiful pleonasm that speaks to us of pu re ~ater~ Water draws to
itself all images of purity. I have therefore trjed to list in order all the
reasons for the power of this symbolism. Here we have an example of
the kind of natural morality learned through meditation on a fun-
damental substance.
In the light of this problem of ontological purity, the superiority of
fresh water over sea water, recognized by all mythologists, is under-
standable. I have devoted a short chapter to this appreciation to focus
the mind on a consideration of substances. The doctrine of material
imagination will never be fully understood until the equilibrium be-
tween experiencesand spectacleshas been reestablished. The few books
on aesthetics which attempt to t ake up concrete beauty,the beauty of
substances, often merely skim over the real problem of material im-
agination. Let me give only one example, In his AestheticsMax
Schasler announces his intention of studying "die konkrete Natur-
schonheit" (concrete natural beauty ). He devotes only ten pages to
t he elements — of these, onl y t h r e e t r e a t w a t er — and th e c e n t r a l
paragraph is on th e i n f i n it y o f s eas. It is most fi t t i ng, t h erefore, to
p lace our emphasis on reveries that concern more common n a t u r al
waters, waters which do no t n eed in f i n it y t o h o l d t h e d r eamer.
My last chapter, "Violent Water," will approach the problem of the
psychology of water by very different routes. This chapter will not be,
strictly speaking, a study of material imagination; it will be a study of
dynamic imagination, to which I hope to devote another book,
 I MAGI N A T I O N A N D M A T T ER • 15

I n its v i o l ence, w ater t a kes o n a c h a r a cteristic wr a th ; i n o t h e r

words, it is easily given all the psychological features of a form of
anger. Man rather glibly boasts of checking this anger. Thus violent
water becomes water to w h ic h on e d oes violence. A m a l i cious duel
between man and the floods begins. The water becomes spiteful; it
changes sex. Turning malevolent, it becomes male. Here on a new
level is the conquest of a duality inscribed in the element, a new sign
of the basic value of an element of the material imagination.
I shall, therefore, first describe the will to attack that inspires a
swimmer and then the revenge of the water — the flux and reflux of an
anger that rumbles and reverberates. I shall take note of the special
dynamic genius that a h u man b eing gains through constant contact
with violent waters. This will be a new example of the fundamentally
organic quality of th e i m agination. We shall thus discover the
muscular i magination, wh o se a c t i on I p e r c e i ved in L a u t r e a m o n t ' s
e nergetic m e t apoetics. Bu t a f t e r c ontact w i t h w a t e r , w ith t h i s
m aterial element, t h e m a t e r ia l i m a g i n ation w i l l s eem b o t h m o r e
natural and m or e h u m a n t h a n L a u t r e amont's animalized imagina-
tion. This will serve as one more proof of the direct nature of symbols
formed by material imagination contemplating the elements.
Since I shall make it a point, as I have throughout the entire course
of my work, to emphasize themes of material imagination (with
perhaps tiring insistence), I need not recapitulate them in my conclu-
sion, I will devote this conclusion almost exclusively to the most ex-
treme of my p a r adoxes. It w il l c o n sist of pr o v ing t hat th e v o i ces of
water are hardly metaphoric at all; that the language of the waters is
a direct poetic reality; t ha t s t r eams and r i v ers provide the sound for
m ute country landscapes, and do it with a strange fidelity; that mur -
muring waters teach birds and men to sing, speak, recount; and that
t here is, in short, a cont i n u it y b etween the speech of water and th e
s peech of man. C o n v e rsely, I shall stress the little n o ted fact t h a t ,
organically, human language has a liquid quality, a flow in its overall
effect, water in its consonants. I shall show that this liquidity causes a
special psychic excitement th at, in i t self, evokes images of water.
Thus water will appear to us as a complete being with body, soul,
and voice. Perhaps more than any other element, water is a complete
••

poetic reality. A poetics of water, despite the variety of ways in which

••

it is presented to our eyes, is bound to have unity. Water should sug-

 16 • I N T RO D U C T I O N

gest to the poet a new obligation: the unity of the element. Lacking this
unity of the element, material imagination remains unsatisfied, and
formal imagination is insufficient for drawing together dissimilar
features. The work lacks life because it lacks substance.

VII
Finally, I should like to close this general introduction by making a
few remarks on th e k in d o f ex amples chosen to bear out my t h eses.
Most of the examples are taken from poetry. For the time being, in
my opinion, the only possible way of illuminating a psychology of the
imagination is through the poems it inspires.4 The imagination is not,
as its etymology suggests, the faculty for forming images of reality; it is
the faculty for forming images which go beyond reality, which sing
reality. It is a superhuman faculty. A ma n is a man to the extent that
he is a superman, A man should be defined by the sum of those
tendencies which impel him to surpass the human condition. A psy-
chology of the mind in action is automatically the psychology of an
e xceptional mind, of a m in d t e m p ted by th e exception, the new im -
age grafted onto the old. The im agination invents more than objects
and dramas — it invents a new life, a new spirit; it op ens eyes which
hold new types of visions. The imagination will see only if it has
"visions" and will have visions only if reveries educate it before expe-
riences do, and if experiences follow as token of reveries. As d'An-
nunzio has said: "The richest experiences happen long before the soul
takes notice. And w hen we begin to open our eyes to the visible, we
have already been supporters of the invisible for a long time.'"
Primal poetry, poetry that allows us a taste for our inner destiny, is
an adherence to the invisible. It gives us the sense of youth and
youthfulness by constantly replenishing our ability to be amazed.
True poetry is a function of aw akening.
It awakens us, but it m u st r et ain th e m emory of pr evious dreams.
That is why I have sometimes tried to delay the moment when poetry
s teps over the threshold of expression; I have tried, at every hint, to
retrace the oneiric route leading to the poem. As Charles Nodier said

The specific study of the historyof the psychology of water is not my subject.
This subject is treated in the work of Martin Herman Ninck, Die Bedeutungdes
Wassers im Kult und Leben derAlten, eine Symbolgeschichtliche Untersuchung(Leipzig,
1921).
5. Gabriele d'Annunzio, Contemplationedella morte, 2nd ed. (Milan, 1912),
pp. 17-18.
 IMAG IN A T I O N AND M A TT ER • 17

in his Reveries:"The map of the imaginable world is drawn only in

dreams. The universe perceived through our senses is an infinitely
small one," D r e am s a re, fo r c e r t ai n s o u ls, th e v er y s u b stance of
beauty. Upon waking from a dream, Adam found Eve: that is why
woman is so beautiful,
Strong in all these convictions, I was then able to set aside hack-
neyed knowledge, formal and allegorical mythologies that survive in
weak and lifeless teaching. I was also able to disregard countless in-
sincere poems in which shallow poetasters strain to produce the most
diverse and confused echoes. Whenever I relied on mythology, it was
because I recognized some permanence in it s un conscious effect on
people today. A mythology of waters in its entirety would be simply
history. I have tried to write-psychology, to bind together literary im-
ages and dreams. I have often noticed, however, that the picturesgue
disrupts both mythological and poetic forces. The picturesque dis-
perses the strength of dreams. To be active, a phantom cannot wear
motley. A phantom that can be described as complacent is a phan-
tom that has ceased to act, To th e v a r i ous material elements corre-
spond phantoms that keep their strength as long as they are faithful
to their matter or, what amounts to almost the same thing, as long as
they are faithful to original dreams,
The choice of literary examples is also due to an ambition, which,
finally, I intend simply to confess: if my research is to have any im-
pact, it should contrib ute some means, some tools for renewing liter-
a ry criticism. Fo r t h i s r e a son, I i n t r o d u ced th e n o t i o n o f c u l t u r e
complex into literary psychology. I have given this name to prereflec-
tive attitudes that govern the very process of reflection, In the realm of
the imagination, these are, for example, favorite images thought to be
~derived from th i ngs seen in the world around us but that are nothin g
but projectionsof a hidden soul. Culture complexes are cultivated by
someone who thinks he is acquiring culture objectively, The realist,
then, chooses his reality in reality; the historian chooses his history in
history, The poet arranges his impressions by associating them with a
tradition. Used well, the culture complex gives life and youth to a
tradition. Used badly, the culture complex is the bookish habit of an
unimaginative writer.
Naturally, culture complexes are grafted on more profound com-
plexes, which psychoanalysis has brought to light, Charles Baudouin
has stressed that a c o m p lex i s essentially a t r a n sformer of p sychic
 18 • I NT R O D U C T I O N

e nergy. The culture complex continues this transformation, Cu l t u r al

sublimation prolongs natural sublimation. To the cultured man a
sublimated image never seems beautiful enough. He wants to renew
the sublimation. If sublim ation w ere a simple matter of concepts, it
w ould come to an en d as soon as the image was enclosed within i t s
conceptual lim i ts; bu t c o lo r o v erfl ows, matter abounds, images de-
velop; dreams continue their growth d espite the poems that express
them. Un der t h ese conditions, a lit erary criticism that i s not to b e
limited to a static balance of images must be complemented by a psy-
chological criticism that revives the dynamic quality of the imagina-
tion, following the connection between original complexes and
culture complexes. There is no other way, in my opini on, to measure
poeticizing forces in action in literary works. Psychological description
does not suffice. It is less a question of describing forms than of
weighing matter.
In this book , as in o t h e rs, I h av e no t h e sitated to designate new
complexes by their cultural emblem, by the sign that all cultured men
recognize; this may betray a lack of prudence, for such signs remain
obscure and awaken nothing in the man who lives far from books. A
man who does not read would be greatly astonished to hear of the
poignant charm of a dead woman adorned with flowers and drifting
away, like Ophelia, with the flow of the river. This is an image whose
living development lit erary criticism has not shared. It is interesting
to show how such images — rather unnatural ones — have become rhe-
torical figures and how these rhetorical figures can remain active in a
poetic culture.
If my analyses are accurate, they should help, I believe, to bridge
the gap between the psychology of an ordinary reverie and the psy-
c hology of a l i t e r ary r e v erie, a st r ange re'verie, written d ow n a n d
c oordinated in w r i t i n g , t h a t s y st ematically goes beyond it s i n i t i a l
dream, but remains faithful to elementary oneiric realities. To have
that constancy of d r eam w h ic h p r o d u ces a poem, one needs some-
thing more than real images before his eyes. The images born in us,
t hat live i n o u r d r e ams filled w it h a d e n se and rich oneiric
m atter — inexhaustible f o o d f o r m aterial i m a g i n ation — must b e
pursued.

6. A rhetorical figure, as Charles Baudouin so aptly puts it, is a mental attitude,

that is, the expression of a desire and the first step toward an act. La Psychanalyse,ed.
Hermann, p. 1'H.
Clear Waters, Springtime Waters and Running Waters
The Objective Conditions for Narcissism
Amorous Waters

A sad flower that, which grows alone

and has no other love
Than it s o w n s h a d ow , l i s t lessly
reflected in the water.
STEPHANE MALLARME, Herodiade

There have even been many men who

drowned in mirrors. . . .

RAMON GAMEZ DE LA SERNA,

El Incongruente

"IMAGEs" w HosE sAsrs or m a t t er i s w a ter do n ot h a v e t he s ame

durability and solidity as those yielded by earth, by crystals, metals,
and precious stones, They do not have the vigorous life of fire images.
Waters do not fashion "true lies." To be deceived by river mirages, a
soul must be quite disturbed. These gentle water phantoms are usu-
ally linked to the sham illusions of a beguiled imagination seeking
entertainment, The; phegomena of water lit by a spring sun thus pro-
vide the common, easy, and abundant metaphors that i n form
second-rate poetry. Minor poets overuse them. With no difficulty, I
could list verses in which young undines play endlessly with ancient
images.
We cannot be captivated by s uch i m a ges, not even natural ones.
They do not awaken in us the profound feeling that equally common
fire and earth images evoke. Because they are elusive, they give only a
fleeting impression. A glance toward the sunlit sky and,.we,are,6lled
with the certitudes of light; an inner decision, an unexpected urge,
"and we give ourselves up to, the earth and its will, to the positive tasks
of digging and building. Mmost automatically, through raw matter's
inherent destiny, earthlflife wins back the dreamer who finds in the
 20 0 C HAPTER O N E

watery reflections only an excuse for his holidays and dreams. The
material imagination of water is always in danger; it risks eclipse
when the material imaginations of earth or fire intervene. Therefore,
a psychoanalysis of water images is rarely necessary, since these im-
ages are seemingly self-dispersing. They do not bewitch just any
dreamer. Still — as we shall see in other chapters — certain forms born
o f water h ave m or e a t t r a ction , m o r e c o m p elling fo rce, m or e c o n -
+
sistency. at is because more material and profound reveries inter-
vene, because our inner being is more deeply engaged, and because
our imagination dreams more specifically of creative acts. Then the
poetic power, which was imperceptible in a poetry of reflections, ap-
:, pears suddenly~ a t e r becomes heavier, darker, deeper; it becomes
,', ,matter,. And it i s t h e n t h a t m a t e r ializing reverie, uniting dreams of
water with less mobile, more sensual reveries, finally builds on water
and develops a more profound and intense feeling for it.
But the "m ateriality" of certain w ater images, the density of some
phantoms, does not yield readily to measurement unless one has first
probed the iridescent forms of the surface itself. This density, which
distinguishes the superficial from the profound in poetry, is felt in the
transition from sensory values to sensual values. I believe that the doc-
trine of imagination will be clarified only by a proper classiflcation of
sensual values in relation to sensory ones, Only sensual values offer
— "direct communication." Sensory values giye'only' translations. Cori-
fusing the "sensory" and the "sensual," writers have claimed a cor-
respondence among sensations( highly mental d a ta) a nd h a v e
therefore failed to undertake any study that considers poetic emotion
in its dynamics. Let us t ake the least sensual of the sensations, the
visual, and see how it becomes sensual, Then let us study water in its
simplest adornments. Following the faintest of clues, we will then grasp
little by little its ~itl to appear, or at least the way in which water sym-
bolizes by means of the uritl to appear of the dreamer who con-
templates it. In myp p i n ion psychoanalytic doctrine has not given
equal emphasis to both terms of the dialectic — seeing and revealing
oneself — that is related to narcissism. The poetics of water will allow
us to contribute to t h i s dual i n v estigation,

Not a simple eagerness to engage in facile mythologizing but a genu-

ine intuition about the psychological role of natural experiences
 C LEAR W A T E R S ) SPRINGT IM E WATERS 21

caused psychoanalysis to give Narcissus's name to the love that man

has for his own image, for his face as it is reflected in still water. Ac-
tually, the human face is above all an instrument of seduction. Look-
ing at himself, man prepares, stimulates, polishes this face, this gaze,
all these tools of seduction. The mirror is the Kriegspielof aggressive
love. This active narcissism,too much neglected by classic psychoanal-
ysis, can only be hastily sketched. A whole book would be needed to
develop the "psychology of the mirror." Let it suffice to note at the
beginning of our studies the profound ambivalence of narcissism,
which goes from masochistic to sadistic traits and lives in a contem-
plation that b ot h r e grets and ho pes, consoles and attacks. One can
always ask a person before a mirror the double question: For whom
do you look at yourself> Against whom do you look at yourself? Are
you aware of your beauty or of your strength> These brief remarks
will suffice to show the initially complex character of narcissism. In
the course of t hi s ch apter we sh all see narcissism grow more com -
plicated page after page.
First, we must understand the psychological advantage of using
water for a mi r r or : w a ter serves to make our im age more natural, to
g ive a little in n o cence and n a t u r alness to the pr ide we have in o u r
private contemplation. A m i r r o r is too civilized, too geometrical, too
easily handled an object; it is too obviously a dream device ever to
adapt itself to oneiric life. In the image-filled preface to his book,
which is so moving from a moral point of view, Louis Lavelle notes
t he natural depth o f a w a t ery reflection, th e i n f i n it y o f t h e d r e am ,
which this reflection suggests:
If we imagine Narcissus in front of a mirror, the resistance of glass
and metal sets up a barrier to his ventures. His forehead and fists
collide with it; and if he goes around it, he finds nothing. A mirror
imprisons within itself a second-world which escapes him, in which
he sees himself without being able to touch himself, and which is
separated from him by a false distance which he can shorten, but
cannot cross over. On the other hand, a fountain is an open road
for him.'

The mirror a fountain provides, then, is the opportunity for open im-'
agination. This reflection, a little vague and pale, suggests idealization,
Standing before the water which reflects his image, Narcissus feels

1. Louis Lavelle, L'Erreur de Narcisse(Paris, 1939), pp. 11 — 12.

 22 • C HA PT E R O N E

that his beauty continues, has not come to an end, and must be com-
pleted, In the bright light of a room, glass mirrors give too stable an
image. They will become living and natural again when they can be
compared to l i v i n g an d n a t u r a l w a t er, w hen th e r e n a t uralized im-
a gination can enter i nt o p a r ticipation with sights pertaining to r i v er
and spring.
Here we have grasped one of the elements of natural dream, its need
to be engraved deeply into nature. One cannot dream profoundly
with objects.To dream profoundly, one must dream with substances.~
A poet who begins with a mirror must end with the ~a ter of a fountain
if he wants to present a complete poetic experience.Poetic experience, as
I conceive it, must remain dependent on oneiric experience. Poetry as
polished as Mallarme's seldom transgresses this law; it gives us the in-
tussusception of water im ages into m i r ro r i m ages.

0 mirror!
Cold water frozen by boredom in your frame
How many times and for hours, cut off
From dreams and searching out my memories which are
Like leaves under your ice in the deep hole
I saw myself in you like a distant shadow,
But, oh horrible, some evenings in your harsh fountain
I have recognized the nakedness of my scattered dream! z
A systematic study of mirrors in the work of Georges Rodenbach
would lead to the same conclusion. By deliberately ignoring the spy-
ing, inquiring eye, always clear, always on the offensive, we can
recognize that all of Rodenbach's mirrors are veiled; they have the
same grey life as the canal waters which surround Bruges. In Bruges,
every mirror is stagnant water.

N arcissus, then, goes to th e secret fount ain i n t h e d e p th s of t h e

woods, Only there does he feel that he is naturally doubled. He
stretches out his arms, thrusts his hands down toward his own image,
speaks to his own voice. Echo is not a distant nymph. She lives in the
basin of the fountain. Echo is always with Narcissus. She is he. She
has his voice. She has his face. He does not hear her in a loud shout.
Z. Stephane Mallarme, Oeuvres completes,ed. Henri Mondor and G. Jean-Aubry
(Paris, 1945), p. 45.
 C LEAR W A T E R S ) SPRINGT I M E WATERS • 23

He hears her in a murmur, like the murmur of his seductive seducer's

voice. In the p r esence of water, N a r cissus receives the revelation of
his identity and of his duality; of his double powers, virile and femi- w "
" ' ' "

nine; and, above all, the revelation oThis reality and his idealit'y .

""" Thus, near the fountain an idealizing narcissismis born. I would like
to indicate briefly its importance for a psychology of the imagination.
This is all the more necessary because classic psychoanalysis seems to
underestimate the role played by this idealization. In point of fact,
Narcissism does not always produce neuroses. It also plays* a positive
. role-.in.aesthetics ..and, by e x p editious t r a n sposition, i n a lite'r'ary
work;kublimation is not always the denial of a desire; it is not always
r
intr'oduced as'"a su blimation against instincts. It can be a sublimation
for an ideal. Then Narcissus no longer says: "I love myself as I am"; he
says: "I am the way I love myself." I live exuberantly because I love
myself fervently. I w an t t o s h o w u p w e l l ; t h u s , I m u st i n c r ease my
adornment. Thus, life takes on beauty; clothes itself in images,
blooms, transforms being, takes on light, It flowers, and the imagina-
tion opens to the most distant metaphors. It participates in the life of
every flower. With this floral dynamics, real life takes a new surge up-
ward. Real life is healthier if one gives it the holiday in unreality that
is its due.
This idealizing narcissism, then, achieves the sublimation of a
caress, The image contemplated in the waters appears as the contour
of an entirely v i sual caress that has no n eed for a c a ressing hand.
N arcissus takes p l easure i n a linear, v i r t u al , f o r m a l ized c a ress,
Nothing of the material remains in this delicate, fragile image. Nar-
cissus holds his breath.
The least sigh
Which breathed out
Would come back to me and ravish
What I adored
On the blue and blond water
And skies and forest
And the Rose of the Wave.
So much fragility, so much delicacy, so much unreality push Nar-
c issus out o f t h e p r e sent, N a r c issus's contemplation i s a l m ost i n -
evitably linked t o h o p e . M e d itating o n h i s b e auty, N a rcissus
meditates on his future. Narcissism, then, gives rise to a sort of natural
 20 • CHA P T E R O N E

catoptromancy. Yet combinations qf hydroma ncy and catoptromancy

are far from rare. Delatte tells of the practice of combining the reflec-
tions of the water and those of a mirror held above it.' Sometimes the
reflecting powers may be significantly augmented by plunging the
divining mirror i nt o w ater, It seems undeniable, then, that one of the
component characteristics of hydrom ancy stems from narcissism. A
systematic study of the psychological characteristics of divination will
reveal that material imagination must be given a considerable role, In
hydromancy it seems that we at t r i b ute a second sight to st ill w a t er
because it holds up to us a second version of ourselves,

IV

But at the fountain- Parcissus has not given himself over exclusively
to contemplation of h i m self. His own im age is the center of a world.
With and for Narcissus, the whole forest is mirrored, the whole sky
ppproaches to take,cognizao,cg of its grandiose image. In his Narcissus,
a book that deserves a long study in itself, Joachim Gasquet gives us a
whole metaphysics of imagination in a single phrase of remarkable
density: "The world is an immense Narcissus in the act of thinking
about himself," Where could he consider himself better than in his
images~ In the c r y stal of f o u n t a i ns, a gesture tr o u bles the i m ages;
repose restores them, The reflected world is the conquest of calm. It is
a superb cr eation t h a t r e q u i r e s o n l y i n a c t i on , o n l y a d r e a m e r ' s
attitude; the longer one can remain there without mov ing, the better
one can see the world t a k ing fo rm ! T h us, a cosmic narcissism,which
w e shall st ud y e x t e n sively i n i t s d i f f e r ent f o r m s , c o n t i n ues v e r y
naturally from th e p o in t w h er e egoistic narcissism leaves off. "I am
handsome because nature is beautiful, nature is beautiful because I
am handsome," Such is the endless dialogue of creative imagination
and its natural models. Generalized narcissism transforms all beings
into flowers, and it gives all flowers consciousness of their beauty. All
flowers turn into Na r c issuses,and water is f or t h e m t h e m a r v e l ous
i nstrument of n a r cissism. It is only by f o l l ow ing this detour that w e
can see all the power and philosophic charm in a t h o ught li ke
Shelley's:

3. Armand Delatte, La Catoptromancie grecque etsesderives (Paris, 1932), p. 111.

 C LEAR W' A T E RS , S P R I N G T I M E WATERS • 25

yellow flowers
Forever gaze on their own drooping eyes,
Reflected in the crystal calm.4

From a realistic point of view, it is a badly conceived image; flowers

do not have eyes, But in th e p o et's dream, flowers must see because
they are mirr o red i n p u r e w a t er, K e ats, also, in a single passage of
charming freshness, gathers together first the h u m an , t hen th e cos-
mic, then the floral legend of Narcissus, In this poem, Narcissus
speaks first of all to Echo; then he sees the ~ p t i n ess and the serenity
of the blue sky reflected in the center of the pool, in a little glade.'
Finally, on the bank, here'is beauty, outlined, a geometric art of
colors:

And on the bank a lonely flower he spied,

A meek and forlorn flower, with naught of pride,
Drooping its beauty o'er the watery clearness,
To woo its own sad image into nearness:
Deaf to light Zephyrus, it would not move;
But still would seem to droop and pine, to love.

A delicate touch of a n a r cissism without p r ide that gives to every

b eautiful t h i n g , t o t h e s i m p l est fl o w er , c o n sciousness of it s o w n
beauty. For a flower, to be born near the water is truly to be devoted
to natural narcissism — to humid, hum b le, tranquil n ar cissism,
When specific reveries in the presence of a specific reality are con-
sidered one at a time, as we are attempting to do, one discovers that
certain reveries have a very regular aesthetic destiny. Such is the case
of reverie before a watery reflection. Near a stream, in its reflections,
the world tends toward beauty. Narcissism, the first consciousness of
beauty, is therefore the seed of pancalism. What gives thi~ancalism,
its power is the fact that it is progressive and detailed. We shall look
at it later.
Let us first list the d i fferent types of cosmic narcissism, Instead of
the precise, analytic narcissism of brightly lit reflection, we may see a
~' veiled, foggy narcissism intervene in our contemplation of autumn al
w aters. It seems that o b j ects lack th e w il l t o b e r e flected. Sky an d
clouds, which need the whole lake to paint their drama, then remain,

4. Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Alastor," in The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe
Shelley,ed. George E. Woodberry (Boston, 1901), p. 39.
 26 • CH A P T E R O N E

When an angry lake responds to the tempest of the winds, we see a

*'po'et"."Sh'elley' tr'anslates'
s ort of narcissism of anger th r ust u po n t K e
this angry narcissism into an admirable image. Water then resembles,
he says, "a gem to copy Heaven engraven."
The whole importance of narcissism cannot be grasped if we limit
ourselves to its reduced form, detaching it from its more general ones,
A being confident of its beauty has a tendency to pancalism. A
=
dialectic activit y b e t w een i n d i v i d ua l n a r c issism an d c o sm7c nar-
cissism can be demonstrated when the principle which Ludwig Klages
developed at such length is applied — without the world's poles, the
soul's could not be determined.5 The lake would not be a good
painter i f i t d i d n o t d o m y p o r t r a i t f i r s t , i n d i v i d ua l n a r c i ssism
declares. Then the face reflected in the center of the spring abruptly
stops the water from flowing and returns it to its function of universal
mirror, Eluard, in his work The Open Book, expresses it this way:
Here no one can be lost
And my face is in the pure water I see
A single tree singing
Rocks softening
The horizon being reflected.

Little by little,"beauty is enframed. It spreads from Narcissus to the

world, and we understand the certainty of Friedrich von Schlegel:
" We know fo r a c e r t a i nt y t h a t w e l i v e i n t h e m o s t b e autiful of a l l
possible worlds." Pancalism becomes an inner certainty.
Sometimes one senses the poet's resistance to t hi s cosmic image,
This is the case, I believe, with Eugenio d'Ors, who is, from all evi-
dence, a "terrestrial" poet. A c c o r d ing to d ' O r s, th e landscape must
first be "geological." In the following passage he betrays his resistance
to water poetry. It illustrates our own point of view through contrast.
D'Ors tries to prove that qualities of air and light are adjectiveswhich
cannot help us to know th e t rue substanceof a landscape, He thinks,
for example, that a seascapeshould have "architectural consistency,"'
and he concludes:

5. Ludwig Klages, Der Geist als Widersacher der Seele(Leipzig, 1932), p. 1132.
"Ohne Weltpol fande der seelische Pol nicht statt."
6. Eugenio d'Ors, La Vie de Goya,trans. Marcel Carayon, in Vies des Hommes Il-
Tustres(Paris, 1928), 22:179.
 C LEAR W A T E R S ) SPRINGT I M E WATERS • 27

A seascape which could be inverted, for instance, would be a bad

painting. Turner himself — audacious though he may be in lum-
inous fantasies — never risks painting a reversibleseascape, that is,
one in which the sky could be mistaken for the water, and the
water for the sky. And if the impressionist Monet, in the controver-
sial series, Les Nympheas (The Water Lilies), did it, it can be said that
he found his penance in the sin, for Monet's Les Nympheashas
never been, and will never be considered, in art history, a normal
product; but rather a caprice, which, though it may caress our sen-
sibility for a moment, certainly has no claim to acceptance into the
ennobling archives of our memory. A h a l f-hour's recreation, a
perishable object placed here and now in the immediate vicinity of
the purely decorative among the products of industrial art; brother
to arabesques, to tapestries, to pottery from Faenza; a thing, to wit,
which can be seen without looking at it, which can be grasped with-
out thought, and which is forgotten without regret.
Such distain for "the perishable object"! Such a need for immobile
beauty! How willingly shall I, unlike d'Ors, accept a work of art
which gives the illusion of mobility, even through deception, if this
l
e rror opens the way to r everie for me, T hi s is just what I feel in t h e
presence of Les Nympheas.When one is in sympathy with water
s ights, one is always ready to enjoy its narcissistic function, A w o r k
t hat suggests this function i s i m m e d i ately un d erstood t h r o ugh t h e
material imagination of w at er.

V
Perhaps these remarks on the relationship of egotistical narcissism
and cosmic n a r cissism wil l s eem b e t ter g r o u n ded i f I s t r ess t h eir
metaphysical nature.
Schopenhauer's philosophy shows that aesthetic contemplation
alleviates human sorrow for an instant by detaching man from the J
drama of will. This separation of contemplation from will eliminates
a feature that I would like to stress: the will to contemplate, For con-
templation also gives rise to a kind of will, Man wants to see. Seeing is
a direct need, C u r i o sity sets th e m i n d o f m a n i n m o t i o n , B u t i n
nature itself, it seems that powers of vision are active. Between contem-
plated nature and contemplative nature, there are close and reciprocal
relations, Imaginary nature effects the unity of natura naturans and of
natura naturata. Wh en a p o et l i v es his dreams and h is p oetic crea-
 28 • CHA P T E R O N E

t ions, he t hu s effects natural u n i t y P I t t h e n s e ems as th ough c o n -

t emplated nature helps in th e co n t emplation, as though it c o n t a i n s
w ithin i t s elf t h e m e an s fo r c o n t e m p l ating. T h e p o e t a sk s u s " t o
associate ourselves as closely as we can with t h ose waters which we
h ave delegated to th e c o n t emplation of w h a t e x i sts." B u t j s i t t h e
lake or the eye which contemplates better? The lake or pool or stag-
nant water stops us near its bank. It says to our will: you shall go no
I "fiirther yo'u' should go"back to looking at distant thtiigs, at the
beryond.' While you were wandenng, something here was already
looking on~The lake is a large tranquil eye. The lake takes all of light
and makes a world out of it. Through it, the world is already contem-
plated, alr'eady represented.' It too might say,' "'The""wor'ld is my "
-

representation of it." Near the lake, we understand the old physiol'og-

ical theory of active vision.Active vision implies that the eye projects
light, that it i l luminates its images by itself. It is understandable,
then, that the eye may be desirous of seeing its visions, that contem-
plation may also be will.
The cosmos, then, is in some way clearly touched by narcissism.
The world wants to see itself. Will, taken in its Schopenhauerian
sense, creates eyes to contemplate, to feast on beauty. Is not the eye
itself luminous beauty? Does it not bear the mark of pancalism? It
must be beautiful in order to behold beauty, The iris of the eye must
be a beautiful color for beautiful colors to enter the pupil, Without
blue eyes how can one really see the blue sky? Without black ones,
how look at the night> On the contrary, all beauty is ocellated. This
p b'i " d b * ' 'bb d i i ,,b,,!,.b* f l Ev i .
' numerable poets; they have lived it without defining it. It i s a n
elementary law of the imagination. For example, in his Prometheus
Unbound, Shelley writes:
As a violet's gentle eye
Gazes on the azure sky
Until its hue grows like what it beholds.

How better could one surprise material imagination in the midst of its
task of substantial mimesis>

7. Paul Claudel, L'Oiseau noir dansle soleil levant, 15th ed. (Paris, 1929), p. 230.
8. Shelley, PrometheusUnbound, in Works,p. 204.
 C LEAR W A T E R S ) SPRING T I M E W A T ER S • 29

Strindberg's Swanwhite (Svanehvit), while awaiting Prince Charm-

ing, caresses the back and fan of the peacock:
"Little Pavo! Little Pavo! What do you see? What do you hear? Will
someone come? Who will come? Is it a little prince? Is he handsome
and charming? Can you see him with all your blue eyes?" (She
holds up a peacock feather and looks fixedly at the eye of the
feather.)9

Let us note in passing that the eye of a feather is also called its mirror;~
This is a new proof of the ambivalence which plays about the two
participles seen and seeing. For a n ambivalent i m a g i n ation , t h e
peacock is vision multiplied. According to Creuzer, the primitive
peacock has a hundred eyes.'
A new shade of meaning quickly finds its way into universalized vi-
sion and r eenforces the voluntary n ature of c o n t e mplation. S tr i n d -
berg's fairy world sheds light on this aspect. The iris of the peacock
feather, the "eye" without an eyelid, this permanenteye suddenly
takes on a certain h a r shness. Instead of contemplating, it ob serves.
An Argus relationwarps the tender fascination of admiring love: A lit-
tle while ago you looked at me, now you are spying on me. Thus,
soon after caresses, Swanwhite senses the persistence of the ocellated
fan.
"Are you there to observe, naughty Argus. ... Silly! I'm drawing
the curtain, do you see?" (She draws a curtain which hides the
p eacock, but no t t h e c o u n t ryside, then she goes toward th e
pigeons.) "My turtle-doves so white, white, white, you are going to
see what is whitest of all."

Finally, when temptation comes, the peacock Argus with the cruel
eyes will draw aside the curtain. "Who drew aside the curtain? Who
commanded the bird to look at us with his hundred eyes?" 0 many-
sighted fan!
From the point o f v i e w o f a s t u bbornly realistic and logical
criticism, I may be readily accused of punning on the word eye, a
word assigned — by what stroke of chance? — to the circular spots on a
peacock's feathers. But the reader who really knows how to accept

9. August Strindberg, S~an~hite, in Plays,ed. and trans. Edwin Bjorkman, 3rd

series (New York, 1913), p. 20.
10. George Frederic Creuzer, trans., Religions de 1'antiquite (Paris, 1825), 1:168.
 30 . • C H A P T E R O N E

the invitation to contemplation that the peacock offers will be unable

to forget the strange impression made by these hundred converging
"looks." By all indications, the fan itself urantsto fascinate. Observe
the spread out fan carefully. It is not flat. It is curved inward like a
shell, If some mere barnyard denizen comes into the center of this
concave mirror, this concave vision, pride becomes wrath, anger runs
over the plumes, the whole fan shudders, trembles, rustles. The spec-
tator then has the feeling that he is in the presence of a direct urill to
b eauty, a force for o stentation t h a t c a n no t r e m ain p assive. A p s y -
cholo(y devoted to man, confronting some foolish display of beauty,
misses the features of agressiee beauty so unmistakable to an observer
of animals, On the strength of this example, a Schopenhauerian
philosopher might become convinced of the need to reunite the in-
sights that Schopenhauer separated: the magnetism of contemplation
is related to will. Contemplation is not opposed to will but rather
follows another of its branches, participating in the will for beauty
which is an element of will in general.
W ithout a d o c t r i n e o f a c t i v e i m a g i n at ion t h a t c a n u n i t e t h e
phenomenon of beauty with the will to see, passages like these by '
Strindberg are incomprehensible and dull, One does not read them
correctly by looking for easy symbols. To read them properly, one's
imagination must participate in both the life of forms and the life of
matters. The living peacock effects this synthesis,
This combination, made up of cosmic narcissism and dynamic pan-
calism did not escape Victor Hu go. He understood that nature forces
us to contemplation. Before one of the great views along the banks of
the Rhine, he wrote: "It was one of those places where we think we
see that magnificent peacock we call nature spread his fan."" We can
certainly say, then, that the peacock is a microcosm of universal pan-
calism.
Thus, in the most diverse forms and on the most diversified occa-
sions, in the works of very different authors, the endless exchange of
<-" the visible for vision itself takes place. Everything which shows, sees,
Lamartine wrote in Graziella: "Lightning flashes without interrup-
tion between the cracks of my shutters, like winks of a fiery eye on
the walls of my room,"" T h us, the lightning which lights, looks.
11. Victor Hugo, Le Rhin, Lettres aun ami par Victor Hugo (Paris, n.d.), p. 283.
12. Alphonse de Lamartine, Graziella (Paris, 1925), p. 140.
 C LEAR W A T E R S ) SPRIN G T I M E WA TERS • 31

If the look bestowed by things is rather soft, grave, and passive,

then it is the look of water. An ex amin ation of the imagination leadsS, ~,;
us to this paradox: in th e i m agination of u n i v ersalized vision, water r
plays an unexpected role. The true eye of the earth is water, In. oyr
eyes it is cuater that dreams,,Are our eyes riot "th at u ne xplored pool
of iiquid light which God put in the depths of our being"l" In nature
it is once again water that sees and water that dreams: "The lake has
created the garden. Everything is composed around this water wbicp,
thinks,"'4 As soon as one surrenders"himself entirely to th e sway of
' the'imagination with aii the united powers of dream and contempla-
tion, he understands the depth of Paul Claudel's thought; "Thus,, >I
w ater i s t h e g a z e o f th e e a r t h , i t s i n s t r u m en t f o r l o o k i n g a t
»15
tNleo • • •

VI
After this metaphysical digression, let us return to the simpler char-
acteristics of the psychology of waters,
To the play of clear waters and springtime waters, all shimmering
with images, must be added a component part common to the poetry
of both: coolness,We shall encounter this quality of water's mass
when studying myths of purity and see that coolness is a power of
awakening. But we must also call attention to it at t uis time'because it
' combines with other direct images. A psychology of the imagination
must include all the i m m e diate data of aesthetic consciousness.
That coolness which is felt while washing one's hands at a stream
reaches out, expands, and takes hold of all of n ature. It rapidly
becomes the freshness of spring. The adjective springlike cannot be
applied to any noun m ore appropriately, perhaps, than to water. For
the French ear, there is no cooler word than eaux printanieres (spring
waters). Coolness impregnates the springtime w ith it s t r i c k l i n g
waters, giving the whole season of renewal its value. Conversely,
coolness is often applied negatively in the realm of air images. A cool
wind implies chilling. It cools enthusiasm. Thus, each adjective has
its privileged noun which m aterial imagination quickly retains.
Coolness, accordingly, is an att r i b u te of w a t e r. Wa ter is, in a s ense,

13, Claudel, L'Diseau rioir, p. 229.

14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
 32 • C HAPT E R O N E

embodied coolness. It is indicative of a poetic climate. Thus it is that

w at'er'points u p t h e c o n t r ast b e t w een E r in , w h i c h i s g r e en , a n d
Scotland, which is russet in color — grass as opposed to heather.
When the substantial root of a poetic quality has been discovered,
when the ma t t er of t h e a d j e c t i ve on w h i c h m a t e r i al i m a g i na tion
works has really been found, all the well-rooted metaphors develop
by themselves. Since they are attached to substances, sensual values
— and not sensations — provide corresporidericesthat will not m i s lead.
Thus, perfumes green as meadows are obviously cool perfumes, a
cool, gleaming flesh, plump as childreri's flesh. This whole cor-
respondepceis upheld by primitive urater, by carnal water, the universal
element. Material imagination is sure of itself when it has recognized
the ontological value of a m e t a p h or . O n t h e c o n t r a ry , p h e n o m e-
nalism in poetry is a powerless doctrine,

VII
( The song of the river is, likewise, cool and clear. The noise of the
waters quite naturally takes on the metaph'or's"o'f coolness and clarity,
f aughing waters, ironic streams, waterfalls with their noisy gaiety, all
are found in the most varied literary landscapes, These laughs, these
babblings are, it seems, the childhood language of Nature. In the
stream the child Nature speaks.
It is hard to abandon this childish poetry. In the works of numer-
ous poets, streams still gurgle in that same special nursery tone that
too often restricts the childish soul to disyllables with few con-
s onants: da-da, boo-boo, wa-wa. That i s ho w st reams sing in t h o s e
children's tales that adults have invented.
But this oversimplification of a pure and profound harmony, this
persistent puerility or poetic infantilism that is the defect of so many
poems must not cause us to"underestimate the youth of w a t ers, the
lesson in vivacity t hat l i v ely w ater affords us.
Springs found in groves, these forest springs, so often hidden, are
heard before being seen, They are heard upon awakening, when we
come out of dreams, It is thus that Faust hears them on the banks of
the Peneus: "Prattling seems each wave to play"; and the Nymphs
reply: "We rustle, we murmur / We whisper to thee."
But does this mythology have real power? Happy is he who is
awakened by the cool song of the stream, by a real voice of living
 C LEAR W A T E R S ) SPRIN G T I M E W A T ER S • 33

nature, Each new day has for him the dynamic quality of birth. At
dawn, the song of the brook is a song of youth, advice for youthful-
ness. Who will give us back a natural awakening, an awakening in
nature?

VIII
With the rather superficial poetry of reflections is associated an en-
tirely visual, artificial, and often pedantic sexualization. It gives rise to
the more or less bookish evocation of naiads and nymphs. Thus, a '
mass of desires and images, a real culture complex that could well be
riamed the Na usicaa complex, is formed. Actually, nymphs and
nerei:ds, dryads arid hamadryads are no longer anything but school-
book images. They are products of the high school-educated middle
class. Carrying high school memories with him to the country, a
bourgeois who quotes twenty words of Greek, palatalizing several
d iareses on the " i, " c a n no t i m a g ine a spring wi t h out a n y m p h o r a
shady bay without a princess.
I shall give a more accurate description of the culture complex at the
end of this chapter when we have struck a balance between urords and
images in traditional symbols. Let us get back to the examination of
those real sights that are at th e o r i gin of i m agination's metaphors,
The uroman at her bath, such as poets describe or suggest her or
painters depict her, is not to be found in ou r co u n t r y side. Bathing is
no longer anyth ing but a sport. A n d a s a sport, it is the opposite of
feminine timidity. Henceforth, the bathing scene is a cromd. It pro-
vides a "background" for novelists. It can no longer provide a true
nature poem.
Moreover, the primitive image, the image of woman bathing as
seen in a brightly lighted reflection, is false. By disturbing the waters,
the bather breaks up her own image. The one who bathes is not
reflected in th e w a t er, I m agination, t h en , m ust supplement reality,
must make a desire real.
'

What, then, is the sexual function of th e ri v er? It is to evoke femi-

n ine nudity . H er e i s ex t r emely clear w at er, says a passer-by. Ho w "
faithfully it would reflect the most beautiful images! Consequently,
the woman who bathes there must be white and young; she must be
nude, Moreover, water evokes natural nudity, a nudity that can keqp
its innocence. In the realm of imagination, truly nude beings, with
 3 } • CHA P T E R O N E

hairless lines, always come out of the ocean, The being rising out of
the water. is a reflection that is materialized little by littl e i r . is..agim-
age.before..it is a being, a desire before it is an image.
For certain reveries, everything which is reflected in water has femi-
nine traits. Here is a good example of this fantasy. One of Jean-Paul's
heroes, dreaming by the water, says suddenly without the slightest
explanation: " F rom th e m i dst of th e p ure lake waters rose the sum-
*
mits of h i l l s an Z m o u n t a i.ns'whfch seemed hke so many women
bathers coming out of the water... . " " N o realist challenged to do so
could explain this image. Any geographer may be questioned; unless
he leaves the earth for dreams, he will never have any reason to con-
fuse an orographic profile and a feminine profile. The feminine image
is forced upon Jean-Paul by a reverie surrounding a reflection, It can
be grasped only by the long circuitous psychological explanations
that we propose.

IX
The swan, i n l i t e r a t u re, i s an er s atz o r s u b s titute f or t h e n u d e
woman. It is sanctioned nud i ty , i m m a culate but nevertheless osten-
sible whiteness, At least swans let themselves be seen! He who adores
the swan desires the bather,
A scene from Faust Part II shows us in detail how setting calls up
character, and the dreamer's desire, under different forms, evolves,
H ere is a scene divisible int o t h r e e t a bleaux: setting, wo m an , a n d
swan.
First, the uninhabited landscape;
Athwart thick-woven copse and bush
Still waters glide; — they do not rush,
Scarcely they rustle as they flow:
From every side their currents bright
A hundred crystal springs unite,
And form a sloping bath below.
Zum Bade flach vertieften Raum."
It seems that nature has formed crypts to hide women bathing. In
the poem, this space, hollowed and fresh, is at once people accord-

16. Jean-Paul Richter, Titan, a Romance,trans. Charles T. Brooks (Boston, 1864),

1;29.
17. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust Part II, ed. F, H. Hedge, trans. A. Swap-
wick (Boston, 1884), act 2, lines 713-42.
 C LEAR W A T E RS> SPRINGT IM E WATERS • 35

i ng to t h e l a w o f w a t e r i m a g i n a t i on . H e r e , t h e n , i s t h e s e c o n d
tableau:
Young nymphs, whose limbs of graceful mould,
The gazer's raptured eyes behold,
Are in the liquid mirror glassed!
Bathing with joyance all-pervading,
Now boldly swimming, shyly wading,
With shout and water-fight at last.

Then desire becomes more condensed, precise, and more internal.

It is no longer merely a visual joy, A total and living image is being
readied:
Contented might I be with these,
Mine eye be charmed with what it sees,
Yet to yon covert's leafy screen
My yearning glance doth forward press,
The verdant wealth of whose recess
Shrouds from my gaze the lofty queen.

And the dreamer truly contemplates what is hidden; making use of

~' reality, he manufactures mystery. Images of "covering," therefore, are
about to make their appearance, We are now at the heart of the fan-
tasy. Well covered, the nexus will be expanded to bring together the
most distant im ages. Thus, we have first swans and then th e Swan.

Most wonderful! Swans now draw near:

Forth from the bays their course they steer,
Oaring with majestic grace;
Floating, tenderly allied,
But with self-complacent pride,
Head and beak they move apace!
But one seems before the rest,
Joyfully the wave to breast,
Sailing swift, without a peer;
Swells his plumage, wave on wave,
That the answering flood doth lave;-
H e the hallowed spot doth near. . .

Goethe uses ellipses — so rare in classical German — at the right

places. As is often the case, ellipses "psychoanalyze" the text. What
should not be said explicitly, is held in suspense. I took the liberty of
c utting out o f P o r c h at's tr anslation n u m e r ous ellipses that are no t
 36 • CH A P T E R O N E

p resent in th e G e r ma n t e xt ; t hey i m pl y a w e ak, un t r u t h fu l k i n d of

escape, especially when compared to the kind that calls for psycho-
analysis.
Moreover, it will not be difficult for the least experienced of appren-
tices in psychoanalysis to discern the masculine traits in this last image
of the swan. Like all images active in the unconscious, the image of
'-'-"-' -" -- the swan is hermaphroditic. The swan is feminine when brilliant
waters are contemplated, but it is masculine in action. For the uncon-
scious, action is an act, For the unconscious, there is only one act. . . .

An image that suggests an act must evolve in the un c onscious from

feminine to masculine,
This passage from Faust Part II, then, gives us a good example of
what we shall call a complete image or, better, a completely dynamized
image. The imagination sometimes gathers images of increasing sen-
suality. It is nourished first with distant images, dreams before a huge
panorama; it i s olates a secret place where more h u man i m a ges are
assembled. It goes from v i sual enjoyment t o m o r e i n t i m at e desires,
Finally, at the climax of a dream of seduction, the visions become sex-
ual aims. They suggest acts. Then the swan "swells his plumage. . .

[and] the hallowed spot doth near."

One step more in psychoanalysis and it is clear that the song the
swan sings before his death can be interpreted as the eloquent profes-
sions of a lover, as the warm voice of the seducer before the supreme
m oment, an e n d in g so f a tal t o e x a l t ation t h a t i t i s r e a lly a " l o v e -
related death."
This suran song, this song of sexual death, of exalted desire about to
find gratification, appears but rarely in its complexual significance.
Because the suran song is one of the most overused of all metaphors, it
no longer has any reverberation in our un conscious. It is a metaphor
that has been crushed beneath artificial symbolism. When La Fon-
taine's swan sings "his last song" while under the cook's knife, poetry
stops living; it no longer moves the reader and loses its own meaning,
contributing ei t her t o c o n v e n t i o nal sy mb o lism or t o a n o u t - d a t ed
realistic meaning. In the heyday of realism, people were still wonder-
ing if a swan's larynx was capable of real song or even of an agonized
cry. The svran songcan be explained neither by conventional sym-
bolism nor by reality. In this case, as in the case of so many other
metaphors, the unconscious must be explored for an explanation. If
 C LEAR W A T E R S ) SPRINGTIM E W A T E R S • 37

this general interpretation of reflection is accurate, the "swan" image

is always a desire. It therefore sings in its capacity as desire. Now there
is only one desire that sings while dying or dies while singing, and
this is sexual d esire. Th e sm an song i s, t h e n, s exual d e sire at i t s
c ulminating poin t ,
For example, such an interpretation is the only one, it seems to me,
that can account for all the unconscious and poetic resonances of this
beautiful passage from Nietzsche, The tragic myth
conducts the world of phenomena to its boundaries where it denies
itself and seeks to flee back again into the bosom of the true and
only reality; where it then, like Isolde, seems to strike up its meta-
physical swansong:
In the sea of pleasure's
Billowing roll
In the ether-wave's
Ringing sound.
In the world-breath's
Drifting whole-
To drown in, to sink-
Unconscious — extremest joy! '

What, then, is this sacrifice that annihilates a being by enveloping

i t in sweet-smelling waves, that u n i t e s a b e in g t o a u n i v e rse th at
ceaselessly palpitates and rocks like a wave~ What is this intoxicating
sacrifice of a being who is unconscious both of loss and happi-
ness — and who sings> No, it is not final death, It is death for one
night. It is a satisfied desire that a bright morning will see reborn, just
as day renews the image of the swan floating upon th e w aters.'

X
To have its full poetic strength, a complex like the swan complex
that I have just identified must act in secretwithin t he p oe t's heart.

18. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, in The Philosophy of Niettsche(New

York, n.d.), p. 321.
19. Perhaps one might find in Mallarme's Smanthe fusion of the Narcissism of
love and the Narcissism of a loving death. Claude-Louis Esteve, in his essay on
Mallarme (Etudes,p. 146), says by way of synthesis: "Mallarme's swan, with its Nar-
cissistic beauty and consumption, whose neck (and not its feet) shakes off the white
agony — where, finally, immobilized in the reflections, ever remains the Pure and the
Magnificent."
 38 • CHA P T E R O N E

The poet contemplating at length th e swan on th e w at ers must not

himself know that he desires a more delicate adventure, This is the
case, I believe, with G o ethe's reverie. To underscore the naturalness
of Faust's reverie, I am going to present for the sake of contrast a sec-
ond example where the symbols will seem obviously manufactured
and crudely put together. In this example, we shall see in action that
cheap Hellenism so characteristic of culture complexes. Here, there is
no fusion between desire and symbol. The primitive image does not
have its own life; it has been too quickly taken over by the memory of
a learned mythology. I shall take this example from one of the short
stories that Pierre Louys published under the title Eveningfor Nymphs,
This book has some very beautiful passages. I shall not claim to criti-
cize it from a literary point of view. It is the psychological viewpoint
that interests us here.
In the short story "Leda or in Praise of the Blessed Shades," the
s~an c omplex immediately discloses its huma n, t oo h u m a n , traits.
The covering imagesdo not fulfill their role, They are too transparent.
A libidinous reader is too quickly and too directly served. "The
beautiful bird was white as a woman, splendid and pink as light."
But the bird, wh it e as a woman, as soon as it makes its presence felt
by circling the n ymph an d " g i v[ing] her sidelong glances," has
already abandoned all of its symbolic value. He approaches Leda.
When the swan
was very close [to Leda] he came even nearer, and raising himself
on his large red feet, he stretched the undulating grace of his neck
up as far as he could, in front of her bluish young thighs, and up to
the soft fold of her hip. Leda's astonished hands took the little head
carefully and covered it w it h c aresses. The bird's every plume
quivered. With his deep, velvety wing he squeezed her naked legs
and made them bend. Leda let herself fall to the ground.
And two pages latex', everything is consummated:
Leda opened herself to him like a blue river flower. She felt, be-
tween her cold knees, the heat of the bird's body. Suddenly she
c ried out: O h ! . . . O h ! . . . a n d h e r a r m s t r e m bled l ik e p a l e
branches. The beak had pierced her horribly and the Swan's head
moved furiously within h er, as if h e w ere eating her entrails,
deliciously.

20. Pierre Louys, "Leda," in Le Crepuscule des nymphes

(Paris, 1926), p.21.
 C LEAR W A T E R S ) SPRINGT I M E WATERS • 39

Such passages have lost all their mystery, and there is no need for a
psychoanalyst in order to explain them. The swan here is quite a use-
less euphemism. He is no longer a water dweller. Leda has no right to
the title "a b lue ri ver fl ow er." A l l w a t e r o r n am ents are out of pl ace
here, Despite Pierre Louys's great literary talent, "Leda" has no poetic
strength. This short story, "Leda or in Praise of the Blessed Shades,"
disobeys the laws of material imagination which demand that varied
images be attached to a fundamental image,
In many other places in Pierre Louys's work, examples of this
literary nudism could be found hidden under the image of the swan.
I n Psyche, without p r e p aration, w i t h ou t a t m o sphere, wit h ou t a n y -
thing which suggests either the beautiful bird or the reflecting water,
Louys writes: "Aracoeli was seated nude, in the top drawer of her
Empire bureau, and seemed to be the Leda of the large yellow copper
swan which spread its wings on the lock." Is it necessary to add that
Aracoeli speaks of her lover "who dies in her arms only to be born
again, still more handsome than before"~
Folklore, too, is touched by the "nudism" of swans. Let me give one
legend where this nudism is presented without any mythological sur-
charge:

A young shepherd on the island of Oeussant who was tending his

sheep near the edge of a pool, surprised to see resting there, white
swans, from which beautiful nude girls came, who, after their bath,
took back their skins and flew away, told his grandmother about
this; she told him that these are swan-maidens and he who succeeds
in stealing their clothing, forces them to carry him to their beautiful
palace which is held in the clouds by four golden chains,

Stealing bathers' clothes, a trick played by naughty boys! Often in

dreams we have mishaps like that. This swan is a symbol of covering
in the full meaning of the term, The swan-maiden belongs to reverie
rather than t o n o c t u r na l d r e ams. A t t h e s l ightest provocation, she
appears in water reveries. A sin gle tr ait ma y i n d i c ate her presence,
proving the consistency of her characteristics. Thus, in one of Jean-
Paul's dreams where immaculate whites multiply, there appear "white
swans, their wings open like arms." This image in its rudimentary
aspect says a great deal. It bears the stamp of an impulsive imagina-
tion — that is, one which must be grasped like an impulse. Wings that
 40 • CHA P T E R O N E

are open arms manifest an earthly happiness, They are the opposite
of arms that are seen as wings to carry us skyward.

XI
The example of Pierre Louys's suran with its excess of mythological
surcharge can now h elp us to u n d e r stand the precise meaning of a
culture c omplex. The cul t u re c om p lex is a tt a ched most o f ten to a n
academic culture, t ha t is , t o a - t r a d i t i o nal c u l t u re. L o uys does not
seem to have had the patience of a scholar like Paulus Cassell, ' who
c ollected myths and t a les in several literatures to measure both t h e
unity and the multiplicity of the swan symbol, Louys borrowed from
academic mytho logy to w r i t e hi s story. N on e bu t t h e " i n i t i a tes" in
the scholarly knowledge of myths will be able to read it, But, if such a
reader be satisfied, his satisfaction is still mixed. He does not know if
he loves the content or if he loves the form; he does not know if he is
linking images or if h e i s l i n k ing emotions, Often symbols are
brought together with no regard for their symbolic evolution. 'Who-
ever would speak of Leda must speak of the swan and of the egg. The
same tale may br in g t h ese two stories together with out p enetrating
t he mythical ch aracter of th e egg. In L o u y s's short story, th e i d e a
even occurs to Leda that she might be able "to have the egg cooked in
hot ashes as she had seen the satyrs doing." Moreover, the culture
complex often loses contact with deep and sincere complexes. It soon
b ecomes synonymous w it h a b a d l y u n d e r stood t r a d i t ion or , w h a t
amounts to the same thing, with a t r a d it ion w h ich has been naively
rationalized. Ql a ssical erudition , a s M a r i e D e i c o u r tzz has so w e l l
pointed out, has forced upon myths rational and utilitarian links that
a re not implicit in t h e m .
The psychoanalysis of a culture complex, then, will always require
that a definite separation be made between what is knourn and what is
felt, just as the analysis of a symbol requires a separation between
what is seen and what is desired. Having reached this conclusion, one
may question whether an old symbol is still animated by symbolic
forces and m a y e v a l u ate th e a e sthetic m u t a t i on s t h a t s o m e t i m es
reanimate former images.

21. Paulus Cassell, Der Sch~an in Sageund Leben (Berlin, 1861).

22. Marie Delcourt, Sterilitds mysterieuses et naissances male
figues dans 1'antiquite
classique(Liege, 1938).
 C LEAR W A T E R S ) SPRINGT I M E WATERS 41

Thus when handled by true poets, culture complexes can make us

forget their conventional fo r ms. T hey can t hen sustain paradoxical
images, Such a case would be Gabriel d'Annunzio's Leda urithout a
S~an, Here is the introductory image: "Now the Leda without a swan
w as there, so smooth t ha t she must no t even h ave had l i nes in t h e
palm of her hand, and really shining from the waters of the Erotas."
The swan seems to have a beauty fashioned by the waters, polished
by the current. For a long time it was thought that the swan was the
first model for boats, the best possible form for skiffs. Sails may have
been copied from the rare sight of their wings spread in the breeze.
But this purity, this simplicity of line which appears to be the
p rimary reason for d ' A n n u n z i o's metaphor, corresponds to too fo r -
mal an imagination. As soon as the swan image presents itself to the
imagination as a form, water must well up and everything which sur-
rounds the swan m u s t f o l lo w t h e i m p u l se of t h e w a t e r's m aterial
imagination. Let us follow in just this direction the spirit of the meta-
morphoses that enlivens d'A n n u n z i o's poetry. The woman does not
appear in the waves. She appears surrounded by her white grey-
hounds. But the woman is so beautiful and so much desired that the
mixed symbol of Leda and the swan is going to form right on the
earth, "The ancient rhythm of the Metamorphosis is still circulating
through the world." Water will well up everywhere, in the being and
outside the being.
The young woman seemed to have been captured and recreated in
nature's youth, and to contain within herself a spring which rose
up bubbling against the crystal of her eyes. She was her own spring,
her river, and her bank, the shade of the plane-tree, the trembling
of the reed, the velvet of the moss. Great birds without wings
rushed upon her; and certainly, when she held out her hand to one
of them and took it by its feathered neck, she was repeating the
gesture of Thestios's daughter exactly.
How can t h e i m m a n e nce of im a g inary uraterbe b e tter e xp ressed>
Dogs, a woman under an Italian sky, on Italian ground — that is what
is given. And, nevertheless, behind the image of an absent, effaced,
virtual s~an, which the author r e fuses to mention, there is the ~ater
of Leda urithout a Scuanwhich invades the scene, which bathes the
people there, which in spite of everything expresses its legendary life.
Such passages will be judged badly if the judgment is based on a
 L I2 • CHA P T E R ON E

s imple "association of ideas" or "a n association of im ages." A m o r e

direct growth is i n v o l ved here, a production of im ages that are pro-
foundly homogeneous because they participate in an elementary real-
ity of material imagination,

XII
Images as active as the swan image are liable to all types of expan-
sion. Just as there is a cosmic narcissism, so in certain passages we can
recognize a cosmic swan. As Pierre Reverdy says: "Universal and
human dramas tend to become one." A g r e a t desire is thought to be
a universal one.
An example of sublimation th r ough great size, with reference to the
theme of the Swan reflected in water, can be found in one of Albert
Thibaudet's youthful works, The Red Suran. It is a dramatic myth, a
c ultivated solar myt h :

Far away, at the horizon, where the sun goes down, the Red Swan
still sends out his immortal challenge.. . He is the king of space,
and the sea swoons like a slave at the foot of his brilliant throne.
A nd still he is made of lies as I am made of flesh... .

Thus speaks a warrior; a woman answers him: "O f t en, too, the Red
Swan glided slowly, set in the center of a halo of pink mother-of-
pearl, and his shadow slid over things in a long sheet of silence, . . .

His reflections fell on the sea like the touch of kisses." Despite the fact
that two characters derive life from one symbol, the images are coher-
ent. The author believes that his images have a kind of warlike
power, And in fact sexual proofs abound: the Red Swan is a woman
to be possessed, to be conquered. The myth that Thibaudet con-
structed, then, is a good example of dissymbotism: symbolism of the
sort in which images are explicitly set forth and given their sexual sig-
nificance, If this dissymbolism is lived out properly, it conveys the im-
pression that sight assembles images just as the heart gathers desires.
An emotional imagination lies behind a formal imagination,y%'hen
symbolism draws its strength kom the heart itself, how much greater
visions become! The visions then seem to think. In works like The Red
Sman, o ne senses that meditation con t i n u es contemplation. T h at i s
why metaphors become more general, why they invade the sky.

23. Pierre Reverdy, Le Gant de crin (Paris, 1927), p. 41.

 C LEAR W A T E R S ) SPRINGTIM E WATERS 43

C. G, Jung gives several arguments that help us understand on the

cosmic plane why the s~an is the symbol both of light on water and
of a hymn of death, This is, in fact, the myth of the dying sun, The
German word Sc4uan (swan) comes from the radical Smen, as does
Sonne(sun) — sun and sound.~4 In another passageJung quotes a poem
where the death of the singing swan is described as being a disap-
pearance under the ~aters.
In the pond sings the swan,
While gliding back and forth
And singing ever more softly
He dives and breathes his last.

Other examples of the swan on a cosmic plane would be easy to

find, The moon, like the sun, can evoke this image. Such is the case
in one of Jean-Paul's images: "The moon, that beautiful swan of the
sky, rose with its white plumage from Vesuvius, to the top of the fir-
mament.. . . " ' Co n v e rsely, forJ ules Laforgue the swan is t h e
Moon's "substitute" during the day.
In his Legendary Moralities,Laforgue also writes:
The swan spreads its wings, and, rising straight up with a new and
imposing shudder, with well-filled sails, he scuds along and soon
completely disappears from view beyond the Moon.
'Oh sublime way to burn one's vessels! /Noble fiance'."

All of these disparate images, which a realistic doctrine of meta-

phor can do so little to explain, have real unity only through the
~ poetry of reflections, through one of the most fundamental themes of
the poetry of w ater.

24. C. G. Jung, Metamorphoseset symboles de la libido, trans. L. De Vos (Paris,

1927), p. 331.
25. Richter, Titan, 2:257.
26. Jules Laforgue, "Lettres," NRF, 29 (1941):432.
 Deep Waters D o r m ant W aters — Dead Waters
"Heavy Waters" in Edgar Allan Poe's Reverie

One must guess the painter to under-

stand the picture.
NIETzscHE, SchoPenhauer

FQR A PsYcHQLoGIsT studying a faculty as variable, fluid, and diverse

as the imagination, it is a great advan~t e t o f i n d a poet, a genius en-
dowed with t h a t r a r est of all u n i t i es, imaginatiee unity, Such a poet,
such a genius is Edgar Allan Poe. Imaginative unity is sometimes con-
cealed in his work by intellectual constructs, love of logical deduc-
t ion, o r a p r e t e n s io n t o mathematical reasoning. The h u m or
demanded by indiscriminate Anglo-Saxon magazine readers some-
times hides a profound t o n a l it y o f c r e ative reverie. But as soon as
poetry reclaims its rights, liberty, and life, Poe's imagination gains
back its strange unity .
In her detailed, profound analysis of Poe's poems and tales, Marie
Bonaparte has revealed the dominant psychological reason of this
unity. She ha s p r o ved t h a t s uc h a n i m a g i n at ive u n it y c o n sists of
~faithfulness to an undying memory. It is hard to see how such an in-
quiry, which has overcome all anamneses and penetrated beyond
merely logical, conscious psychology, could be i m proved upon,
Therefore, I shall make extensive use of the psychological insights
gathered together in Madame Bonaparte's book.
But alongside this unconscious unity, t h ere is, I believe, a further
u nity of expressive means in the work o f Poe, a verbal tonality th a t
gives his work an inspired monotony.Great works always manifest this
double token — psychology finds in them a secret focus, literary criti-
cism, an original way of speaking. The language of a great poet like
Poe is rich, no doubt, but it is hierarchical as well. Within the thou-
sand shapes it takes, the' im agination co nceals a&avored substance,
an active substance that defines the unity and h i erarchies of expres-
 }6 • CHA P T E R T W O

sion. There is no difficulty in p r oving that for Poe this favored

substance is water or, more specifically, a syecial kind of water, a
heavy,~atgr.,ghat is,more profound, dormant,, and still than any other
deep, dormant, or still waters in nature, Water, in Poe's imagination,
is'a super lative, a kind of substance of substance, a true mother
substance, The poetry and~rverie of Poe can serve as models for iden-
tifying a major element of poetic chemistry,which would study images
b y measuring t h e d e n s it y o f t h e i r i n n e r r e v e r ie , t h e i n t i m a t e
s ubstance for each of th em .

If I am not afraid of appearing too dogmatic, it is because the

evidence is too good; in Poe's works, the destiny of his water images
follows very closely that of his main reverie, which is a reverie of
death. Indeed, what Madame Bonaparte has clearly shown is that the
~'dominating image of Poe's poetics is the image of a dying mother. All
the other loved ones whom death took from him — Helen, Frances,
Virginia — renew this primal image and revive its initial pain, which
marked the poor orphan forever, Death, for Poe, is what is human. A
life is described through death. In the same way, as I shall show, his
landscape is likewise shaped by this fundamental dream, a reverie
that constantly returns to th e d y in g m o t h er, Yet t hi s fixation is all
the more instructive because it corresponds to noth ing in r eality, In
point of fact, Elizabeth, Poe's mother — like Helen, his friend; Frances,
his adopted mother; and V i r ginia, his wife — died in her bed, a
perfectly urban kind of death, Their graves are in a corner of the
c emetery — an American c emetery — that has n o t h i n g i n common
with the r o m a n ti c cemetery at C a m a l d unes where Lelia rests. Poe,
unlike. Lelia, did not find a beloved body among the rushes of the
lake. Nevertheless, around a dead woman, and for her sake, an entire
region comes to life by going to sleep, that is, by going to its eternal
,.rest, A whole valley is hollowed out and filled with sh'adows, takes'o'n
fathomless,depth so as .to. bury human m,isery'completely,- 'a'nd
become the land of human death. A material.element~finally, inyites
death to appr'oach, as th'o'ugh'it were an essence, a life snuffed out, a
m emory so complete as to l iv e o n u n c o n sciously wi t h ou t e ver ex -
ceeding the power of dreams.
Therefore, all water that was originally clear is for Poe water that
must become clouded, water that'will absorb black suffering. Run-
 D EEP W A T E R S a 47

ning water is water destined to slow down, tp become heavy. All liv-
in'g water is on the point of dying. Now, in~dyriamic poeiry, things are
not what they are, but what they are becoming, They become in im-
a ges just w h a t t h e y be c o m e i n r ev e r i e , i n o ur in t e r m i n a b l e
daydreams. To contemplate water is to slip away, dissolve, and die.
At first glance, the reader may believe that there is in Poe's poetry
the variety of waters so universally celebrated by poets, Specifically,
two waters, the joyful and the melancholy, can be found there. But
there is only one memory. Heayy,~ater neyeg becomes light; murky
water never clears. It is always the opposite.A he story of water is the
humari tale of a d y in g w ater. Reverie sometimes -begins in the
presence of limpid water filled with vast reflections, bubbling with
crystalline music. It ends in the bosom of sad and somber water, emit-
t>ng'strange'and dismal mur m u rs. As it r e d iscovers its dead, reverie
near the water, like a submerged universe, also dies, h. '

III
We shall now follow in detail the life of an imagined water, of a sub-
stance highly personalized through a powerful material imagination;
we shall see that it embodies all of the traits of life drawn toward
death, of life wanting to die. More explicitly, we shall see how water
furnishes the symbol fo r a p a r t i c u lar l if e at t r acted by a p a r t i c ular
death.
First, let us show Poe's love for an el ementary ~ater, for an i m a g -
inary w ater t h a t a t t a i n s t h e i d e a l o f c r e a t iv e r e v erie b ecause it
possesses what could be called the absolute of reflection. In fact, when
certain poems and tales are read, the reflection seems more real than
reality because it is purer. Ps life is a dream within a dream, so the
universe is a reflection wit hi n a reflection; the universe is an absolute
image. By immobilizing the image of the sky, the lake creates a sky in "

her bosom. The water in its youth6il hm'p'icTi'ty"'is' a' reversed sky,
rr
where the stars take on new life. Thus,'3r eaming at'the'water's'"e'd'ge,
Poe forms'tEis'"st'range'd'ouble coricept 'of a"s'tar'='isle,"a'"1'iqui8"stai"; a
prisoner of the lake, a star which could be an island in the sky. To a
dear departed one, Poe murmurs:
Away, then, my dearest
Oh! hie thee away.

To lone lake that smiles

 48 • CH A P T E R T W O

In its dream of deep rest,

At the many star-isles
That enjewel its breast.

Where is reality — in the sky or in the depths of the water? Infinity.

in our drqams is as high in t he f i r m a me nt as it is deep b cneath the
waves. One cannot pay too much attention to double images like the
star-isle in a psychology of the imagination. Whey are like the hinges
of a dream whi ch, t u r n in g on t h em , ch anges its register, its matter,
Here at„this juncture, water grasps the sky. Th r o u gh dr e ams, water
c~mes to signify th at m o st d is tant of h o m 'es, a celestial one,
In stories, this construct of the absolute reflection is even more infor-
mative, since short stories often demand a semblance of truth, logic,
and reality. In the channel which leads to the Arnheim domain:
At every instant, the vessel seems imprisoned within an enchanted
circle, having insuperable and impenetrable walls of foliage, a roof
of ultra-marine satin, and no floor — the keel balancing itself with
admirable nicety on that of a phantom bark which, by some acci-
dent having been turned upside down, floated on constant com-
pany with the substantial one, for the purpose of sustaining it.'

~ Thus water, by means of its reflections, doubles the world, doubles

things, It also doubles the dreamer, not simply as a vain image but
through his invo lvement in a ne w o n e iric experience.
Of course, an inattentive reader may only see yet another worn-out
image. That is because he has not really taken pleasure in the
delicjous..eisuat,effects of the reflections. It is because he has not lived
the imaginary role of t h i s n a t u ral p a i n t i ng, t his strange watercolor
that moistens the most brilliant hues. How could such a reader follow
t he narrator as he p r o ceeds with h i s t ask of m a t erializing the fan -
tastic? How could he board the ship of phantoms that suddenly glides
beneath the real ship when the imaginary inversion becomes a real-
i ty? A realistic reader will not see reflections as an oneiric invitation ;
how can he feel a dream's dynamic quality and its astonishing im-
pressions of lightness? If the reader made all of the poet's images real,
if he put aside his usual realism, in the end he would experience phys-
ically the inv it ation t o t r a v el, He, too, wo uld soon be

1. Edgar Allan Poe, "The Domain of Arnheim," in The Complete Works foEdgar
Allan Poe,ed. James A. Harrison (New York, 1902), 6:191.
 D EEP WA T E R S • 49

enrapt in an exquisite sense of the strange. The thought of nature

still remained, but her character seemed to have undergone modifi-
cation: there was a weird symmetry, a thrilling uniformity, a wizard
propriety in these, her works. Not a dead branch — not a withered
leaf — not a stray pebble — not a lump of brown earth was anywher
visible. The~ystal~ aLer @elled up against the gcear grqnite, or the,
unblemished,moss„with,a~ a r pness of outline that delighted while
it bewildered the eye.

Here, then, the reflected image is subjected to a systematic idealiza-

tion. The m i r age corrects the real; it r e m oves stains and wretched-
ness. Water gives the world thus created a Platonic solemnity. It also
provides a personal character that suggests Schopenhauerian form; in
so pure a mirror, the world is my vision. Little by little, I feel myself
the author of all I see while alone, all I see from my point of view. In
"The Island of the Fay," Edgar Allan Poe acknowledges the value of
t his solitary vision of reflections: "The interest with which I hav e . . .

gazed into the reflected Heaven of many a bright lake, has been an in-
g Py d p * d bv t i " l l ghi h Ih . .. g d
Pure visio~ salitary.vision, this is the double gift of regecting waters,
Tieck, in St ernbatd's Voyages,also u nderscores th e m e a n in g o f
,solitude,
If we continue this t ri p o n t h e r i v er of i n n u m er able meanderings
which leads to the kingdom of Arnheim, we shall have a new impres-
sion of visual freedom, The journey ends in a central basin where the
duality of reflection and reality is completely balanced, It is very
worthwhile, I believe, to give a literary example of the reversibility
t hat Eugenio d'Ors does not want t o a l lo w i n p a i n t i n g ;

This, basin,,was.of.great. depth, but so transparent was the water,

that the bottom, which seemed to consist of a thick mass of small,
round al'abaster pebbles, was distinctly visible by glimpses — that is
to say, whenever the eye could permit itself not to see, far down in
the inverted Heaven, the duplicate blooming of the hills.

POnce agpin th ere are two w ays of reading such texts: in t erms of a
realistic experience and in a realistic frame of mind, by trying to call
up from all the scenes that life has shown us one site where we could
live and think like the narrator. Such a basis for reading makes this

2. Poe, "The Island of the Fay," in Works,0:195.

 50 • C HA PT E R T W O

excerpt seem so paltry that the reader has to force himself to finish it,
But such passages can also be read in harmony with creative reverie,
in an att empt t o p e n e t r ate to t h e o n e i ric core of l i t erary creation,
t hus c o m m u n i c atin g t h r o u g h t h e u nconscious w it h t h e p o e t ' s
creative will. f h e n t h ese descriptions, restored to their subjective fuac
t ion and disengaged from static realism, give another v i sion of t h e
world or, better, the vision of another world. Following Poe's lesson,
we notice that m a t erializing reverie — reverie dreaming of m a t t er-
goes beyond formal reverie. More briefly, we understand that matter
' is the unconscious of form. It is water itself, in its mass, no longer its sur-
face, which sends us the insist'ent message of its r'e'fl'ections."C)nlymat= r ,
"'ter caii become charged with multiple impressions and feelings. It is
an emotional good. And Poe is sincere when he tells us that in such
contemplation " Th e im p ressions wrought on the observer were those
of richness, warmth, color, q u i etude, uniformi ty , softness, delicacy,
daintiness, v o l u p t u o u sness, and a m i r a culous extremeness of
culture."
During chip,contemplation in depth, the subject also becomes con-
scious of his own i n t i m ate nat ure. T his contemplation, th en, is not
an immediate feeling (Einfuhlung), an unrestrained fusion, It is rather
a deepened perspective on th e w o rl d an d o u r selves, It allows us to
hold ourselves at a distance from the world. In the presence of deep
water, you choose your vision; you can see the unmoving bottom or
the current, the bank or i n f i n i ty , just as you"wish;""'you have'the am-- '
as
biguous right™to s ee or' not to see; you have the right to live with t h e
boatman or w it h " a n e w r ace of fairies, laborious, tasteful, magnifi-
cent, and fastidious," The water-sprite, guardian of the mirage, holds
all the birds of heaven in her hand, A,pool..contains a universe. A
fragment of a dream contains an entire soul.
Upon arriving in the heart of A r nheim's domain after such an
oneiric voyage, one will see the in terior Castle b uilt by t h e f o ur a r -
c hitects of constructive dreams, the four g r eat m a sters of th e f u n -
damental oneiric elements: "jlt seems to be] sustaining itself as if by
miracle in midair, glittering in the red sunlight with a hundred oriels,
minarets, and pinnacles; and seeming the phantom handiwork, con-
j ointly, of th e Sylphs, of th e Fairies, of the Genii, and of t h e
Gnomes." But this slow intr o duction, wh ich celebrates the glories of
w ater's aerial constructions, makes it rather pl ain t h a t w a ter is t h e
matter where Nature, in m o v in g reflections, evolves dream castles,
 D EEP WA T E R S • 51

Sometimes the building of reflections is less grandiose; then the will

to fulfillment is even more astonishing. Thus, the little lake in Lan-
dor's Cottage reflected

so perfectly.. . all objects above it, that where the true bank ended
and where the mimic one commenced, it was a point of no little dif-
ficulty to determine.3 Tge trout, and some other varieties of fish,
with which this pond seemed to be almost 'inc'onvenieri'tly cr'ow'ded';
c"a"
had all the appearance of veritable flying-fish. It was almost impo's-
sible to believe that they were not absolutely' suspended in the air.

T hus~water becomes a kin d o ef,.uniyersael home it yeoples the sky

with its-fish; A' symbiosis of images gives the bird to the deep and the
Rsh to"t'he"Atmament. The inversion which played on the ambiguous
inert concept of the star-islehere plays on an ambiguous living con-
cept, the bird-fish. Anyone who makes an effort to establish this am-
biguous concept in hi s i m agination will feel th e delightful am-
bivalence that a thin image suddenly assumes. He will enjoy this
reversibility of great water spectacles in a specific event. Reflecting on
these musingsi that produce unexpected images allows one to under-
stand that 4he i m agination n eeds a c o n s t an t d i a l e ctic. F o r a
thoroughly dualized imagination, conceptsare not centers of images
which come together because of their resemblance to each other; con-
cepts are the points wh ere im ages intersect at in cisive and decisive
right angles. Besides its intersection, this particular concept has one
other characteristic: the fish flies and swims.
This fantasy of the flying fish, an example of which I have already
studied as it appears in its confused state in the Songs of Maldoror,4
does not emerge from a nightmare in Poe's writings, It is a gift of the
mildest and most leisurely of reveries. The flying trout appears, with
all the naturalness of a familiar reverie, in a narrative with no drama,
i n a tale with n o m y s t ery. Is th ere a n a r r ative, even a story in t h e
work called Landor's Cottage>This example, then, is especially good
for showing us how reverie comes out of and belongs to nature, how
matter, faithfully contemplated, produces dreams.
Many other poets have felt the metaphoric richness of water con-
templated in its reflections and in it s depth at the same time. For in-
stance, in Wo r d sworth's Prelude are the words:

3. The same imagery is repeated in "The Island of the Fay," in Works,4:197.

Gaston Bachelard, Lautreamont (Paris, 1939), p. 64.
 52 • CHA P T E R T W ' O

As one who hangs down-bending from the side

Of a slow-moving boat, upon the breast
Of a still water, solacing himself
With such discoveries as the eye can make
Beneath him in the bottom of the deep,
Sees many beauteous sights — weeds, fishes, flowers,
Grots, pebbles, roots of trees, and fancies more.

He fancies more because all these reflections and all these objects in
the deep start him on th e way to im ages, because from this marriage
~ f h k d d k ,p k , k dl k '%ri'
brought forth. Thus, Wordsworth continues:

Yet often is perplexed, and cannot part

The shadow from the substance, rocks and sky,
Mountains and clouds, reflected in the depth
Of the clear flood, from things which there abide
In their true dwellings; now is crossed by gleam
Of his own image, by a sunbeam now,
And wavering motions sent he knows not whence,
Impediments that make his task more sweet.

How could this way of saying that water crossesimages be improved

upon? How could its metaphoric power be better expressed? Further-
more, Wordsworth develops this extended imagery to pave the way
for a psychological metaphor that seems to me to be the fundamental
metaphor ofdepth.

Such pleasant office have we long pursued

k
Incumbent o'er the surface of past.time
d

Is it really possible to describe the past without images of depth> And

could an image of full depth ever be obtained without a meditation in
the presence of deep water? The past life of the soul is itself a deep
I
water. I

And then, after seeing all the reflections, the dreamer suddenly
looks.at the water itself. Thed:he believes that he has caught it in the
act of forging+eauty. He perceives beauty in its volume — an internal,
active beauty. A sort of volumetric narcissism permeates matter itself.
It is t hen t h a t M a e terlinck's dialogue between Palomidesand
Alladine takes on the full measure of dream power,
 D EEP WA T E R S • 53

Blue water

is full of unmoving and strange flowers. ... Have you seen the
largest one which blooms beneath all the others> It seems to live a
measured life... . A n d the water.. . . Is it water>.. . It seems more
beautiful and purer and bluer than the water of this earth. . . .

I.no longer dare look at it.

A soul also is such a great substance! One dares not look at i t .

I
IV
Such, then, is the first imaginative state of water in Poe's poetics. i
This state corresponds to a dream ofl i m p i d ity and tr ansparency, to a
dream of clear and happy colors. It is an ephemeral dream both in the
work and life of this unhappy man.
We are now going to follow the 4estiny of ~ater in Edgar Allan Poe's
poetics. We are going to see it as a destiny that m a kes matter mor e
profound,yincreases its substance by filling it with h u man sorrow. We
are going to see qualities of surface and volume opposed — volume, ac-
cording to this astonishing formula, that is "an import ant considera-
tion in the eyes of the Almighty." The water will get darker, And in
c
order to do,so, it will absorb shadows'in material fashio n.
Now let us leave tQe sun-drenched lakes and see how shadows sud-
denly aff'ect them, One side of the paiiorama, around the Island of
F ay, stays bright. O n t h i s s ide th e w a t er's surface is lit b y " a r i c h ' "/
'

golden and crimson water-fa11 from the sunset fountains of the sky."
" The other or eastern end of the isle was ehelmed in the blac st
s haPe." But t h i s sh adow i s no t d u e m e r ely t o t h e c u r t ai n o f t r e e s
, which hides the sky: it is more real, more mateiially r'ea'liped'"by ":
material imagination tKan that. "Tge shade of the trees fell heavily
sthe"
upon the ~ ater a n d seemed to bury itself th'ere'in impr'eg'nati'ng
depths .of -the element with darkness."
From this moment on , . the poetry of form and colors gives way to
the poetry of matter. A d r eam of substances begins. An objectivein-
timacy digs down into th e element in or der to receive materially the
secrets of the dreamer. Then night becomes a substance as water is a
s ubstance. The no ctu r nal substance mingles intimately wit h t h e l i -
quid substance. The aerial world givesits shadows to the brook,
Here it is necessary to take the word give in its concrete meaning, as
 54 • CHA P T E R T W ' 0

with everything expressed in a dream. We must not be satisfied with

talking about a leafy tree which gives shade on a summer's day and
which watches over someone while he sleeps. In Poe's reverie, one of
the functions of the vegetable world, for a living dreamer faithful to
the dream's clearsightedness, as Poe is, is to produce shade as the cut-
tlefish produces ink. The forest must spend each hour of its life help-
ing the night to darken the world. Each day the tree produces and
abandons a shadow, as each year it produces and abandons its
foliage.
I fancied that each shadow, as the sun descended lower and lower,
separated itself sullenly from the trunk that gave it birth, and thus
became absorbed by the stream; while other shadows issued mo-
mently from the trees, taking the place of their predecessors thus
entombed.

As long as they hold fast to the tree, shadows are still alive; they die
when they leave it, leave it when dying, shrouding themselves in
water as in a blacker death,
Give us this day our daily shadow — one that is part of oneself — is
this not living with Death> Death, then, is a long and sorrowful story,
not merely the drama of a fatal hour: "They. .. waste away mourn-
fully." And th e d reamer beside the brook thinks of beings who
render
unto God little by little their existence, as these trees render up
shadow after shadow, exhausting their substance unto dissolution.
What the wasting tree is to the water that imbibes its shade, grow-
ing thus blacker by what it preys upon, may not the life of the Fay
be to the death which engulfs it?

It is important to note in passing this new inversion that attributes a

human action to a m aterial element. 8Vater is no longer a substance
that is drunk; it is a substance which dri n ks. It suratlours the shadow
like a black syrup. This is not an exceptional image. It could be easily
found in fantasies about thirst, It can give singular force to poetic ex-
pression, a proof of its profound unconscious quality. Thus, Paul
C laudel cries: "0 Lord . . . Have pity upon t h ese waters within m e ,
which are dying of thirst!"'

5. Paul Claudel, Cinq grandesodes (Paris, 1913), p. 65.

 D EEP WA T E R S • 55

Once we have realized, in the full meaning of the word, this absorp-
tion of shadows, then we must not co n sider as cosmic monstrosities
"the naphthaline r iver" o f " F o r A nn i e , " a n d e l s ewhere (in
"Ulalume") the scoriac river with its sulphurous currents, the saffron
river flowing by in the poems of Poe. Nor should we take them to be
bookish images, more or less revived, of the river of the Underworld.
These images bear no marks of a f a cile culture complex. They
originate in the world of primary images. They follow the basic prin-
ciple of material dreams. Their waters fulfill an essential psychological
function: to absorb shadows, to offer a daily tomb to everything that
dies within us each day.
Thus, water is an i n v i t a t ion t o d i e ; it i s an i n v i t a t ion t o a special
death that a l l ow s u s t o r e t u r n t o o n e o f t h e e l e m entary m a t erial
refuges, We shall understand it better, when, in the next chapter, we
have reflected upon the Ophetia complex, From now on, we must note
the kind of contin u ing seduction that leads Poe to a sort of permanent
suicide in a kind of dipsomania of death. In it each hour meditated is
like a living tear that rejoins the water of regrets; time falls, drop by
drop, from w at er-clocks; the world t h a t t i m e an i m ates is a weeping
melancholy.
Everyday we are killed by sorrow, the shadow that falls on the
flood. Poe follows the Fay in her long trip around the isle, At first,
she held herself erect
in a singularly fragile canoe, and urged it with the mere phantom of
an oar. While within the influence of the lingering sunbeams, her
attitude seemed indicative of joy — but sorrow deformed it as she
passed within the shade. Slowly she glided along and, at length,
rounded the islet and reentered the region of light, "The revolution
which has just been made by the Fay," continued I, musingly — "is
the cycle of the brief year of her life. She has floated through her
winter and through her summer. She is a year nearer unto Death;
for I did not fail to see that, as she came into the shade, her shadow
fell from her, and was swallowed up in the dark water, making its
blackness more black.

And during his hour of reverie, this teller of tales covers the whole
life of the Fay. Each winter, a shadow breaks off and falls "into the
"b ' yg
b~ v b db y h d k .E hy ,h
heavier: "there fell from her a darker shade, which became whelmed
 56 • CHA P T E R T % ' 0

in a shadow more black." And when the end comes, when the sha-
dows are in our h e arts and souls, when our l o ved ones have left us
and all the joyous suns have deserted the earth, then the ebony river,
swollen with shadows, heavy with regrets and with dark remorse, will
begin its slow and secret life. Now it is the elemeni which remembers
the dead.
Without knowing it, Poe, through the power of his inspired dream,
rediscovers the Heraclitean intuit ion t hat saw death in the tendency
to become water. Heraclitus of Ephesus imagined that the soul even
now in sleep, by detaching itself from the sources of living and
universal fire, " tended m o m e n t a r il y t o t ransform i t s el f i n t o
humidity," For H e r aclitus, then, death is water. "To become water is
death to the soul." Poe, it seems to me, would have understood this
wish carved on a t o m b stone: " M a y O s i ris give thee cool water."6
Thus by dealing exclusively with images, we are gradually able to
grasp the hold which the image of Death has on Poe's soul. In this
.. way, I believe that I can supplement Madame Bonaparte's thesis. As
she has discovered, the memory of the dying mother serves as an in-
spired motivation fo r m u c h o f P o e's work . I t p o ssesses remarkable
powers of assimilation and expression. Nevertheless, if such diver-
s ified images adhere so strongly t o a n u n c o n s cious memory, i t i s
because there is already a nat ural coherence among them. A t l e a st
that is my premise. Of course the coherence is not logical, Nor does it
correspond exactly t o r e a l i ty . I n r e a l it y n o o n e s ees tree shadows
borne away o n t h e fl o o d s . B u t ma t e rial i m a gination explains t h i s
coherence of images and reveries, Whatever the value of Madame
Bonaparte's psychological quest may be, it is useful to develop an
e xplanation o f i m a g i n at ive c o h erence on t h e l e v e l o f t h e i m a g es
themselves, at the actual level of expressive means. It is to this more
superficial psychology of images, I repeat once more, that the present
study is devoted.

V
What becomes richer becomes heavier. This water, enriched by so
many reflections and so many sha ows, is a heavy urater. It is the 'truly"
characteristic water of Poe's metapoetics, the heaviest of all waters.

6. Gaston Camille Maspero,Etudes de mythologie et d'archetogie egyptiennes,(Paris,

1893), 1:336 ff.
 D EEP WA T E R S • 57

I am going to give an example in w h ic h i m a ginary w ater is at i t s

maximum density, taken from Th e N a r r ative of Arthur Gordon Pym.
T his work, as th e r e ader no d o ub t k n o w s , is a story of t r a vel an d
shipwreck, The narrative is weighed down with technical details Qf
sea life. Many are the passages in which the narrator, enamoured of
more or less accurate scientific ideas, ends up with a wearying excess
of technical observations. He strives so hard for pr ecise details that
the shipwrecked men, when dying of hunger, still trace the progress
of their m i sfortunes in th e a l m a n ac. D u r in g m y e a rl y e d ucation, I
found nothing but boredom in this work; and although I have been
an admirer of Poe since I was twenty, I had never found the courage
to finish r eading t h ose in t erm i n able and m o n o t o n ou s adventures.
Once I grasped the importance of the revolutions brought about by
the new psychologies, I took up all of my former readings again, in-
cluding first and foremost those that had bored a reader biased by
p ositivistic, r e alistic, scientific m o d e s o f r e a d i ng ; i n p a r t i c u l ar , I
reread Arthur Gordon Pym, this time placing emphasis where the real
drama is — where all drama is — on the borderline between the uncon-
scious and th e c o n scious. Then I u n d e r stood t ha t t h i s a d v enture,
which outwardly covers two oceans, is, in reality, an adventure in the
u nconscious, an adventure w h ic h i s st i rred i n t h e n i gh t o f a s o u l .
And this book, which a reader guided by an education in rhetoric
might take to be weak and incomplete, was revealed, on the contrary,
to be the complete working out of a dream possessing unusual unity,
Since that t i m e , I h a v e r e t u r ned Ar t h ur G o r d on Pym t o i t s p l a c e
among the great works of Edgar Allan Poe. Through this example, I
understood wit h p a r t i c ular cl arity t h e v a lu e of th e nem methods of
reading provided by the new psychological schools as a group. As soon
as a reader is made aware of these new methods of analysis, he partici-
pates in w i d el y v a r ie d s u b l i m a t i on s i n c o r p orating r e m ot e i m a ges
which make the imagination take flight in many directions. Classic
literary criticism impedes these diverging flights, In its pretensions to
an instinctive psychological knowledge, to a native psychological in-
tuition that cannot be learned, it refers literary works to a well-worn,
outmoded psychological experience, to a closed experience.It simply
f orgets the poetic function o f g i v in g a ne w f or m t o t h e w o r l d t h a t
does not exist poetically unless it is continually re-imagined.
B ut her e i s a n a s t o n i s h in g p a ssage in w h i c h n o t r a v e l er , n o
 58 • C HA PT E R T W O

geographer, no realist will ever recognize the water of this earth. The
island where this extraordinary w ater is to be found is situated, ac-
cording to the narrator, "in latitude 83' 20', longitude 43' 5' W."
This water is the beverage of all the savages on the island. We shall
see if it can quench thirst; if, like the water in the great poem "An-
nabel Lee," it "quenches all thirst,"
"On account of the singular character of the water," runs the nar-
rative,

we refused to taste it, supposing it to be polluted; and it was not un-

til sometime afterward we came to understand that such was the
appearance of the streams throughout the whole group. I am at a
loss to give a distinct idea of the nature of this liquid and cannot do
so without many words. Although it flowed with rapidity in all
declivities where common water would do so, yet never, except
where falling in a cascade, had it the customary appearance of iim-
pidity. It was, nevertheless, in point of fact, as perfectly limpid as
any limestone water in existence, the difference being only in ap-
pearance. At first sight, and especially in cases where little declivity
was found, it bore resemblance, as regards consistency, to a thick
infusion of gum Arabic in common water. But this was only the
least remarkable of its extraordinary qualities. It was not colourless,
, nor was it of any one uniform colour...~rqsenting to the eye, as~it '
flowed, every possible shade of purple„ like the hues of a changeable ss

silk... . U po n c o l lecting a b a sinful„ os and, allowing it t o "settle

thoroughly we preceived that the whole mass of liquid, was ma'cIe"
ss
Mp of a number of distinct yeins, each of a distin ct v.hug; r,t hat hese
s, vt
veins cbd,wot.commingle; and that their cohesion was perfect in
regard to their own particles among themselves, and imperfect in
regard to neighbouring veins. Upon passing, ,the, blade of a knife
athwart the veins, the water closed over it irnmediately, as with us," " "

ancl also, in. wgt$'cIras,w'ing it, all traces of' the passage o'f 't'he' k'ri'ife
were instantly obliterated. If, however, the blad'e' was"pa'ssed''down
''accur'ateTy Setweeii the'twe
o veins, a perfect separation was effected,
which the power of cohesion did not immediately rectify. The phe-
nomena of this water formed the first definite link in t hat vast
chain of apparent miracles with which I was destined to be at
length encircled.

M arie B o n aparte h a s n o t o v e r l o o ked t h ese tw o e x t r a o r d i n ar y

7. Poe, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, in Works,3:180.

 D EEP W A T E R S i 59

pages, She quotes them in her book resolving the problem of the
dominant fantasies that guide the storyteller. She then adds simply:
It is not difficult to recognize this water as blood. The idea of veins
is expressly mentioned, and this land which "differing essentially
from any hitherto visited by civilized man" still had nothing "with
which we had no t b een formerly conversant," but co ntained,
rather, the things most familiar to all men: a body whose blood
nourished us even before it was time for milk, that of the mother
who sheltered us for nine months. It will be said that our inter-
pretations are monotonous and come back endlessly to the same
point. The fault lies not in us, but in men's unconscious, which
draws from its prehistory the eternal themes on which to embroider
a thousand different variations. Why i s i t s u r prising, then, if
beneath the arabesques of these variations, the same themes always
reappear? s

I have insisted upon quoting all the details of this psychoanalytic

explanation. It furnishes an enlightening example of organic materi-
alism, s o active in the u n c o n scious, as I have pointed out in my i n -
troduction. Fo r t h e r e a der wh o h a s s t u d ied M a d am e B o n aparte's
g reat work page by p age, there remains no d o ub t t h a t t h e h e m o p -
t yses, which d re w f i r s t P o e's m o t her an d t h e n a l l t h e w o m e n h e
faithfully loved, toward death, marked the poet's unconscious for life.
Poe himself wrote:
And "blood" too, that word of all words — so rife at all times with
mystery and suffering and terror — how trebly full of import did it
now appear — how chillily and heavily (disjointed, as it thus was,
from any foregoing words to qualify or render it distinct) did its
vague syllables fall, amid the deep gloom of my prison, into the in-
nermost recesses of my soul!

Therefore, it follows that for so scarred a psyche everything in nature

which flows heavily, painfully, and mysteriously is like blood ac-
cursed, like blood which bears death. When a liquid takes on value, it
becomes related to an organic liquid. T h erefore, there is a poetics of
blood, It is a poetics of tragedy and pain, for blood is never happy,
Nevertheless, there is a place for a poetics of valorousblood. Paul
Claudel will give life to this poetics of living blood, so different from

8. Marie Bonaparte, Edgar Poe(Paris, 1933), p. 418.

 60 0 C HAPTER T W O

the poetry of Edgar Allan Poe, Let us give an example in which blood
i s a water that ha s t hu s been given value: "W e feel all w ater to b e
desirable; and, certainly, more than the virgin blue sea, this one ap-
p eals to that p art o f u s b etween the flesh and th e soul, our h u m a n
water loaded with virtue and spirit, dark burning blood,"'
With Ar t h ur G o r don Pym,, w e are, to a ll a p p earances, at the a n -
tipodes of inner life: the adventures require geographical settings. But
the storyteller who begins with descriptive narrative feels the need of
giving an impression of strangeness. Therefore, it is necessary that he
invent, that he draw from his unconscious. Why could not water, the
universal liquid, also admit an u n usual property> The water so
discovered will be an invented liquid. Invention, subject to the laws
of the unconscious, suggests an organic liquid, This could be milk.
But Poe's unconscious bears a particular, a fatal stamp: the valoriza-
tion will be through blood. Here the conscious mind intervenes: the
word blood will not be written on this page. Should the word itself be
uttered, everything would tur n against it: the conscious mind would
reject it logically as an absurdity, experimentally as an impossibility,
i nternally a s a cu r s e d m e m o r y : =.T he :extraordinary w ater t h a t
astonishes the traveler will then be an unnamed, unnameable blood~
That is::ttte--:~nalysis from the author's point of view. And from the
reader's point of view~ Either — and this is far from being common-
the reader's unconscious grasps the valorization of blood, making the
passage readable, even, given a proper orientation, deeply moving; it
may also be displeasing — even repugnant — a reaction equally in-
dicative of valorization. Or, on the other hand, this valorization of li-
quid by blood is lacking in the reader; the passage loses all interest,
becoming incomprehensible. The first time I read this book, I was still
"positivistic"; I saw nothing there but an overly facile capriciousness.
Since then I have come to understand that even if this passage has no
objective truth in i t, it h as at least subjective meaning. A psychologist
who labors to rediscover which dreams precede literary works must
pay attention to t h i s subjective meaning.
Nevertheless, classic psychoanalysis, whose lessons I have followed
in this particular interpretation, does not seem to take all the imagery
into account. I t n e g l ects to s t ud y t h e i n t e r m e diate zone between

9. Paul Claudel, Connaissance de 1'Esr(Paris, 1945), p. 105.

 D EEP W A T E R S 0 61

blood and water, between the unnameable and the named. Precisely
in that intermediate zone, where "many words" are needed to express
oneself, Poe's passage bears the stamp of liquids truly experienced. It
is not the u n c onscious which w o ul d suggest the experiment of slip-
p ing a .penknife-between the-veins of.this-,extraordinary water~ h a t
presupposes an actual experience of "fibrillar water," with a liquid
which, although formless, has an inter'nal-strijctuxe .and which, as
snch; eternally fascinates the material imagination. I believe it feasible
to claim, then, that in his childhood Poe was interested in jellies and
gums; he saw that a gum which th i ckens takes on a fibrous structure;
he slid the blade of a knife among the fibers. He says so; why not
believe him~ No doubt, he dreamed of blood when he worked on the
gum, but it is because he — like so many others — worked on gums'that
he did no t h e s i t ate t o p u t i n t o a re a l i s tics tory r i v e rs w h i ch f lo w
slowly, that flow as though supporting veins like thickened water,
Poe elevates a limited experience to the level of the cosmic, following
t he previously men t i o ned la w o f a c t iv e i m a gination. A t t h e w a r e -
houses where he played as a child, there was molasses. This is also a
"melancholy" m a t t er. On e h esitates to taste of it, particularly wh en
one has a harsh stepfather like J ohn Allan, But it is fun to stir it wit h
a wooden spoon. What fun, too, to pull and cut marshmallow! The
natural chemistry of familiar matters gives its first lesson to dreamers
who do not hesitate to write cosmological poems. The heavy water of
Poe's metapoetics surely has "a component part" t h a t c o mes from a
very childish physics. This point had to be made before we could ex-
amine more human an d m or e d r am atic components,

VI
If water is the fundamental matter of Edgar Allan Poe's uncon-
scious, as we clairn that it is, it should rule over earth. It is the blood
'----of the Earth. It is the life of the Earth. Water draws the entire coun-
tryside alorig toward its own destiny. As goes the water, so goes the '
valley. In Poe's poetry, the sunniest valleys grow dark:
Once it smiled a silent dell
Where the people did not dwell

Now each visitor shall confess

The sad v a lley's restlessness.
 62 • C HA PT E R T W O

Sooner or later, disquiet will come over us in the valley, The valley
accumulates water and cares; a subterranean water hollows it out and
shapes it. This latent destiny ss'why'"no one would l ike to live in any" '
of the %o™esque' places," as Madame Bonaparte puts it: "As for the
l ugubrious places, it goes without saying; who would live in t h e
House of Usher> But Poe's smiling landscapes are practically as
repulsive. They are too forcedly sweet, too artificial; nowhere does
f resh nature breathe in t h e m . "
To emphasize even more the sadness inherent in all beauty, I would
add that in Poe's works beauty must be paid for by death. In other
f death. That is the story common to
words, for Poe beauty is a cause o
women, valleys, and water. The beautiful dell, young and bright for a
moment, must necessarily become a settinMgor death, the setting for a
typical death, In Poe's work, the death of valleys and waters is not a
romantic autumn. It is not made up of dead leaves, Trees do not turn
yellow there. The leaves simply turn from a light green to a dark,
material green, to an oily green that is, I believe, the fundamental
color of Poe's metapoetics, The very shadows often have this green
color in Poe's vision:
But on the pillars Seraph eyes have seen
The dimness of this world: that greyish green
That Nature loves the best for Beauty's grave

T he fact is t h at , even w h er e colors are concerned, Death i n P o e 's

works is always set in a special light. It is death camouflaged in all the
colors of life. In numerous passages, Madame Bonaparte gives the ex-
act psychoanalytic definition of t h e n o t io n of Na t u r e, In particular,
she describes the specific meaning of Nature in Poe's work:
For each of us, nature is only a prolonging of our own primitive
narcissism which, in the beginning, annexed the nurturing, pro-
tecting mother. Since for Poe the mother had prematurely turned
into a corpse — the corpse, it is true, of a pretty young woman — why
is it so surprising if "Poesque" scenes, even those most abundantly
filled with blooms, always have something of the made-up corpse
about them?

It is in such a natural setting, a fusion of past and present, of soul

and things, that the lake of Auber — themost "Poesque" lake of them
all — reposes. It arises only from inner geography, from subjective
 D EEP W A T E R S e 63

geography, It has its place not on the "map of love," but on the "map
of melancholy" and the "map of human misery."
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
In the misty mid region of Weir-
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber;
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Wier.

Elsewhere, in the lake of "Fairy-Land," the same phantoms, the

same ghouls, will return, Therefore, this will be the same lake, the
same water, the same death.

By the lakes that thus outspread

Their lone waters, lone and dead,-
Their sad waters, sad"arid chilly'
'

With the snows of the lolling lily,-

By the mountains. . .

By the grey woods,— by the swamp

Where the toad and the newt encamp,
By the dismal tarns and pools
Where dwell the Ghouls,-
In each spot the most unholy-
In each nook most melancholy,-
There the traveller meets aghast
Sheeted Memories of the Past-

These waters, these lakes are fed by cosmic tears that fall from all of
nature:

Bottomless yales and boundless floods,

v
And chas ms, and caves, and Titan woods,
Witf7orm's that no man can discover
For the dews that drip all over;

The very sun weeps on the waters: "An influence dewy, drowsy,
dim,/Is dripping from that golden rim. ..." It is truly the influenceof
unhappiness that falls from the heavens onto the waters, an astrologi-
cal influence — that is, a delicate and tenacious matter carried by th e
sun's rays like a physical and material affliction. This influence brings
to water, as aichemy might, the coloring of universal suffering, the [
coloring of tears. It makes the water of--all.-these 1akes, of all these
marshes, into th e m o t h er-water of h u ma n sorr ow, th e substance af = - -
 64 • CH A P T E R T W O

melancholy, It is no longer a question of vague, general impressions;

it is a question of material participation. The dreamer no longer
dreams of images; he dreams-of substances. Heavy tears bring to the
world a human meaning, a human life, a h u man matter. Here
romanticism joins forces with a st r ange materialism. But h ere, con-
versely, materialism, imagined through the material imagination,
takes on a sensitivity so sharp, so painful, that it can u n d erstand all
the woes of an idealistic poet.

VII

We have just b r o u gh t t o g ether n u m e r ous documents — and they

could be easily extended — to prove that imaginary water in Poe's
metaphysics forces its psychological evolution on the whole universe.
Now we must go to the very essence of this dead urater, Then we shall
understand t ha t w a t e r i s t h e r e a l m a t e r ial ma i nstay o f d e a th, o r ,
through an i n v ersion nat ural to th e psychology of the unconscious,
we shall understand in what a profound sense death is the universal
hydra for the imagination marked by water.
In its simple form, the theorem for the psychology of the uncon-
scious that I am suggesting seems banal; it is the proof, I believe, that
brings to light new psychological insights, Here is the proposition to
be proven: still waters bring the dead to mind because dead waters
are sleeping waters.
In point of fact, the new psychologies of the unconscious teach us
t hat the d e ad, so l on g a s t h e y r e m ai n a m on g us , ar e fo r the un -
conscious, asleep. They are resting, Akpr the funeral„.they are.merejy
absent for the unconscious, that is, more hidden, more covered,
-pgmore
'~dl y: " 1 * pi' ~ l-- --k -- ly 'h" ' "

- 1'
-:Th.v
' '

- -

us a dream deeper than memory; we find ourselves, along with th o se

who have disappeared, in the land of the Night. Some go far away to
sleep, on the banks of the Ganges, in "a kingdom by the sea," in "the
greenest of our valleys" near anonymous and dreamy water, But they
always sleep:
the dead all sleep-
At least as long as Love doth weep:

As long as — tears on Memory's eye.

 D EEP W A T E R S i 65

The lake with stagnant waters is tQe symbal,gf..this total sleep, a

sleep from which no one wishes to wake, sleep guarded by the love of
the living anBTulle3 by Tjtaiiies of'memory":

Looking like Lethe, see! the lake

A consciqus slumber seems to take,
And would not, for the world, awake;
The rosemary sleeps upon the grave-
The lily lolls upon the wave-

All beauty sleeps.

These youthful verses are taken up again in "The Sleeper," one of

the last poems Poe wrote. As befits the evolution of the Unconscious,
Irene has become in this last poem the anonymous sleeper, the dear,
familiar, but nameless dead woman who sleeps "beneath the mystic
moon... . I n . . . t h e universal valley."

The rosemary nods upon the grave;

The lily lolls upon the wave;
Wrapping the fog about its breast,
The ruin moulders into rest;
Looking like Lethe, see! the lake
A conscious slumber seems to take,
And would not, for the world, awake.
All beauty sleeps!

Here we are in the very heart of Poe's metaphysical drama, Here

the motto of his life and works takes on its full meaning: "I could not
love except where Death/Was mingling his with Beauty's breath. . . . "

A strange motto for a man of only twenty years, it already speaks in

the past, after so short a past, and yet gives the profound meaning of
his whole life, the meaning to which he always remained faithful,'
Thus, to understand Edgar Allan Poe it is necessary to make this
synthesis at all the decisive points of his poems and tales: Beauty,
Death, Water, This synthesis of Form, Event, and Substance may
seem artificial, even impossible, to the philosopher. Yet it is found

10. Bonaparte (Poe,p. 28) notes that, "these lines were suppressed by Poe and, ac-
cordingly, were not translated by Mallarme." Is this supression not proof of the ex-
traordinary importance of the formula? Does it not show Poe's clairvoyance, since he
felt that he should hide the secret of his genius?
 66 • CH APT E R T W ' 0

everywhere, If one loves, then immediately one also admires, fears,

and defends. In reverie the th ree causes which determine form,
becoming, and m a t ter are so closely knit t h a t t h e y are inseparable.
One who dreams in depth, like Edgar Allan Poe, has united them in
a single symbolic force,
T his, th erefore, is w h y w a t e r i s t h e m a t t e r o f a b e a u t i fu l a n d
faithful death. Only water can sleep and all,the yvhjle...keep its beauty;
o nly water can die, be still, and yet k e cep its reflections. In reflecting
t he7ace oF a cTreamer wh o i s t r u e t o t h e G r e a t M e m o r y , t o t h e
Universal Shadow, wat-rgiyes beauty to,all shadows, it gives,new life
to all memories. Thus, a kind of delegated and recurrent narcissism is
born which makes all those whom we have loved beautiful. Man sees
himself in his past; any image, for him, is a memory.
L ater, when t h e m i r r o r o f t h e w a t e r s t a r n i shes, when m e m o r y
blurs, withdraws, is stifled;
when a week or two go by,
And the light laughter chokes the sigh,
Indignant from the tomb doth take
Its way to some remember'd lake,
Where oft — in life — with friends — it went'
To bathe in the pure element,
And there, from the untrodden grass,
Wreathing for its transparent brow
Those flowers that say (ah hear them now!)
To the night-winds as they pass,
"Ai! Ai! alas! — alas!"
Pores for a moment, ere it go,
On the clear waters there that flow,
Then sinks within (weigh'd down by woe)
Th'uncertain, shadowy heaven below.

0 thou phantom of the waters, the only limpid phantom, the only
p hantom w i t h " a tr a n s p a r en t b r o w , " w i t h a h e a r t w h i c h h i d e s
nothing from me, spirit of my river, may thy sleep, "As it is lasting so
b e deep... . "

VIII
Finally, there is a sign of death that gives the waters of Poe's poetry
a strange and unforgettable quality. It is their silence. Since I believe
that the imagination, in it s creative Form, imposes a destiny on all it
 D EEP W A T E R S a 67

creates, I shall show th r o ugh t h i s t h eme of silence that the water in

Poe's poetry becomessilent.
The gaiety of waters in Poe's work is terribly ephemeral! Did Poe
ever laugh? Aside from a few streams which are joyous while still near *

their source, rivers quickly fall silent. Their voices soon lower, then '.:

progress from m u r mu r t o s i l e n ce. T hi s m u r mu r t h a t es"n l i v ens their

'If '
c onfused life is in i t s elf strange; it i s f o r eign to th e fl ee ing w'av'e".
someone or something speaks at the surface, it is the wind or an echo,
'soiiie'trees near the edge 'coun fi'dIng thei'r woes to each other','a sph'ai'i-' I
" " " ' ,

„,J
tom whispering 1qw.

For many miles on either side of the river's cozy bed is a pale desert
o f gigantic water-lilies. They sigh one u nto th e o t her i n t h a t
solitude and stretch toward the heavens their long and ghastly
necks, and nod to and fro their everlasting heads. And there is an
indistinct murmur which cometh out from among them like the
.rushirig'of subterrene water. And they sigh one unto the other."

This is what is heard near the river — not its voice but a sigh, the sigh
of pliant plants, the sad rustle of the greenery's caress, In a little
while, the vegetable world itself grows quiet, and, then, when sadness
falls on the stones, the whole universe becomes mute through an in-
expressible terror. "Then I grew angry and cursed with the'cu'r'se"of
silence, the river, and the lilies, and the wind, and the forest, and the
heaven, and the thunder, and the sighs of the water-lilies. And they
became accursed, and ~ere still." For what syeaks in the depths of a
being — and from its depths — what syeaks in the bos'o'm"of"tht',"'"w'aters
" is the voice'of r'emorse. They must be silenced; evil must be answered '~'"w :. e',:
v*yl , v r , , a.v .S ..-'.

by a curse, Aii'ythirig that gr'o'a'ns 'in arid around us must be struck'"

with the c urse of s i lence. An'd th e U n i v erse u nderstands t h e
reproaches of a wounded soul; it falls silent, The ugghscip1ined.s~eam
ceases its laughing, the waterfall its humming,w the river its singing.
"And thou,'dreamer, may the silence en eter' In to 'the'e'. To listen ne
the water to the dead dreaming is already enough to keep them from
sleeping,
Besides, does happiness itself speak? Does real happiness sing?
When Eleonora was enjoying her time for happiness, the river had
already conquered the gravity of eternal silence:
vI '1' - s

11. Poe, "Silence," in Works,2:220-21.

 68 i C HAPTER T W O

We called it the "River of Silence"; for there seemed to be a hushing

influence in its flow. No murmur arose from its bed, and so gently it
wandered along, that the pearly pebbles upon which we loved to
gaze, far down within its bosom, stirred not at all, but lay in a mo-
tionless content, each in its'own old-stat Iori., shining on gloriousiy
for'ever 'z

It is from this still and silent water that lovers seek models of
passion: "We had drawn the god Eros from that wave, and now we
felt that he had enkindled within us the fiery souls of our forefathers.
... and together breathed a delirious bliss over the Valley of the
Many-Colored Grass."' T h u s , th e Poet's soul is so attached to
water's inspiration that the flames of love must rise up from the water
itself. It is the water that preserves "the fiery souls of our forefathers."
When a pale Eros of the waters "rekindles" two passing souls for an
instant, then th e w at ers for a m o m ent h ave something to say; from
the river's bosom issues: "little by l i t t l e a m u r m u r t h a t s w elled, at
length, into a lulling melody, more divine than that of the harp of
Aeolus — sweeter than all save the voice of Eleonora."
But Eleonora "had seen that the finger of Death was upon her
bosom — that, like the ephemeron, she had been made perfect in love-
liness only to die." Then "ttte tsnts of the green carpet faded. .. the
ruby-red asphodels" gave place to somber violets, then "the golden
and silver fish swam down through the gorge at the lower end of our
domain and bedecked the sweet river never again." Finally, after the
tints and the flowers, the harmonies are lost. Finally, in the realm of
beings and voices there is accomplished that watery destiny so char-
acteristic of Poe's poetry. "The lulling melody. .. died little by little
a way in m u r m u r s g r o w in g l o w e r an d l o w er , u n t i l t h e s t r eam r e -
ed, at length, utterly, int o th e solemnity of its original silence,"
Silent,watgr, somber water, stagnant water, unfathomable water,
/ *
so many material lessons for' a meditation o n death; But it'is not th e
esson taught by a Heraclitean death, by a death which bears us afar

12. Poe, "Eleonora," in Works,4:237-38.

13. Ibid., p. 239. The meadow, the meadow created by the river, in itself is a
theme of sadness for some souls. In the soul's true meadow, only asphodels grow.
Winds find no singing trees there, only the vague silences of uniform greenery. Study-
ing the theme of the meadom, we might ask what demon led Poe "into the meadow of
sorrow once visited by Empedocles."
 DEEP W'ATERS • 69

with the curr ent an d l i k e a c u r r ent . It i s th e les~ o f s t i l l d e a th , a

death in depth t h a t st ays with us, near us, in us,
Qnly ari evening wind is needed for the water that has fallen silent
to speak to us again. ..". Only a moonbeam, soft and pale, for the
phantom to' walk anew over the floods.
The Charon Complex
The Ophelia Complex
Silence and moon. ... Cemetery and
n ature.. . .
JULEs LAFORGUE,Moratites Legendaires

AMATEUR MYTHoLQGERs ARE sometimes use ful. They work in good

faith in that zone where the first rationalizing is done, They therefore
leave unexplained what they "explain," since reason does not explain
dreams. They also classify and fit fables into systems a little hastily.
But this rapidity has its value; it simplifies classification. It also shows
that classification, which is readily accepted, corresponds to real
tendencies active in the mind of the mythologer and of his readers,
Thus it is that the kindly, but wordy, Saintine, author of Picciola and
The Long Way Around, wrote a Mythology of the Rhine which can
furnish us with an elementary lesson for rapidly classifying ideas,
Saintine, now nearly a century ago, understood the primordial im-
portance of the tree cult.' W i t h t r e e w o r ship he associates the wor-
ship of the dead. And Saintine sets forth a law that could be called
the lam of the four lands of Death, a law obviously in keeping with the
law of the imagination for the four elements:
The Celts used strange and diverse means in regard to the disposal
of human remains. In one country, they were burned, and the
native tree furnished the wood for the pyre; in another, the Todten-
baum (tree of death), hollowed out with a h atchet, served as a
casket for its owner. This casket was buried in the ground, unless it
was abandoned to the river's current, which was to carry it heaven
knows where! Finally in certain districts, there existed a practice — a
horrible one — of exposing the body to be devoured by birds of prey;

1. Saintine was a society philosopher. At the end of the first chapter he wrote the
words on which I have often meditated: "Moreover, am I, as a mythologist, forced to
prove anything at all|"
 72 • CH AP T E R T H R E E

and the place of this grim exposure was the summit, the very top of
that same tree which was planted at the deceased's birth and which
this time, unlike the others, was not to fall with him.z
And Saintine adds without giving sufficient proof or examples:
Now, what do we see in these four very different means of restoring
human remains to the four elements, to the air, to the water, to the
earth, and to the fire? Four types of funerals, practiced from time
immemorial and still today in the Indies among the followers of
Brahma, Buddha, and Zoroaster. The Parsees of Bombay, like the
drowning dervishes of the Ganges, are well acquainted with this.
Finally, Saintine reports that
around 1560, Dutch workers, in the act of digging in some deposits
of the Zuyder Zee, encountered at a great depth several tree trunks
miraculously preserved by petrification. Each of these trunks had
been inhabited by a man, of which some traces remained, they too
almost fossilized. Obviously, it w a s t h e R h i ne, t h i s G e rman
Ganges, which had carried them to that place, the one carrying the
other.
From his birth, man was dedicated to the vegetable kingdom; he
had his own personal tree. Death had to have the same protection as
life. Thus, placed once more in the heart of the vegetable, given back
to the living heart of the tree, the corpse was delivered up to the fire;
or else to the earth; or w a ited among the leaves, in the treetops, for
dissolution in the air, helped along by the Night birds, the thousand
phantoms of the Wind. Or finally, more intimately, still stretched out
in its natural coffin — its vegetable double, the living, devouring sar-
cophagus — in the Tree, between two knots, it was given to the water,
set adrift on th e w a ves.

This departure of the dead over the floods gives only one trait of
the interminable reverie of death. It corresponds only to a eisibte
tableau, and it could lead one astray concerning the depth of material
imagination which meditates on death, as if death itself were a
substance or a life in a new substance. Water, the substance of life, is
a lso the substance of death for amb iv alent reverie, In order to in t er-
pret the To d t enbaum, t he d e ath t r e e, a ccurately, we m u st k e ep i n

2. Joseph Xavier Boniface Saintine, La Mythotogiedu Rhin (Paris, 1862), pp. 18 — 19.
 T HE CH A RO N COMPLEX • 73

mind with C . G . Jung, that " t h e t ree is, above all, a m aternal
symbol" s i nce water is also a maternal symbol, a strange image of
the encasing of seeds may be grasped in the image of the Todtenbaum.
By placing the dead person in the interior of a tree and entrusting the
tree to the breast of the waters, one somehow doubles the maternal
powers; the myth of burial is lived doubly, Jung tells us, because we
imagine that "the dead person is given back to his mother to be born
again." Death in w a ter will be, for t his reverie, the most maternal of
deaths, The desire of man, says Jung in another place,
is that the somber waters of death may become the waters of life,
that death and its cold embrace may be the maternal bosom, just as
the sea, which, although it swallows up the sun, gives it new birth
in its depths... . L ife has never been able to believe in Death!

Here one question disturbs me: Was not Death the first Navigator?
Well before the living entrusted themselves to floods, was not the cof-
fin given to the sea and to the torrent> The coffin in this mythological
hypothesis would not be the last bark; it would be the first. Death
would not be the last journey; it would be the first. For some pro-
found dreamers, it will still be the first true trip,
Obviously such a conception of the sea voyage is opposed from the
onset by util it arian explanations. We always imagine primitive man
as being natively ingenious. We always imagine that prehistoric man
solved the problem of his sustenance in an intelligent way. It is widely
a ssumed that u t i l it y i s a n u n m i s t akable concept and t h a t it s v a l u e
was always surely and immediately obvious. Now useful knowledge is
knowledge that has already been rationalized. Conversely, to con-
ceive of a primitive idea as a useful idea is to fall into a rationalization
which is all the more specious since today utility is an integral part of
the framework of a very complete, very homogeneous, very material,
very definitely closed utilitarianism. Man, alas, is not so reasonable as
all that! It is as difficult for him to discover the useful as it is to
discover trut h . . . .
In any case, after dreaming about this problem a little, we shall see
that the usefulness of the sailor is not sufficiently evident to make pre-

3. C. G. Jung, Metamorphoses et symboles dela libido, trans. L. De Vos (Paris,

1927), p. 225.
 74 • CHA P T E R T H R E E

historic man hollow out a canoe. No utility could justify the immense
risk of setting out over the water. For man to run the risks implicit in
navigation, powerful interests have to be present, Now really power-
ful interests are vi sionary i n t e rests. Th ese are th e i n t e rests about
which one dreams; they are not those about which one makes calcu-
lations. These are mythical interests. The hero of the sea is a hero of
death, The first sailor was the first living man who was as courageous
as a dead one,
Therefore, when a people want to commit the living to total death,
to a death with n o t u r n i n g b a ck, they abandon them on th e waters.
Marie Delcourt has discovered under the rationalistic camouflage of
traditional ancient cult ure th e m y t h i cal meaning of maleficent chil-
dren. In many cases they carefully avoid having these children touch
the ground. They might soil it, disturb its fecundity, and thus spread
their "disease," "They carry [them] as quickly as possible to the sea or
to the river,"4 "What could they do with a weak being which they
prefer not to k il l an d w h ic h t h e y do no t w an t t o h av e come in con-
tact with th e ground, if not pu t i t o n t h e w ater in a skiff destined to
sink?" For my part, I would suggest taking the very profound mythi-
cal explanation offered by Marie Delcourt one step further. I would
interpret the birth of a maleficent child as the birth of a being that
does not belong to the normal fecundity of the Earth; he is given
back immediately to his element, to near death, the land of total death
that is the boundless sea or the roaring river, Only water can cleanse
the earth.
This explains why it was that when such children who had been
abandoned to the sea were tossed up living on the coast, "saved from
the waters," they easily became miraculous beings. Having crossed
over the waters, they had crossed over death. They could then create
cities, save peoples, make over the world.'
Death is a journey, and a journey is a death. "To leave is to die a lit-
tle," To die is truly to leave, and no one leaves well, courageously,
cleanly, except by following the current, the flow of the wide river.
4. Marie Delcourt, Sterilites mysterieuseset naissances malefiques dans 1'antiquite
classique(Liege, 1938), p. 65.
5. With every "elsewhere" there is associated an image of a journey. This is not
merely an occidental tradition. We can see an example of it in Chinese tradition,
mentioned in an article by von Erwin Rousselle, "Das Wasser als mythisches Ereignis
chinesischen Lebens," in Die Kulturelle Bedeutungder Komptexen Psychologie (1935).
 T HE CHA RO N COMPLEX • 75

All rivers join the River of the Dead. This is the only mythical death,
the only departure that is an adventure.
If it is true that for the unconscious a dead person is someone who
is absent, then death's navigator is the only dead person about whom
one can dream indefinitely. His memory still seems to have a future.
... Quite different is the dead man who inhabits a cemetery. For him
the grave is still a dwelling that the living come piously to visit. Such
a dead person is not totally absent, and the sensitive soul is well
aware of it. "We are seven," says the little girl in Wordsworth's poem,
Five are alive, the other two are still in the cemetery; near them, with
them, one can sew or spin.
To the dead who died at sea another dream, a special reverie, is at-
tached. In their village they leave widows who are not like others,
"widows with a white forehead" who dream of Oceano Nox. But can
admiration for the hero of the seas not silence their sorrowing? And
behind certain rh etorical 'effects, is there no trace of a sincere dream
in Tristan C o r b i ere's curses?6
Thus a farewell at the water's edge is the most heartrending and, at
the same time, the most literary of all farewells. Its poetry makes use
of an old wellspring of dreams and heroism. It awakens in us, no
doubt, the most painful of echoes. One entire facet of our nocturn al
soul can be explained by the myth of death conceived as a departure
over water. For the dreamer, there is a continuing tr ansposition be-
tween this departure and death. For some dreamers, water is the new
movement that beckons us toward a journey never made. This mate-
r ialized departure t a ke s u s a w a y f r o m t h e e a r t h ' s m a t t er . S u c h
astonishing grandeur is contained in this verse by Baudelaire, whose
sudden image goes to the h eart of ou r m y s t ery: " 0 d e a t h , a n c i ent
c aptain, the time has come! / Let us weigh anchor !" 7

IV
I f we are will ing t o r e store to t h ei r p r i m i t iv e level all th e u n c o n -
scious values that have been grouped around funeral rites by the im-
age of a journey over water, we shall better understand the meaning
of the river of Hades and all the legends concerning the funereal

6. Tristan Corbiere, "La, Fin," in Les Amours jaunes(Paris, 1926), pp. 283 — 85.
7. Charles Baudelaire, "La Mort VIII," in Les Fteurs du Mal (New York, 1926),
p. 400.
 76 i C HAPTER T H R E E

crossing. Customs based on reason may well entrust the dead to the
tomb or to th e p y re; the un conscious that bears the stamp of water
will still dream beyond the grave, beyond the pyre, of a departure
over the floods. Having passed through earth or fire, the soul arrives
at the water's edge. Profound i m a gination — material imagination-
wants urater t o have its part in d e a t h; w a ter is needed for death to
keep its meaning of a journey. From this, we may gather that for such
infinite dreams, all souls, whatever the n a t ure of t h eir f u n erals be,
must board Charon's boat.It would be a curious image if one had to
contemplate it with the clear eyes of reason but a most familiar image
if, on the contrary, one knows how to consult dreams. Many are the
poets who in sleep have lived this navigation of death:
I have beheld
The path of the departure. Sleep and death
Shall not divide us long!

hark!
the ghostly torrent mingles its far roar
With the breeze murmuring in the musical woods.
In reliving Shelley's dream, we shall understand how the path of
departure has become, little by li t t l e, a ghostly torrent.
Moreover, how could funereal poetry still be attached to images so
far removed from our civilization if they were not upheld by uncon-
scious values? The persistence of a poetic and dramatic attraction to
such an image, in rational terms so false and exhausted, can serve to
show us that natural dreams and learned traditions come together in
a culture complex. With this in mind, we can put forward a Charon
complex. The Charon complex is not very forceful; the image has
faded a great deal by now. To many educated minds, it has suffered
t he fate of all too m any r eferences to a dead literature. It is noth i n g
more than a symbol. But its weakness and its lack of color are, all in
a ll, advantages, for they m ak e us feel that c u l t ur e and n a t ur e can ,
after all, coincide,
F irst, we m a y s e e th e f o r m a t io n i n n a t u r e — that is, i n n a t u r a l
legends — of images of Charon that have certainly had no contact
with the classical image. Such is the case with the legend concerning
8. Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Alastor," in The Complete Poetical Works foPercy Bysshe
Shelley,ed. George E. Woodberry (Boston, 1901), pp. 38 — 39.
 T HE CH A RO N COMPLEX • 77

the ship of the dead, a legend in a thousand forms endlessly renewed

in folklore. Paul Sebillot gives this example;
The legend of the boat of the dead was one of the first to be for-
mulated on our shores; it no doubt existed here well before the
Roman conquest, and in the sixth century, Procopius reported it in
these terms: The fishermen and other inhabitants of Gaul who are
across from the island of Britannia are entrusted with passing souls
over to it and are thus exempt from paying tribute. In the middle of
the night, they hear a knocking at their door; they get up and find
strange boats along the shore in which they can see no one but
which, nevertheless, seem so loaded down that they are about to
sink and their gunwales scarcely a thumb's width above the water.
An hour suffices for the crossing, although with their own boats
they have difficulty making it in a whole night.9

Emile Souvestre took up this account again in 1836, proof that

such a legend seeks repeated literary expression. It interestsus. It is a
fundamental theme, a thousand variations of which are possible.
Under cover of th e m ost d i v erse, the most unexpected images, this
theme is guaranteed stability because it possesses the strongest of uni-
fying forces: oneiric unity. Thus in the ancient Breton legends, phan-
tom ships constantly glide by, hell-ships like the Flying Dutchman, It
is also common to have ships that have been wrecked "come back,"
proof that the boat is somehow at one with the souls aboard it. Here,
b y the w ay , i s a n a n n e xed i m age that s h ows its p r o found o n e i r i c
origin sufficiently well: "These boats have grown so that at the end of
a few years a small coastal vessel is the size of a large schooner." This
strange grovrth is well known in dreams. It is often found in dreams
about water; in certain dreams, water nourishes all that it saturates.
It is comparable to the fantastic images lavished on every page of
Poe's tale "MS F o u n d i n a B o t t l e" : "I t is as sure . . . a s t h ere is a sea
where the ship itself will grow in bulk like the living body of the
seaman."' T h i s sea is the sea of oneiric water. An d i t h a p pens that,
in Poe's tale, it is also the sea of funeral water, of "foamless water," In
fact the strange boat, expanded by the years, is guided by old men
who lived in very ancient times. When this tale, one of his most

9. Paul Sebillot, Le Folklore de France(Paris, 1904 — 1907), 2:1$8.

10. Edgar Allan Poe, "MS Found in a Bottle," in The Complete Works foEdgar
Allan Poe, ed. James A. Harrison (New York, 1902), 2:11.
 78 • CH A P T E R T H R E E

beautiful, is reread, an endosmosis of the poetry and legends is experi-

enced. It comes out of a most profound dream: "There will occa-
sionally flash across my mind a sensation of familiar things, and there
is always mixed up w it h such i n d i stinct shadows of recollection, an
unaccountable memory of old foreign chronicles and ages long ago."
In our sleep, it is the legends that dream. . . ,

There also exist legends in which temporary Charons live, par-

ticularly those Charons in spite of themselves who seek a substitute.
P opular wisdom advises navigators not to b o ard an u n k n ow n b o a t .
We must not be afraid to discover a tonality in t his prudence by giv-
i ng it m y t h i c a l m e a n i ng . I n c o n c l u sion, al l t h e m y s t erious b o at s
found so abundantly in novels about the sea participate in the ship of
the dead. The reader may be fairly certain that the novelist who uses
them has a more or less hidden Charon complex.
In particular the function of a simple ferryman, once placed in a
literary work, is almost inevitably affected by Charon symbolism.
Even though he may cross but a small river, he bears the symbol of
the beyond. The ferryman is the guardian of a mystery;

Visions are seen by his old eyes

Of a lighted distant place
From which under frosty skies
Ever came a woeful voice."

" Add to i t , " s ays Em ile Souvestre, "the cr imes committed at t h e

j unctions o f w a t e r s , t h e r omantic l o v e a f f a i rs, t h e m i r a c u l o u s
meetings with saints, fairies or demons, and it is easy to understand
how the legend of ferrymen. . . formed one of t h e m o s t d r a m a t i c
chapters of that great poem that is constantly being embellished by
popular imagination,""
The Far East, like Brittany, knows of Charon's bark, Paul Claudel
translates this moving poetry about the Feast of the Dead. When the
seventh month in Chinese life returns, "The flute guides the souls,
the sound of the gong brings them together like bees. ... All along
the riverbank, the barks, all ready for their journey, await the coming
of the night.""

11. Emile Verhaeren, "Le Passeur d'Eau," in Les Villages Illusoires,in Oeuvres(Paris,
1924), 2:218.
12. Emile Souvestre, "Le passeur de la Vilaine," in Sous les filets(Paris, 1857), p. 2.
13. Paul Claudel, Connaissance de l'Est(Paris, 1945), p. 35 ff.
 T HE CHA RO N COMPLEX • 79

The bark sets out and swings around, leaving in its wide wake a
string of lights; someone is setting out little lamps. Precarious lights,
on the vast stretch of opaque waters, they wink a moment and die.
While an arm seizes the golden scrap, the bundle of fire that dies
down then flames in the midst of the smoke, touches the waters'
tomb with it: the deceiving bursts of light, like fish, charm the cold
drowned men.

Thus, the feast mimics both the life that is extinguished and the life
that departs. Water is the tomb of f ir e and of m en . In th e d i stance,
when it seems that N i gh t an d th e Sea together have completed the
symbolism of death, the dreamer will hear "the sound of the sepul-
chral sistrum, the clamor of the iron d r um , struck a terrible blow in
the dense shade."
Everything about death that is heavy and slow has also been
marked by the figure of Charon. The barks loaded with souls are
always on the point of sinking. It is an astonishing image, in which
Death is afraid of dying, in which the drowned man is still afraid of
shipwreck, Death is a journey which never ends, an infinite perspec-
tive filled with dangers, If the weight overloading the boat is so great,
it is because the souls are heavy with sin. Charon's bark always goes
to Hades. There is no pilot for the blessed.
Charon's bark is, thus, a symbol that will remain attached to man's
indestructible misfortune. It will pass through ages of suffering. As
Saintine has said;
Charon's bark was still being used when he himself had disap-
peared in the face of the first fervor (of Christianity). Patience! He
will return. Wherel Everywhere. ... During the earliest years of the
Church in Gaul, on the tombstone of Dagobert at the abbey of St.
Denis, this king, or r a ther his soul, was depicted crossing the
Cocytus in the traditional bark; at the end of the thirteenth cen-
tury, Dante, with his great authority, had reestablished the ancient
Charon as the ferryman of his Inferno. After him, also in Italy and,
better yet, in the Catholic city par excellence, working under the
very eyes of a Pope, Michelangelo painted Charon in his fresco of
the Last Judgment along with God, Christ, the Virgin, and the
saints.

And Saintine concludes: "Without Charon, hell is impossible."

In our rustic regions of Champagne, so little given to dreaming,
t here are, n e v ertheless, traces of t h e a n c i en t f e r r y m an , C e r t a i n
 80 • C HAPT E R T H R E E

villages still contribute their mite to him outside of the church. On

the eve of funerals, a relative of the deceased goes around to all the
families to pay "the penny of the dead."
In short, the common man, the poet, and a painter like Delacroix
all rediscover in their dreams the image of a guide who is to "lead us
into death." The living myth under the mythopoeism is a very simple
one associated with a very clear image. That is why it is so enduring.
When a poet takes up the image of Charon, he thinks of death as a
journey. He relives the most primitive type of funeral.

V
Water in d e ath h a s so far appeared to us as an ac cepted element,
Now, I am go ing to g r oup t o gether those images in which w a ter in
death appears as a desired element,
In fact, th e s u m m on s o f t h e m a t e r ial el ements is sometimes so
s trong tha t i t c a n h e l p u s t o d e t e r m in e c e rt ain d i s t i nct t y p e s o f
s uicide. It then seems as though m a tter h elps to d etermine h u m a n
destiny. Madame Bonaparte has ably demonstrated the double fatal-
i ty of tragedy or, to put it better, she has shown the bonds that unit e
the tragic in life and the tragic in literature: "The type of death
chosen by men, whether it be suicide for themselves in reality or for
their heroes in fiction, is never the result of chance but in each case is
rigidly fixed psychically." A paradox that I should like to elaborate
on arises from this subject,
In some respects it may be said that psychological determinism is
stronger in fiction than in reality, for in reality the meansfor the phan-
tasm may be lacking. In fiction, ends and means are at the disposal of
the novelist, That is why cr i mes and suicides are more numerous in
novels than in life. Drama and, especially, its performance, what
might be called its literary discursiveness, affect the novelist deeply.
Whether he wants to or not, the novelist reveals the depths of his be-
ing to us, though only under cover, literally, of his fictional charac-
ters. It will be vain for him to u se "a reality" as a screen. It is he who
projects this reality; it is he, above all, who unifies it. In real life one
c annot say everything; life skips some links and hides its continuit y .
I n a novel only w hat is said exists; the novel displays its continuit y ,
its deterministic forces. A n o vel is energetic only if th e aut h o r's im-
agination is strongly induced, only if it can discover the powerful
 T HE CHA RO N COMPLEX 81

determining forces of h u ma n n a t u re , Si nce these forces come ever

faster and in gr eater nu m b ers in d r a ma, it i s t h r o ugh th e d r am atic
element that th e au t hor r eveals himself most deeply.
The problem of suicidein literature is a decisive one for the judg-
m ent of d r a m a t i c v a l u es, D e spite ou r l i t e r ar y s t r a t agems, crim e
displays its inner workings poorly, It is too obviously a result of exter-
nal circumstances. It breaks out like an event not always in character
with the killer, Suicide in literature, on the other hand, is planned
like a lon g i n n e r d e stiny. O f l i t e r ar y d e aths it i s t h e m o s t p r e ar -
ranged, the best prepared, and the m ost complete. With a l i t tl e en-
couragement the novelist would have the entire Un i v erse participate
in the suicide of his hero. Literary suicide, then, is especially suited
for giving us the imagination of death. It gives order to death images.
In the realm of the imagination, the four lands of death have their
supporters and their aspirants. But let us concern ourselves only with
the tragic summons of the waters.
Water, the land of living nymphs, is also the land of dead nymphs.
It is the true matter for a very feminine death. From the first scene be-
tween Hamlet and Ophelia — thus following the rules of the literary
preparation for su i cide — Hamlet comes out of h i s p r o f ound r everie
and murmurs as if he were a prophet who foresaw her destiny:
Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.
From that moment on, Ophelia is destined to die for the sins of
others and to die in the river, quietly, with out fanfare, Her short life
in itself is the life of a dead woman. Is this life without joy anything
but a vain waiting, a poor echo of H a m l et's monologue> Let us then
look immediately at Ophelia in her river.
Queen. There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;
There with fantastic garlands did she come
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them

14. "Patte-de-loup" is the name of the common lycope. Other translators give the
literal translation of the English "dead men's fingers" in which the phallic symbolism
is rather clear.
 82 • C HA PT E R T H R E E

There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds

Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;
And, mermaid-like awhile they bore her up:
Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element: but long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.
Laertes. Alas, then, she is drown'd?
Queen. Drown'd, drown'd.
Laertes. Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,
And therefore I forbid my tears: but yet
It is our trick; nature her custom holds,
Let shame say what it will: When these are gone
T he woman will be out. . . .

It seems to m e f u t il e t o c o n s ider accident, m adness, and suicide

separately in t hi s fi ctional death. M oreover, psychoanalysis has
taught us to give accidents their psychological significance, He who
plays with fire burns himself, wants to burn himself and others. He
w ho plays with perfidious water drowns and wants to drown. On t h e
other hand, madmen in literature still have enough reason — enough
causality — to be associated with the dr ama and to follow its law. On
the fringe of action, they respect unity of action. O p h elia, then, can
be our symbol of feminine suicide. She is truly a creature born to die
in water; she rediscovers there, as Shakespeare says, the element to
which she is "native and indued," Water is the element of young and
beautiful death, of flowery death, and in the dramas both of life and
literature, the element of a death with n e ither pride nor vengeance-
of masochistic suicide. Water is the profound organic symbol of
woman who can only weep about her pain and whose eyes are easily
"drowned in tears." A man confronted by a woman who has commit-
ted suicide understands this dismal pain with all that is feminine in
him, as does Laertes. He becomes a man again by becoming "dry"
when the tears have ceased.
Is it necessary to stress that images as rich in detail as the image of
 T HE CH A RO N COMPLEX • 83

Ophelia in her river have, for all that, no realism at all? Shakespeare
need not have observed a real drowned woman as she was going
down the stream. Such realism, far from evoking images, would
rather block the poetic flight. If the reader who has perhaps never
seen such a spectacle can nevertheless recognize it and be moved, it is
b ecause this spectacle belongs to p r i m i t i ve, i m aginary n a t u re. It i s
water dreamed in its everyday life, the water of a pond "opheliaized"
on its own, that is covered naturally with sleeping beings who aban-
don themselves and float, beings who die quietly. Then in death the
s till floating victims of drowning seem to continue dreaming. In "T h e
Drunken Boat" Arthur Rimbaud has rediscovered this image:
Pale flotsam
And, ravished, a pensive drowned man, sometimes
descends....

VI
In vain Ophelia's remains are buried in the earth. She is truly, as
Mallarme says, "an Ophelia who is never drowned. .. a jewel intact
despite disaster." For centuries, she will appear to d r eamers and to
poets floating on her b r oo k w i t h h e r fl o w ers and her t r esses spread
out on the water, She will provide the pretext for one of the clearest
of poetic synecdoches. She will be floating tresses, tresses loosened by
the floods. In o r der t h o r o u g hly t o u n d e r stand th e r ol e of c r eative
detail in reverie, let us for the moment retain no t h ing but th e image
of floating tresses, We shall see that it brings to life by itself a whole
symbol of the psychology of the waters, that it almost suffices in itself
to explain the whole Ophelia complex,
Innumerable are the legends where the Ladies of fountains end-
lessly comb their long blond hair. They often leave their comb of gold
or ivory on the bank. "The sirens of the Gers have long hair, as fine
as silk and they comb their hair with golden combs." "On the banks
of the Grande-Briere can be seen a woman with dishevelled hair,
clothed in a l o n g w h it e d ress, who drowned there long ago."
Everything becomes elongated in the current, the dress and the hair;
the current seems to smooth and comb the hair. On th e rocks in the
ford, the river plays like living tresses.
Sometimes the u n d i n e's hair i s t h e i n s t r u m ent o f h e r m i s d eeds,
B erenger-Feraud records a story from L o w er L u satia where the un -
 8'f i C HAPTER T H R E E

dine on the parapet of a bridge was "busy combing her magnificent

h air. Woe t o t h e r a s h m a n w h o g o t t o o c l o se to h er , fo r h e w a s
e nveloped in her h air an d t h r o w n i n t o t h e w a t er ." "
The most uninspired stories take care not to lqave out this image-
creating detail, When in a tale by Madame Robert, Tamarine, over-
come with cares and regrets, leaps into th e sea, she is straightaway
seized by the undines, who quickly dress her "in a gauze dress of sea-
green shining with silver"' and who loosen her hair so that it "falls
in waves on her breast." In order for the human being himself to float
o n the waters, everything wi t hi n h i m m u s t fl o a t .
As always in the realm of the imagination, the inversion of the im-
a ge proves i t s i m p o r t a n ce ; i t p r o v e s i t s c o m p l e t eness an d i t s
naturalness, It suffices for hair which has been loosened to fall — to
flow — onto bare shoulders for the whole symbol of water to be re-
awakened. In the admirable poem "For Annie," in itself so slow and
so simple, one reads this stanza:
And so it lies happily,
Bathing in many
A dream of the truth
And the beauty of Annie-
Drowned in a bath
Of the tresses of Annie.
The same inversion of an Ophelia complex is felt in d'Annunzio's
novel Maybe Yes, Maybe No. A s ervant is combing the hair of
I sabella, who is seated in f r on t o f h e r m i r r o r . Le t m e p o in t o u t , i n
passing, the infantilism of a scene where a lover, though fiery and
strong-willed, has her hair combed by strange hands, Furthermore,
this infantilism encourages a complexual reverie. "Her hair glided,
glided like slow water, and with it a t h ousand things in her life,
shapeless, dark, unstable things between recall and oblivion, And
suddenly above this flux.. . .'~' Through what mystery is hair combed
by a servant girl able to evoke the brook, the past, and consciousness>
Why did I do that?Why did I do that? And while she looked within
herself for the answer, everything lost its form, dissolved, and
became fluid again. The repeated passage of the comb through her

15. L. J. B. Berenger-Feraud, Superstitions et survivances(Paris, 1896), 2:29.

16. Madame Robert, "Les Ondins," in Voyages imaginaires(Amsterdam, 1788),
34:214.
 T HE CH A RO N COMPLEX • 85

mass of hair was like an incantation which had always been and
would continue forever. Her face, in the depths of the mirror, drew
away, deprived of its contours, then drew nearer, coming back from
the bottom and was no longer her face.
We see it all; the brook is there in its entirety with its endless fleeing,
its depth, its ever changing mir r or , creator of changes. It is there in
her hair, in any hair, When someone has meditated on such images,
h e understands t ha t t h e p s y c h o l ogy o f i m a g i n ation c a n no t e v e n
begin until these true, natural images have been examined in detail,
It is from their natural seed nourished by the strength of the material
elements, that images multiply and c luster. Elemental images pro-
liferate; they become unrecognizable. They reach that point because
they want to be different. But a complex is so symptomatic a psycho-
l ogical phenomenon that a single feature is enough to reveal it in i t s
entirety. The only power of a general image, which exists only
through one of its particular features, is in itself sufficient to show the
limitations of a psychology of the imagination entirely absorbed in
the study of forms. Many psychologies of the imagination, due to the
exclusive attention they give to the problem of form, are condemned
to be only psychologies of concept or structure, They are scarcely
more than psychologies of the image-filled concept. In the end, the
literary imagination, which can develop only in the realm of the im-
age of an image and must translate forms, is more suitable for the
study of our n eed to i m a gine than th e p i ctorial imagination.
Let us now pursue the dynamic nature of imagination, to w h ich I
hope to devote a later study. In th e t h eme that we are developing it
seems clear that it is not th e form of th e h air t hat m akes us think of
running water, but its movement. The hair can belong to an angel in
heaven; if it is flo~ing, it leads naturally to its aquatic image. This is
what happens with the angels in Seraphita: "From their tresses came
waves of light, and their movements stirred up rippling tremors like
the waves of a phosphorescent sea."' W e s ense, moreover, how bar-
ren these lines would seem if water metaphors were not p o werfully
valorized ones.
Thus, living tresses, glorified by a poet, must suggest movement, a
wave which passes, a wave which trembles. "Permanent waves," that

17. Honore de Balzac, Seraphita, in Oeuvres completes,ed. Marcel Bouteron and

Henri Longnon (Paris, 1940), 31:335.
 86 • CH A P T E R T H R E E

cap of uniform ringlets, by immobilizing natural undulations, block

reveries that they should elicit.
At the edge of the waters, everything is tresses: "All moving foliage
drawn by the freshness of the waters lets its tresses hang down over
t hem." A n d B a l z a c p r a ises this h u m i d a t m o s phere w h ere n a t u r e
" puts p e r f um e o n h e r gr e e n i s h t r e sses i n p r e p a r atio n f o r h e r
marriage."
S ometimes it seems that t o o p h i l o sophical a r e v erie d i v erts t h e
complex. Thus, a straw carried off'by the brook is the eternal symbol
of the insignificance of our destiny. But let there be a little less seren-
ity in ou r m e d i t a t i on , a l i t t l e m or e sadness in the dr eamer's heart,
and the whole phantom will reappear, The grasses held back by the
reeds, are they not the hair of a dead woman? Lelia in her pensive
sadness contemplates them and murm urs: "We shall not even remain
afloat like those dried grasses which are floating there, sad and droop-
ing like the tresses of a woman who has drowned."' We thus see how
Ophelia's image forms at the slightest provocation, It is a fundamen-
tal image in reverie about waters.
In vain will Jules Laforgue play the part of a desensitized Hamlet:
"Ophelia, that's not life! Another Ophelia in my potion!"
Ophelia, Ophelia
Your beautiful body on the pond
Is floating sticks
To my old madness.
N o one with out r i sk, as he says, has "eaten of the fruit of th e u n -
c onscious." Ham let r em ains, for L a f o rgue, the strange person wh o
has "made rings in the water, in th e w ater, one might as well say in
the sky." The synthetic image of water, woman, and death cannot be
broken up.' 9
The hint of irony visible in Jules Laforgue's images is not unusual.
Guy de Pourtales, in The Life of Franz Liszt, mentions that "the image
of Ophelia described in f i f t y-eight measuresc rosses the m i n d
'ironically.'" (The artist himself wrote this word as a heading for the
allegro.) We get the same impression, stressed a trifle crudely, in The
Laundress of My First Sorrours,a tale by Saint-Pol-Roux,
18. George Sand, Lelia (Paris, 1917), 1:122
19. Jules Laforgue, Moralites legendaires,in Oeuvres completes de Jules Laforgue
(Paris, 1902-1905), 2:29, 24, 55, 19.
 T HE CHA RO N COMPLEX • 87

One day my soul threw itself into the river of the Ophelias
Now this happened in very naive times

The corn-yellow hair on her brow floats for a little while

l ike a bookmark until the two pages of water close... .

Into my strange coma slid the breasts of swans.

Oh the fools who drown themselves in the river of the

Ophelias!'

The image of Ophelia withstands even the macabre element, which

g reat poets alone can o b l i t erate, Despite thi s element, Paul F o r t ' s
ballad returns to gentleness: "And the white body of the drowned
will rise up tomorrow pink in the gentle lapping of the morning.
There will drift back the sound of silvery bells, What a kind sea. . . . ' " '

Water makes death more human and mingles clear sounds in with
the dullest of groans.
Sometimes an enhanced gentleness and more artful shadows tem-
per to extremes the realism of death. But one water word, just one, is
enough to reveal the profound image of Ophelia. Thus the princess
Maleine in the solitude of her room, haunted by a premonition of her
d estiny, murm urs: "O h h o w t h e y cry o ut , t h ese reeds in my ro o m ! "

VII
Like all great poeticizing complexes, the Ophelia complex can rise
to the cosmic level, There it symbolizes the union of the Moon andthe
floods. A huge, floating reflection seems to provide the image of an en-
tire world t hat f ades and dies. Thus it h a ppens that Joachim
Gasquet's Narcissus, one foggy, melancholy night, gathers stars from
the cleared sky across the shadow of the waters. He gives us the fu-
sion of two im age-principles that rise together to the cosmic level, a
cosmic Narcissus uniting with a cosmic Ophelia, decisive proof of the
irresistible upward surge of the imagination.
The Moon spoke to me. I paled thinking of the tenderness of its
words "Give me your bouquet (the bouquet picked in the pale sky),

20. Saint-Pol-Roux, "Les Reposoirs de la procession III," in Les Feeries interieures

(Paris, 1907), p. 67, 73, 7'l, 77.
21. Paul Fort, Ermitage(July 1897), p. 14.
 88 • C HA PT E R T H R E E

she said to me like a woman in love." And, like Ophelia, I saw her,
all pale in her flowing purple dress. Her eyes, the color of feverish
and delicate flowers, wavered. I held out my sheaf of stars to her.
Then a supernatural perfume emanated from her. A cloud was spy-
ing on us.. . Z2
.

Nothing is missing from this scene of love between the sky and the
water, n t e ve n a spy.
e moon, the night, and th e stars then cast their reflections like
so many flowers onto the river. When we contemplate it in the flood,
the starry world seems to drift aw ay. Th e glimmers that pass by on
the surface of the waters are like inconsolable beings; light itself is be-
ing betrayed, misunderstood, forgotten, In the shade
it had broken its splendor. Its heavy dress fell. Oh! the sad skeletal
Ophelia. She sank deep in the river. As the stars departed, she
went away with the flow of the stream. I wept and stretched out my
arms to her. She rose a little, her fleshless head thrown back, for
her sad locks were streaming down, and with a voice which still
hurts me, she whispered, " Thou knowest who I am . I a m t h y
reason, thy reason, am I not, and I am going away, going away.
..." For a second I saw, again above the water, her feet, as pure, as
incorporeal as those of Springtime. ... They disappeared; a strange
calm flowed through my blood. . . .

T here we see the int i m ate play of a r e verie that m a r r ies the M o o n
and the flood and follows their story the whole length of the current.
Such a reverie reatiges,in the full sense of the word, the melancholy of
n ight and th e r i v er. It h u m a n i zes reflections and shadows, It kn o w s
their drama and pain. T hi s reverie participates in the struggle of the
m oon and th e cl ouds. It gives them th e w ill t o s t r uggle, attributin g
this will to all phantasms, to all images that move and change. And
w hen rest c o mes, when h e a v enly b e i ngs accept th e s i m p lest an d
slightest movements of t h e r i v er , t h i s e n o r m ou s r everie takes th e
floating moon for th e slain body of a betrayed woman; it sees in the
offended moon a -Shakespearean Ophelia.
Is it necessary to stress once more that the features of such an image
are in no way of realistic origin? They are produced by a projection of
the dreamer, A st r ong poetic background is necessary for seeing the
image of Ophelia in the Moon reflected in the water,

22. Joachim Gasquet, Narcisse,6th ed. (Paris, 1931), p. 99.

 T HE CH A RO N COMPLEX • 89

Of course, Joachim Gasquet's vision is not unusual. Traces of it can

be found in poets of the most diverse characters. Let us note, for ex-
ample, this lunar aspect of Jules Laforgue's Ophelia:
He props his elbows on the window sill for a moment and gazes out
at the beautiful golden full moon that looks at itself in the calm sea
and there makes a broken column of black velvet and liquid gold
which twists back and forth, a magic thing with no purpose.
These reflections on melancholy water. .. The holy and damned
Ophelia thus floated all night. . . . "

In the same way, we could interpret Georges Rodenbach's Bruges

the Dead as the Opheliazation of an entire city, Without ever seeing a
d ead woman floating in a c a n al, th e n o velist is seized by th e
Shakespearean image.
In the evening and autumnal solitude when the wind swept away
the last leaves, he felt more than ever a desire to have done with
life, an impatience for the grave. It seemed that a shadow stretched
out from the towers over his soul; that a word of counsel came to
him from the old walls; that a whispering voice rose up from the
water — the water coming to meet him, as it came to meet Ophelia,
the way Shakespeare's grave-digger told it."

It is impossible, I believe, to bring together in th e same theme im-

ages that are more diverse. Since we must recognize that they h av e
unity, since the name of Ophelia comes repeatedly to the lips under
t he most varied of c i r cumstances, we conclude that t hi s u n i ty , h e r
name, is the symbol for a great law of the imagination. The imagina-
tion of misfortune and death fi nds in th e m a t ter of water a particu-
larly powerful and natural material image.
Thus for certain souls water tr ul y h o ld s death in it s substance, It
c ommunicates a reverie wh ere h o r ro r i s slow an d t r a n q u il . I n t h e
third Duino elegy, Rilke, it seems, lived the smiling horror of the
waters, the horror w h ic h s m i les with th e t e n der smile of a weeping
mother. Death i n c a l m w a t e r h a s m a t ernal features, The peaceful
horror is "dissolved in water which lightens the living seed."z~ Here,
water mixes its ambivalent images of birth and death. It is a substance
full of reminiscences and prescient reveries.

23. Georges Rodenbach, Bruges-la-Morte (Paris, 1904), pp. 20 — 23.

24. Rainer Maria Rilke, "Third Elegy," in Duino Elegies,trans. J. B. Leishman and
Stephen Spender (New York, 1939), p. 39.
 90 • C HAPT E R T H R E E

When a reverie or dream is thus absorbed into a substance, the en-

t ire being receives a strange permanence from it . T h e d r e a m f a l l s
asleep, becomes stabilized. It t e n ds to p a r t i c i pate in t h e s l ow a n d
monotonous life of an element. Now that its element has been found,
all its images will be based on it. It becomes material, It becomes
"cosmic," A l b ert B eguin has recalled that the t rue oneiric synthesis
for Carus is a deep synthesis in which psychic being is incorporated
into a cosmic reality.' F o r c e r t ain d r eamers, water is the universeof
death. Opheliazation, then, is substantial; water is nocturnal. Near it
e verything l eans t o w ar d d e a th . W a t e r c o m m u n i c ates with al l t h e
powers of night and death. Thus for Paracelsus the moon impreg-
nates the substance of th e w a t e r w i t h a n o x i o u s i nfluence.Water
which has been exposed to lunar rays for a long time remains poi-
s oned wat er. ' T h e s e material images, so strong i n P a r a c elsian
thought, still live in p o etic reverie today. "Th e M o o n g i ves to those
w hom it in fl u e n ces a taste for w ater from th e S t y x , ' " says Victor-
Emile Michelet. No on e ever recovers from having dreamed next to
dormant water. . . .

VIII
If all the interminable reveries of fateful destiny, death, and suicide
are so strongly attached to water, then we should not be surprised to
find that for so many people water is the melancholy element par ex-
cetlence. Better yet, to borrow an expression from Huysmans, water is
the metanchotizing element. Melancholizing water is the dominant fac-
tor in entire works, like those of Rodenbach and Poe. Edgar Allan
Poe's melancholy does not stem &om lost happiness, from an ardent
passion that life has destroyed. It is actually dissolved unhappiness,His
melancholy is truly substantial. "My soul," he says somewhere, "my
s oul was a stagnant tide." L am art ine also found out t h at , d u r in g it s
storms, water is a sufferingelement. Living on the e dge of Lake
Geneva, he wrote, wh ile th e w aves were tossing their spray against
h is window : " I h a v e n e ver s t u d ied th e m u r m u r s , th e m o a ns, t h e
a ngers, the t o r t u r es, th e g r o an s an d t h e u n d u l a t i on s of w a te r s o

25. Albert Beguin, L'Ame romantique etle reve, new ed. (Paris, 1939), p. 56.
26. Heinrich Bruno Schindler, Das magische Geistesleben(1957), p. 57.
27. Victor-Emile Michelet, "Charles Baudelaire," in Figures d'evocateurs(Paris,
1913), p. 41.
 T HE CH A RO N COMPLEX • 91

much as during these nights and days spent thus, all alone, in the
m onotonous society of a lake. I could h ave written the poem of t h e
w aters with ou t o m i t t i n g t h e s l i g h t est n o t e . " This poem, I feel,
would have been an elegy. Elsewhere Lamartine also wrote: "Water is
the sad element. Superflumina Babylonis sedimus etflevimus. Why? It is
because water weeps with everyone." W hen th e h eart is sad, all th e
w ater in the wo rld t u rn s int o t ears: "I dipped my silver cup into t h e
bubbling spring; it was filled with tears.'"
No doubt the image of tears will come to mind a thousand times to
explain the sadness of waters, But this parallel is insufficient; I want
t o conclude b y s t r essing th e u n d e r l y in g r e asons for m a r k in g t h e
substance of water with th e sign of its particular form of misfortune.
Death is in it. Up un til n ow, I have for the most part mentioned im-
ages concerning th e j o u r n e y i n t o d e a t h . W a t e r c a r r ies t h i ngs far
away, water passes like the days, But another reverie takes hold of us
to teach us the loss of our being in to tal dissolution. Each of the ele-
m ents has it s ow n t y p e o f d i s s olution , e a rt h i n t o d u s t , f i r e i n t o
s moke. Water d i ssolves more co m pletely. It h e l p s u s t o d i e c o m -
pletely, Such, for example, is Faust's desire in the final scene of
Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus: "0 soul, be chang'd into little
water-drops,/And fall into the Ocean — ne'er be found,"
At certain times, this impression of dissolution penetrates the most
stable, the most optimistic of souls. Thus Claudel has lived through
those hours when "the sky is no longer anything but the mist and the
s pace of wat e r . . . ' " wh en " e v e r y t h i n g i s d i s solved" so t h a t o n e
would look about in vain for "an outline or a form," "Nothing to
mark the horizon but th e cessation of the darkest color. The matter
of which everything is composed is united in a single water, similar to
that of which these tears, which I feel running down my cheek, are
composed." Let anyone live the sequence of these images exactly and
h e will h a v e a n e x a m pl e o f t h e i r p r o g r essive concentration a n d
materialization.
The first to be dissolved is a landscape in the rain; lines and forms
melt away. But l i t t l e b y l i t t l e th e w h o l e w o rl d i s b r o u ght t o gether

28. Alphonse de Lamartine, Les Confidences(Paris, 1897), p. 307.

29. Edgar Quinet, "Seconde Journee," Ahasverus,in Oemres complete d'Edgar
Quinet (Paris, 1891 — 1933), 11:127.
30. Claudel, Connaissance,p. 96, 257-58.
 92 • C HA PT E R T H R E E

a gain in i t s w a t er . A s i n g l em a t t e r h a s t a k e n o v e r e v e r y t h i n g .
"Everything is dissolved."
We shall be able to judge what philosophic depth a poet who ac-
cepts the total lesson of reverie can attain if we relive that admirable
image by Paul Eluard: "I was like a boat sinking in enclosed water/
Like a dead man, I had but one element,"
Closed-in water t a kes death i n t o i t s b o s om. W a ter m a kes death
elemental. Water dies with the dead in its substance. Water is then a
s ubstantial nothingness. No one can go further int o despair than t h i s .
For certain souls, urater is the matter of despair.
Water in Combination with O t her Elements
Apply not only the eye to truth, but all
that is in you, without reservation.
PAUL CLAUDEL, Connaissance de t'Est

EvEN IF IT favors one element, material imagination, the imagination

of the four elements, likes to play with images of them in combina-
t ion. It w a nt s it s favorite element to s at ur ate everything, to be t h e
substance of a whole world. But despite this fundamental unity,
material imagination w a nts to m a i n t ain th e v a r iety of th e u n i v erse.
The not io n o f c o m b i n a t i on s serves thi s end . F o r ma l i m a g i n ation
needs the idea of composition. Material imagination needs the idea of
combination.
Now water is the most favorable element for illustrating themes in-
volving the combination of powers. It assimilates so many substances,
draws so many essences to itselfl It r eceives contrary matters, sugar
and salt, with equal facility. It becomes permeated with all colors, all
tastes, and all odors. Thus, it is understandable that the phenome-
non of the dissolution of solids in water should be one of the prin-
cipal phenomena of that n a ive chemistry that still exists as common
sense chemistry and, with a little dream added, is the chemistry of
poets.
Therefore, the spectator who loves to contemplate the combination
of diverse substances is always amazed when he meets liquids that do
not mix with each other. This is because for materializing reverie all
liquids are water, all that flows is water — water is the only liquid ele-
ment, Liquidity is the elementary characteristic of water. Even a pru-
dent chemist like M a l o u in , as late as the eighteenth century, states:
"Water is the most perfect liquid, it is the one from which all other
solutions get their fluidity."' A n a f firmation without proof, which
shows that prescientific reverie follows the bent of natural reverie, of

1. -Paul Jacques Malouin, Ckimie Medicinale (Paris, 1750), 1:60.

 90 CH A PT E R F O U R

childlike reverie. How, for example, could a child fail to admire the
miracle of an oil lamp. Oil floats! Oil which is, after all, thick! And
then doesn't it help water to burn> All sorts of mysteries gather about
an astonishing th i ng, and r everie stretches out in every direction as
soon as it takes wing.
In the same way , "the phial of the four elements" in elementary
physics is handled like a strange toy. It encloses four nonmiscible li-
quids which form l evels according to t h eir density; therefore it
multiplies the illustration of the oil lamp, This "phial of the four
elements" provides a good model for distinguishing between a presci-
e ntific m in d and a m o d ern m i nd ; it ca n h elp us t o c atch vain
philosophic reveries at the outset. For a modern mind, there is an im-
m ediate rationalization, It k n o w s t h a t w a ter is onl y on e of a t h o u -
sand other liquids. It knows that each liquid is characterized by its
density. The difference in density among nonmiscible liquids suffices
t o explain the ph en omenon .
A prescientific m i nd , o n t h e c o n t r a ry , fl ees from science toward
philosophy. We read, for example, in connection with the phial of
the four elements in Theology of Water by Fabricius — an author whom
we shall quote several times because his work is a fairly good example
of this dream-physicsthat mixes the most unbelievable nonsense with
the positive teaching of a Pascal-
It is what gives us the sight, as agreeable as it is common, of four li-
quids of different weights and different colors, which, when they
have been shaken up together, do not stay mingled; but as soon as
the vessel is set down.. . b egin to look for and find their natural
places. The black one, which represents earth, goes down to the
bottom, the gray takes its place just above to represent water; the
third liquor, which is blue, comes next and represents air. Finally
the lightest, which is red like fire, gains the top.~

Thus we have an experiment with r a t her too m any im ages, intended

t o illustrate only one elementary law of h y d r o statics, but wh i ch, in -
s tead, furnishes a pretext for th e p h i l o sophic im agination to go b e -
yond experiment, It gives a childlike image of the doctrine of the four
fundamental elements. Here is all of ancient philosophy in a bottle.
2. Johann Albert Fabricius, Theologiede 1'eau (La Haye, 1741), pp. 63 — 64.This is a
book often quoted in the eighteenth century. The first translation is anonymous. The
second translation bears the author's name.
 W A T E R IN C O M B INATION • 95

But I shall no t l a y t o o m u c h s t r ess on t h ese scientific toys, these

overly imaginative experiments through wh ich th e infantilism of the
pseudo-scientific cu l t ur e g i ve n o u t i n o u r s c h o o l so f te n b e c om es
rooted. I have written a whole book to tr y to separate the conditions
o f reverie from th e co n d i t i ons of t h o u g h t.' N o w m y t a sk is just th e
opposite; I want to show how d r eams are associated with knowledge,
to show how t h e m a t e r ial i m agination effects combinations among
the four fund amental elements.

One feature strikes us immediately: these imaginary combinations

u nite only tw o e l e m ents, never t h r ee. M a t e rial i m agination u n i t e s
w ater and earth ; o r w a t e r an d i t s o p p o site, fire; or earth an d f i r e .
Sometimes it sees in vapors and fogs the union of air and water. But
n ever, in any n a tural image, does it see the triple material union o f
water, earth, and fire carried out. A fortiori, no image can incorporate
all four elements, Such an accumulation would be an unbearable
contradiction for an imagination of the elements, a material imagina-
tion that m ust a l w ays elect one matter and give it p r eference in all
combinations. If a three-way union appears, we can be sure that th e
image produced is an artificial one, an image made from ideas. True
images, those that come out of r e v erie, are of one or tw o el ements.
They can dream single-mindedly of one substance, If they desire com-
bination, then it i s a co m b i n a t ion of tw o el ements.
There is a conclusive reason for the dual n at ure of the mi x t ure of
elements by the material imagination: it is that this m'ixture is always
'a marriage. In fact, as soon as two elementary substances unite and
become fused with each other, they take on sexual properties. Where
-the imagination is concerned, for two substances to be opposite is for
thmi to be of th e opposite sex. If two matters with feminine tenden-
cies, hke water and earth, mingle, well then! one of them becomes
'slightly masculine in order to dominate its partner. Only when this
o ccurs can the combination be solid and dur able, only then can th e
imaginary combination be a real image.In the realm of the material
imagination, every un io n i s a m a r r i age, and th ere is no m a r r i age a
trois,

3. Gaston Bachelard, La Formation de l'esprit scientifique: contribution a un e

psychanalyse de la connaissance objective(Paris, 1938).
 96 i C HAPTER F O U R

Now we shall study, as examples of imaginary elements combined,

some mixtures of elements in w h i c h w a ter i n t e rvenes. We shall ex-
amine successively the unions of water and fire, water and night, and,
e specially, water and earth, for it is in t hi s last combination that t h e
double reverie of form and matter suggests the most powerful themes
for creative imagination. For it is with the mixt ure of water and earth
that we are best able to understand the principles of a psychology of
material cause.

In dealing with the combination of water and fire, I can be very

brief. I have, in fact, encountered this problem in my study on The
Psychoanalysis of Fire. There I have examined the images suggested by
a lcohol, a s t r a nge m a t ter w h i c h s e ems, w he n i t i s c o v e red w i t h
flames, to a c cept a p h e n o m e no n c o n t r ar y t o i t s o w n s u b s t ance.
When alcohol flames on a holiday evening, it seems that the matter is
mad; it seems that the feminine water has lost all modesty and that in
frenzied joy she is giving herself to her master, fire! It should not seem
surprising, th en, t h a t c e r t ain p e o ple group m an y i m p r essions and
c ontradictory feelings around this unusual image and that under thi s
symbol a real complex forms. I have named this complex the Hoffman
complex, for the symbol of punch seemed to me particularly active in
the works of this fantastic teller of tales, This complex sometimes ex-
plains senseless beliefs, which only go to prove the importance of its
role in the unconscious. Thus Fabricius does not hesitate to say that
~ater urhich has been preservedfor a long time becomes "a spirituous li-
quor, lighter than other waters, and one which can almost be lit like
brandy."4 To those who joke about this good bottle of water from the
h idden stock, a b ou t t h i s w a t e r w h i c h , l i k e a g o o d w i n e , a t t a i n s
Bergsonian duration, I m u st a n swer that Fabricius is a very serious
philosopher who wrote a Th eology foW'ater t o the glory of t h e
Creator.
In fact, even when in the work of experienced chemists in the eight-
e enth century c h emistry t e n ded t o i n d i v i d u alize substances, it di d
not take away the special place accorded to elemental matters. Thus,
in order to explain why thermal springssmell of sulphur and bitumen,

Johann Albert Fabricius, Memoire titteraire de Trevoux(1730), p. 417.

 W ATER I N COMBINATION ~ 97

Geoffroy does not refer immediately to the substances sulphur and

b itumen; on th e co n t r a ry, he first calls to min d t h a t t h ese are "th e
matter and product of fire."~ Thermal water, then, is imagined first of
a ll as the immediate composition of w ater and fir e.
N aturally, with p o ets the direct nature of the combination w ill b e
even more decisive; sudden metaphors, of astonishing daring and
scintillating beauty, prove the force of the original image. For ex-
ample, in one of his "philosophic" essays, Balzac declares without the
l east explanation, as i f i t w e r e a s e lf-evident t r ut h t o b e se t f o r t h
without comment: " W a ter is a burned body." H ere we have the last
sentence of Garamba. It c a n t a k e i t s p l a c e a m o ng " t h o s e p e r f ect
sentences" that are, as Leon-Paul Fargue says, " at the culm in at i n g
p oint of t h e g r e atest vital ex perience,"6 For such a n i m a g i n ation ,
w ater alone, isolated, pure w at er, is o nl y a p u n c h t h a t n o l o n g e r
flames, a widow, a ruined substance, A burning image is necessary for
r ekindling it, to m ak e a flame dance again on its mi r r or , so that w e
can say with D el t h eil; " T h i n e i m age burns the water of so narrow a
canal." On th e same order is this enigmatic and perfect sentence by
Novalis: "Water is a dampened flame." Hackett, in his wonderful
thesis on Rimbaud, has noted the profoundly hydrous stamp of
Arthur Rimbaud's psyche:
During the season in Hell, the poet seems to ask fire to dry up this
water which had haunted him continually. ... Water and all the
experiences attached to it resist the fire's action, however, and,
when Rimbaud invokes fire, he calls on water at the same time. The
two elements are closely joined in a striking expression: "I crave. I
demand! a blow struck with a fork, a drop of fire."
In these drops of fire, in these dampened flames, in this burned
water, how can we fail to see the double seeds of an imagination th at
can condense two matters. How inferior the imagination of forms ap-
p ears beside such an imagination of m a t t er !
Naturally, an image as restricted as brandy which burns during a
happy evening could not carry the imagination along in such a surge

5. Geoffroy, Traite dela matiere medicale (Paris, 1743), 1:91.

6. Leon-Paul Fargue, Sous la lampe, 8th ed. (Paris, 1937), p. 46.
7. Cecil Arthur Hackett, Le Lyrisme deRimbaud (Paris, 1938), pp. 112 — 13.In par-
ticular on p. 111 Hackett gives a psychoanalytic explanation of the man who is the
"son of the deluges."
 98 0 C HAPTER FOU R

of images if there did not intervene a more profound, older reverie,

o ne that touches the very foundation of m a t erial imagination. T h i s
e ssential reverie is, to be specific, the marriage of opposites.. . . W a t e r
e xtinguishes fire; a woman extinguishes ardor. In th e r ealm of m a t -
ters, no two can be found w h ic h ar e m ore opposed than water and
fire. Water and fire give what is perhaps the only really substantial
contradiction, If logically one calls for the other, sexually one desires
the other, Ho w i s i t p o s sible to d r eam of g r eater Procreators than
water and fire!
In the Rig-Veda can be found hymns in which Agni is the son of
the waters:

Agni is a kinsman of the waters, he is affectionate like a brother

toward his sisters... . He breathes among the waters like a swan;
wakened at dawn, he calls men back to existence; he is a creator
like soma; sprung from the womb of the waters where he had lain
like a crouching animal with his legs tucked under him, he grew,
and his light spread afar.
Which of you sees Agni when he is hiding (in the midst of the
waters); he was new-born and, by virtue of offerings, he begets his
own mothers: a seed of abundant waters, he comes out of the
Ocean.
Appearing among the waters, the brilliant Agni grows, rising
above the agitated flames and spreading forth his glory; the sky and
t he earth are alarmed when the radiant Agni is born. . . .
Associated with the waters in the firmament, he takes on an ex-
cellent and brilliant form; the wise one, the mainstay of all things,
sweeps out the source of rains.

The image of the sun, the fire-star coming out of the Sea, is the
dominant objective image here. The sun is the Red Swan. But the im-
agination moves endlessly between Cosmos and microcosm. It alter-
nately projects the small on the large, the large on the small. If the
Sun is the glorious bridegroom of the Sea, then the water must "give
h erself" to the fire, and the fire must "t ake" the water in pr oport i o n
to this libation. Fire begets his mother, there lies a formula which the
alchemists, without knowing the Rig-Veda, will use to excess. It is a
primordial image of material reverie,

8. Pierre Saintyves, Corpus de folklore des eaux en France and dans les colonies
frangaises(Paris, 1934), pp. 54-55.
 W A T E R IN C O M B INATION • 99

G oethe also covers th e d i s t ance fro m " H o m u n c u l us" r e v erie t o

cosmic reverie very quickly. First of all, something shines "in this
moisture calm and dear" and the "living, dewy sphere." Then this fire
that comes from water
... flames round the shell.. . of my child [Galatea].
Now strongly it glitters, now sweetly, now mild,
As if by the pulses of love it were swayed!

Finally, "It flashes, it sparkles, abroad now it flows!" And the sirens
sing in ch'oru's: '"
What marvel illumines the billows, which dash
Against one another in glory. They flash,
They waver, they hitherward glitter, and bright
All forms are ablaze in the pathway of night;
And all things are gleaming, by fire girt around
Prime source of creation, let Eros be crowned!
Hail, ye billows! Hail to thee,
Girt by holy fire, 0 sea!
Water, hail! Hail, fire's bright glare!
Hail to this adventure rare!9

Is this not an e p i t h al amium fo r t h e m a r r i age of two elements> The

most serious of philosophers, faced with the mysterious union of
water and fire, lose their reason. When the chemist Brandt, who had
discovered phosphorus, that strangest of all fires — since it is preserved
under water — was received in the Duke of Brunswick's court, Leibnitz
wrote Latin v erses. To extol such a m a rv el, all m y th s are involved:
Prometheus's theft, Medea's dress, the luminous face of Moses, the
fire which Jeremiah hid, the vestals, the sepulchral lamps, the fight
between the Egyptian and Persian Priests.
This fire, unknown even to n a ture, which a new V u l can had
l ighted, that W ater preserved and prevented from joining th e
sphere of fire, its fatherland, which, buried under water, disguised
its being and came out full of light and brilliance from this tomb, an
image of the immortal soul. . . .

Popular legends confirm this accumulation of learned myths. It is

n ot rare for water and fire to be associated in th em. Even if the im -

9. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust Part lI, ed. F. H. Hedge, trans. A. Swan-
wick (Boston, 1884), act 2, sc. 1, lines 1897, 1900, 1905-07, 1912-22.
 100 • cH AP T E R F OUR

ages are unpolished, their sexual features are rather easy to see. Thus,
many are the legends of fountains that spring up on land which has
been struck by lightning. A spring is often born "of a thunderbolt,"
S ometimes, co n v ersely, l i g h t n i n g c o m e s o ut o f a v i o l e n t l a k e .
Decharme wond ers if N e p t u n e's tr i d ent i s no t " t h e t h r e e-pronged
t hunderbolt o f t h e g o d o f t h e h e a v e ns, t r a n sferred l ater t o t h e
sovereign of the deep."'
In a later chapter, I shall stress the feminine characteristics of imagi-
nary water. Here I only w ant to show th e matri m o n ial nature of the
chemistry common to fire and water, In the presence of the virility of
fire, the feminin ity of w a ter cannot be r emedied, It cannot t ake on
masculine qualities. United, these two elements create everything. In
numerous passages, Bachofen has s hown t h a t t h e i m a g i n a t i o n
dreams of Creation as an intimate union of the dual power of fire and
w ater. Bachofen proves that t hi s un io n i s no t ep h emeral." I t i s t h e
condition necessary for conti n u ous creation. When th e im agination
dreams of the durable union of water and fire, it forms a mixed
material image of u n u sual pow er. It i s t h e m a t e rial im age of urarm
humidity. For many cosmogonic reveries, it is ~a rm humidity that is
the fundamental principle, This animates the inert earth and causes
all living forms to rise up out of it, Bachofen shows that in num erous
texts Bacchus is designated as the master of all humidity: "ats Herr
atler Feuchtigheit."
It i s therefore easy to confirm t h a t t h i s n o t i on of w a rm h u m i d i t y
has a strangely privileged place in many minds. Through it, creation
proceeds at a slow but steady pace. Time is engraved into matter that
has been well simmered, We no longer know what is functioning; is it
fire, is it water, is it time? This triple uncertainty allows us to have an
answer for everything. When a philosopher attaches himself to a no-
tion like urarm humidity in o r d er to f o u nd h i s c o smogony, he
rediscovers such intimate convictions that no objective proof can em-
barrass him. In fact, we can see functioning here a psychological prin-
ciple that I have already mentioned: ambivalence is the surest basis
for indefinite valorizations. The notion of warm humidity gives rise
to an ambivalence of unbelievable power. It is no longer a question of
an ambivalence that plays only upon superficial and changing quali-

10. Paul Dechatme, Mythologie de la Grece antique(Paris, 1886), p. 322.

fens
11. Johann Jakob Bachofen, Grabersymbolik der Alten, in Johann Jakob Bacho
Gesammelte Werke(Basel, 19'}3), Cf. 4:5'f.
 W A T E R IN CO M BI NAT IO N 0 101

ties. It is really matter that is involved. Warm h u m i d i ty is matter be-

come ambivalent — almost, one could say, ambivalence materialized.

IV
By putting i n t h i s section some remarks on th e c o m b i n at ions of
Water and Night, I may seem to be rejecting my general thesis on im-
aginary matter. Indeed, night seems to be a un i v ersal phenomenon
that may easily be t aken fo r a n i m m e nse being asserting its power
over all of n at ure, but w i t h ou t t o u c h in g m aterial substances in any
way, If Night is personified, it is as a goddess whom nothing resists,
who envelops everything, who hides everything; she is the goddess of
the Veil.
Nevertheless, reverie about substances is so common and so invin -
c ible that th e i m a g i n ation c o m m o nl y a c cepts dreams of an a c t i v e
night, a penetrating night, an insinuating night, or of a night that in-
vades the substance of things. Then Night is no longer a draped god-
dess, no longer a veil that stretches over Land and Sea; Night is made
of night, Night i s a s u b s tance, isn octurnal m a t t er . N i g h t i s
understood by material imagination. An d since water is the substance
that lends itself best to m i x t u r es, night penetrates the waters, dims
the depths of the lake, saturates the pool.
Sometimes the penetration is so deep, so intimate, that for the im -
agination the pond in the middle of the day still retains a little of this
nocturnal m a t t er , a l i t t l e o f t h e s e substantial sh ades. It b e c omes
"stymphalized," It becomes the black swamp where live monstrous
birds, the Stymphalides, "nurslings of A res, w hich sh oo t t h e i r
feathers like arrows, which ravage and soil the &uits of the earth,
which feed on human flesh."" This stymphatization is not, I think, a
vain metaphor. It co r responds to a particular feature of melancholy
imagination. No doubt a stymphalized scene will be explained in part
by its shadowy aspects. But it is not m erely accidental that noctural
impressions are gathered for the purpose of conveying these aspects of
a deserted pond. These nocturnal impressions have a way of collect-
ing, increasing, and i n t e nsifying t ha t i s al l t h ei r o w n . W a t e r g i v es
them a focal point wh ere they can better converge, a substance that
maintains them longer. In m an y n a r r a t ives, accursed places have at
their center a lake of shadows and horror.

12. Decharme,Mythologie,p. 522.

 102 o C HAPTER FOUR

An imaginary sea that has taken the Night i nt o its bosom also ap-
f Darkness — Mare
pears in the works of many poets. It is the Sea o
Tenebrarum —in which ancient navigators localized their fright rather
than their experience. Edgar Allan Poe's poetic imagination explored
this Sea of Darkness. Often, no doubt, it is the Sky overcast during a
storm that gives the sea these livid and black shades of color. In Poe's
cosmology, when th ere is a storm at sea, the same peculiar "copper-
colored" cloud always appears. But besides this easy rationalization
which explains the shadow by the screen, we may perceive a direct
substantial explanation in the realm of the imagination. The desola-
tion is so great, so deep, so internal that the water itself is of an "inky
hue." In this ho r r i ble storm, it seems that the excretion of a terrible
cuttlefish has, in a convulsion, darkened all the depths of the sea.
This is the Ma re Tenebrarum, and "a panorama more deplorably
desolate no human im agination can conceive."" T h u s r eality, when
it is unusual, seems like something beyond imagining — a curious in-
v ersion that d eserves some philosophic meditation: go b eyond t h e
imaginable and you will have a reality so strong that it will trouble
your heart and mind. Here are the "lines of the horribly black and
beetling cliff," here is the horrible night that crushesthe Ocean, The
storm then enters the bosom of the floods; it also is a kind of agitated
substance, an internal movement that takes hold of the inner mass; it
is "a short, quick, angry cross dashing of water in every direction."
Reflecting on this, we can see that such an intim ate movement is not
grasped through an objective experience. It is felt in int rospection, as
the philosophers say. Water mixed with night is an old remorse that
will not sleep. . . ,

Night beside the pond brings a specific fear, a sort of humid fear that
penetrates the dreamer and makes him shudder, Night alone would
give a less physical fear. Water alone would give clearer obsessions.
Water at night gives a penetrating fear. One of Poe's lakes, "friendly"
in the light of day, awakes a terror that grows progressively as night
advances:
But when the Night has thrown her pall
Upon that spot, as upon all
And the mystic wind went by

13. Edgar Allan Poe, "The Descent into the Maelstrom," in The Complete Works
of EdgarAllan Poe,ed. James A. Harrison (New York, 1902), 2:226, 227, 235.
 M ATE R I N COMBINATION • 103

Murmuring in melody-
Then — ah then I would awake
To the terror of the lone lake.

When day breaks, the phantoms are no doubt still roaming over
the water. V ai n f ogs that r a v el, they r etire. . .. L i t tl e by l i t t le, it i s
they who are afraid, They dim; therefore they are withdrawing. Con-
versely, when n i g h t c o m es, th e p h a n t om s o f t h e w a t er s b e come
d enser; therefore they ar e a p p r oaching. T e r ro r i n c r eases in m e n ' s
hearts. River phantoms, then, do indeed feed on night and water.
If the fear that comes at night beside a pond is a special fear, it is
because it is a fear that enjoys a certain range. It is very different from
the fear experienced in a grotto or a forest. It is not so near, so con-
centrated, or so localized; it is more flowing. Shadows that fall on
water are more mobile than shadows on earth. Let us Ia'y"some"stress
on'th'eir""movement, on th eir evoluti on. Th e w asherwomen of night
s ettle down w h e n t h e m i s t s b e gi n t o r i s e a l on g t h e r i v e r b a n k .
Naturally, it is during the first half of the night that they lure their
victim. This is a specific instance of that law I wish to repeat on every
possible occasion: imagination is a becoming. Apart from these fear
reflexes, which are not imagined and consequently are difficult to tell
about, terror cannot be comm u n i cated in a literary work u n less it is
an obvious becoming. Nightfall by itself is sufficient to provide a
becoming for phantoms. Of these phantoms, only the relief guard is
aggressive.'
But these phantoms would not be judged aright if they were con-
sidered to be visions. They come nearer to us than that. "N i gh t," says
Claudel, "takes our proof away from us; we no longer know where we
a re... . O u r v i s io n n o l o n ger has the visible as its limit, but th e i n -
visible as its prison, homogeneous, immediate, indifferent, compact,"
Near water, night brings a freshness with it, Over the skin of the
belated traveler runs the thrill of the waters; a viscous reality is in the
air. The o m n i p r esent n i g ht , n i gh t t h a t n e v e r s leeps, awakens the
waters of a pond that is always sleeping, Suddenly one feels the
presence of horrible phantoms that cannot be seen. In the Ard ennes,
reports Berenger-Feraud, there is a w a ter spirit " c a l led th e oyeu of

14. George Sand,Les Visions de la nuit dans la compagne,in Oeuvres illustrees de

George Sand(Paris, 1854), 7:61-62.
 1 04 • C H A P TER FOUR

Doby, which has the shape of a horrible animal ~hich no one has ever
seen," What, then, is this horrible form that is never seenJ It is the be-
i ng that we see when our eyes are closed, the being about which w e
talk when we can no l o n ger express ourselves. Our th r oat t i ghtens,
our features are convulsed and freeze in an unspeakable horror,
S omething cold, l ik e w a t er, t o u ches our f ace. Th e m o n ster in the
night is a laughing medusa.
But the heart is not a l w ays alarmed, There are times when water
and night unite their gentleness. Has Rene Char not tasted nocturnal
matter when he writes: "The honey of night is consumed slowly." For
a soul at peace with itself, water and night together seem to take on a
common fragrance; it seems that the humid shadow has a perfume of
double freshness. Only at night can we smell the perfumes of water
c learly. The sun ha s to o m u c h o d o r f o r s u n li t w a ter t o g iv e us i t s
own.
A poet who knows how to nourish himself, in the fullest sense of
the word, with i m ages, will also know th e taste of night near water.
Paul Claudel writes in The East I Knour:"The night is so calm that it
appears salty to me," The night is like a lighter water that enfolds us
closely from time to time and refreshes our lips. We absorb the night
because there is something of the hydrous in us.
For a material imagination truly alive, an imagination that can take
hold of the material familiarity of the world, the great substances of
nature, water, night, sunlit ai r ar e " h i g hl y seasoned" substances in
themselves. They do not n eed the picturesqueness of spices.

V
The union of water and earth produces an admixture (ta p6te) that
is one of the fundamental schemes of materialism. And it has always
seemed strange to me that philosophy has neglected this topic, In
f act, this admixture seems to me to b e th e b asis of a tr uly i n t i m a t e
materialism in wh ich shape is supplanted, effaced, dissolved. It
presents the problems of materialism in their elementary forms, since
it relieves our intuition of any worry about shape. The problem of
form is given a secondary role. The union of water and earth provides
a n elemental experience with m a t t er .
In .this union (ta pBte) the role of water is obvious. When the
moulding is in progress, the worker can go on to consider the particu-
 V u'ATER IN COMBINATI ON • 105

lar nature of the earth, the flour or th e plaster; but at the beginning
of his work, his first thought is for water. Water is his first auxiliary. It
is through the action of water that the first reverie of the worker who
moulds begins. Therefore it should not seem surprising that water is
dreamed in active ambivalence. There is no reverie without ambiva-
lence, no am b i v alence wit h ou t r e v erie. No w w a t e r i s d r e amed by
t urns in its roles as softener and as binder. It separates, and it bin d s
together.
The first step is obvious. Water, as they say in outdated chemistry
texts, "moderates the ot her el ements," By d e stroying d r y n ess — the
work of fire — it is the conqueror of f i re. It t a kes patient revenge on
fire; it diminishes fire, It assuages fever in us. More than the hammer,
it destroys lands; it softens substances.
And then th e w or k o f e a rt h an d w a ter t o gether (p6te) continues.
W hen we have succeeded in m a k in g w ater t r ul y p enetrate into t h e
very substance of earth reduced to powder, when flour has drunk up
the water, and when w a ter has eaten up th e fl o ur , t hen th e experi-
ence, the long dream of "binding" begins.
Sometimes the worker dreaming of his task attributes this ability to
bind substantially t h r o ugh th e sh aring of i n t i m ate ties to th e earth
and at other times to the water. In fact, many people unconsciously
love water for its viscosity. Experience with the viscous is connected
with numerous organic images: they occupy the worker endlessly in
his long patient task of moulding.
This is why Michelet can appear to us as an adept in this a priori
chemistry, a chemistry based on un conscious reveries. For him ,

even the purest sea water, far from shore, far from all mixture, is
slightly viscous... . C h emical analyses do not explain this char-
acteristic. In it, there is an organic substance which these analyses
reach only by destroying it, by t a king away from it it s special
properties and reducing it violently to the general elements.

He then finds that the word mucus has fallen quite naturally from his
pen to complete this mixed reverie in w h ic h v i scosity and mu cosity
come in: "W hat is the mucus of the sea? The viscosity which water is
general has? Is it not the universal element of life?"'~
S ometimes viscosity i s a l s o e v i d e nce o f a n o n e i r i c f a t i g ue; i t

15. Jules Michelet, La Mer, ed. William Robertson (Oxford, 1907), pp. 52 — 53.
 106 C HAPT E R F O U R

prevents the dream from cont i n u i ng. We then live sticky dreams in a
viscous setting. The kaleidoscope of dreams is filled with round ob-
jects and with sluggish ones. If these flaccid dreams could be studied
systematically, they would lead to a knowledge of mesomorphic imag-
ination — that is, of an imagination in t e rmediate between the formal
and the material. The objects of mesomorphic dream take form only
with great difficulty, and then they lose it; they collapse like soft clay
(pctte), To the sticky, pliable, lazy, sometimes phosphorescent — but
not luminous — object corresponds, I believe, the greatest ontological
density of the oneiric life. Those dreams in which we dream of clay
are by turns struggle or defeat in the effort to create, form, deform, or
mould. As Victor Hugo says: "Everything loses its shape, even the
shapeless."
The eye itself, pure vision, becomes tired of looking at solids. It
needs to dream of deforming. If sight really accepts the freedom of
dreams, everything melts in a liv ing in t u i t i on. Th e " soft watches" of
Salvador Dali stretch and drain from a corner of a table. They live in
a sticky space-time. Like generalized clepsydras, they make flow an
object subjected directly to the temptations of monstrosity. Let any-
one meditate on The Conquest of the Irrational and he will understand
t hat thi s p i c t o r ial H e r a cliteanism is d ependent u po n a r e v e ri e o f
astonishing sincerity. Such profound deformations must engrave the
deformation in the substance. As Salvador Dali says, the soft uratch is
flesh; it is "cheese."" These deformations are often imperfectly under-
stood because they are seen statically. Certain entrenchedcritics too
easily take them for in a n i t ies. They do not l iv e out th e deep oneiric
strength found in th em; they do not participate in the imagination of
rich viscosity that grants, sometimes in a wi nk , th e benefits derived
from a divine deliberateness.
In the prescientific min d t h e r e ar e n u m e r ous tr aces of th e same
musings. Thus for F a b r i cius pure w ater i t self is glue; it c o n t a ins a
substance that has been charged by the unconscious with carrying out
the union already begun between water and earth (p6te); "Water has
a viscous and sticky matter which causes it to adhere easily to wood,
iron, and other r o ugh m at erials,"
It is not only an unknown scholar like Fabricius who thinks with
16. Salvador Dali, Conguestof the Irrational, trans. David Gascoyne (New York,
1935), pp. 24-25.
 W ATER I N COMBINATION • 107

s uch materialistic i n t u i t i o ns, T h e s a m e t h e or y c a n b e f o u n d i n

Boerhaave's chemistry. Boerhaave writes in his Elementsof Chemistry:
"Even stones and bricks reduced to powder and then exposed to the
action of Fir e . . . a l w a y s give a little water; and they even owe their
origin, in part, to Water, which, like glue, binds their parts together."
In other words, water is the un i v ersal glue.
This hold which water has on matter cannot be fully understood if
one is satisfied with v i sual observation. Tactile observation must be
added to it. T hi s is a word m ade up of references to two senses. It is
interesting to follow th e action, h o w ever obscured, of tactile experi-
ence added to visual observation. T hu s we can rectify the theory of
homo faber t hat t oo r e a d i ly p o s tu lates a conc urrence between the
worker and the geometrician, between action and vi sion.
Thus I am proposing a reintegration within homo faber psychology
of the most distant reveries and the hardest labor. The hand also has
i ts dreams and its hypotheses. It helps us to understand matter in it s
inmost being. Therefore it helps us to dream of it. The hypotheses of
"naive chemistry," which are born out of the work of homo faber,
have at least as much psychological importance as the ideas belong-
ing to "natural geometry," And, since these hypotheses prejudge
matter more i n t i m a t ely, t he y e ven g iv e m or e d e pth t o r e v e r ie. In
moulding, there is no more geometry, no more sharp edges, no more
b reaks. It is a co n t i n u in g d r e am, It i s w or k t h a t ca n b e d on e w i t h
o ne's eyes closed. Therefore it i s an i n t i m at e r everie. An d f u r t h e r -
more it is rhythmic, with a heavy rhythm, that takes hold of the
whole body. I t i s t h u s v i t al . It ha s t h e d o m i n a nt c h a r a cteristic of
duration — rhythm.
This reverie, which is born out of a working with soft substances
QBtes), is also necessarily correlated with a special will for power, with
the masculine joy of penetrating a substance, feeling the inside of sub-
stances, knowing the inside of seeds, conquering the earth intim ately,
as water conquers earth, rediscovering an elemental force, taking part
in the struggle of the elements, participating in a force that dissolves
without recourse. Then begin the binding action and the moulding,
whose slow but regular progress brings a special joy that is less satanic
than the joy of dissolving; the hand becomes directly conscious of the
growing success of the union of earth and water. An o t her duration is
then engraved into m a t t er , an u n i n t e r r u pt ed, steady, never-ending
 108 e C HAPTER FOU R

duration. This duration, th en, is not formed. It does not have the dif-
ferent resting places provided by successive stages that contemplation
finds in working with solids. This duration is a substantial becoming,
a becoming from w i t h in . I t to o can p r o v ide an objective example of
inner duration, a poor, simple, uneven duration that can be followed
only with h a r d w o r k , a n a n a genetic duration. N e v ertheless, it is a
d uration t ha t i s p r o g ressive and p r o d u ctive. It i s t r u l y a d u r a t i o n
a ssociated with w o r k , T r u e w o r k ers are th ose who h av e t aken t h e
matter in hand. They have the will to produce, a manual will. This
very special will is visible in the ligaments of their hands, Only he
who has crushed the currant and the grape will understand the hymn
to Soma: "Ten fingers curry the charger in the vat." If Buddha has a
hundred arms, it is because he is a moulder.
Clay (pQte)produces the dynamic hand, which is almost the an-
tithesis of the geometric hand of Bergson's homofaber, It is a medium of
energy and no longer merely of form, The dynamic hand symbolizes
the imagination of force.
By meditating on th e d i f f erent t r ades that m o u ld , on e can better
understand the ma t e rial c ause and see all i ts v a r i e ties, The a ct o f
modeling is not sufficiently an alyzed if one m erely concentrates on
forms. Nor is the effect of matter sufficiently explained when one
m erely notes the resistance it offers to the modeling act. All w or k i n
this admixture (p6te)leads to the concept of a truly positive, truly ac-
tive material cause, Here there is a natural projection. Here we have a
particular case of projective thought that conveys all thoughts, all ac-
tions, all reveries from ma n t o t h i n gs, from w o r ker t o t h e p i ece of
work, The Bergsonian theory of homofaber considers the projection
only of lucid thoughts. It neglects the projection of dreams. Trades
that trim an d cu t d o n o t t e l l u s e n o ugh about th e i n n e r n a t ur e of
matter. The projection in t h ese instances remains external, geomet-
ric. Here matter cannot even play a supporting role to actions. It is no
more than what is left over after actions, what has not been cut off.
The sculptor in front of his marble block is a scrupulous servant of
the formal cause. He finds form by eliminating the formless, The
modeler before his clay block finds form by deforming, by a dreamy
evolution of the amorphous. The modeler is the one nearest to the in-
ner dream, to th e vegetating dream.
Is it necessary to add that this very simplified diptych should not
 W A T E R IN C O M BIN A T ION • 109

lead anyone to believe that I have really separated questions of form

and matter? True genius unites them. In The Psychoanalysis foFire, I
m yself evoked some intuiti ons which certainly prove that Rodin t o o
could dream dreams of matter.
Should children's enthusiasm for playing with soft substances
(p0tes) astonish us now? Madame Bonaparte recalled the psycho-
analytic meaning of such an experience, Following the psychoana-
lysts who have isolated anal fixations, she reminds us of the interest
in their own excrement shown by children and some of the mentally
ill." Since in t h i s b oo k I a m a n a l yzing only th e m or e h i ghly
developed psychic conditions, those more directly adapted to objec-
t ive experiences and p o e ti c w o r k s , I m u s t d e s c r ibe th e w o r k o f
moulding in its purely active elements, disengaging them from their
psychoanalytic taint. Work in these substances has an orderly child-
hood. At th e seaside it seems that a child, like a young beaver,
follows the impulses of a very widespread instinct, Stanley Hall,
Koffka reports, noticed in children traits that recalled their ancestors
in the lacustrine epoch."
Mud is the dust of water, as ash is the dust of fire, Ash, mud, dust,
smoke furnish images that exchange their substances endlessly. In
these reduced forms, elementary matters communicate, These are, in
a way, the four d u sts of th e four elements. Mud is one of th e m o st
s trongly valorized of m a t t ers. W at er, i t s eems, has brought t o t h e
earth the very principle of calm, slow, assured fecundity in taking this
form. At the mud baths of Acqui, Michelet expresses all his fervor, all
his faith in r egeneration in t h ese terms:

In an enclosed lake where there is a concentration of slime, I ad-

mired the powerful-effort of the waters which having prepared it
and sifted it in the mountain, t'hen, having-.congealed it, struggling
against their very production and through its opacity, while want-
ing to get through, raise it by means of little earthquakes, pierce it
by little streams of water, microscopic volcanos. One such stream is
only air bubbles, but another one, being permanent, indicates the
constant presence of a small underground stream which, being ob-
structed elsewhere, after rubbing thousands of times, finally wins

17. Marie Bonaparte, Edgar Poe(Paris, 1933), p. 457.

18. Kurt Koffka, The Gromth of the Mind, trans. Robert Morris Ogden, 2nd ed.
(London and New York, 1928), p. 43.
 110 i C HAPTER F O U R

a nd obtains w ha t s eems to b e t h e d e s ire an d g oa l o f t h e se l i t t l e

souls; they are pleased to see the sun,'

Reading such passages, one feels an irresistible material imagination

in action, an imagination which, despising all dimensions and scorn-
ing all f o rmal i m ages, projects p urely dynamic i mages of t h e
microscopic volcano. A ma t e rial i m a gination l i ke t h is p a rti cipates in
the life of all substances; it loves the seething of the mud leavened by
the bubbles, All warmth, all enfolding then becomes a kind of ma-
ternity. And Michelet, before this black slime, "slime which is in no
way dirty," plunges into this living matter (pate) and cries out;

Beloved common mother! We are one. I come from you, and I

return to you. But tell me your secret frankly. What do you do in
your deep shadows from which you send me this warm, powerful,
rejuvenating soul, which would have me live on still? What do you
do there? — "Whatever you see, whatever I do before your very
e yes." She spoke distinctly, somewhat low, but w it h a g e n t le
perceptibly maternal voice.

Does not this maternal voice actually come out of the substance? Out
of the matter itself? Matter speaks to Mi chelet through contact with
i ts inmost substance. Michelet grasps the material life of water in it s
essence, in its contr adiction, W a ter " s t r uggles against its own cr ea-
t ion." I t i s t h e o n l y w a y t o d o ev e r y t h i n g , t o d i s s olve an d t o
coagulate,
This bivalent power will always remain the basis of convictions
about continuous fecundity, C ontin u i ng r equires the reuniting of o p-
posites. In his book, From the Goddess Nature to the Goddess Life,
E rnest Seilliere notes in p assing that th e p r o f use vegetation of t h e
swamp is the symbol o f t e l l u r i sm. It i s t h e s u b stantial m ar r iage of
e arth and w a ter r e alized in t h e s w amp t h a t d e t ermines an an o n y -
mous, short, lush, abundant vegetal power. A soul like Michelet's
understands that slime helps us participate in the vegetating, regener-
ating forces of the earth. R ead t h ese extraordinary passages on his
buried life when he has plunged all the way into the oily slime. This
earth,

19. Jules Michelet, La Montagne, in Oeuvres completes de Jules Michelet (Paris,

1893-1899), 33:72-73.
 W ATER I N COMBINATION • 111

I could feel her there very plainly, caressing, compassionate, warm-

ing her wounded child. From without? Within as well. For she
penetrated with her vivifying spirits, entered me and mingled with
me, insinuated her soul into me. The identification between us
became complete. I could no longer distinguish myself from her, to
such a point that in the last quarter hour, what she did not cover,
the part of me which remained free — that is, my face — was a source
of irritation to me. The buried body was happy, and it was I. Not
buried, the head complained, it was no longer I — at least, so I would
have believed. So strong was the marriage — more than a marriage-
between me and the Earth! It could almost be called an exchange fo
nature. I was the Earth, and she was a man. She had taken upon
herself my infirmity and my sin. I, in becoming Earth, had taken on
life, warmth, youth.

This exchange of nature from slime to flesh is a complete example of

material reverie.
The same impression of the organic union of earth and w ater can
be had by meditating on this passage by Paul Claudel;
In April, preceded by the prophetic flowering of the prune tree's
branches, Water, the bitter servant of the Sun, begins to work over
all the earth. It dissolves, it warms, it softens, it penetrates and salt
becomes saliva, persuades, chews, mixes, and as soon as its basis is
thus prepared, life begins and the vegetable world begins again to
draw on the universal resources through all its roots. The acid
water of the first months becomes, little by little, a thick syrup, a sip
o f liquor, a bitter honey charged with sexual powers... .

Clay, too, for many people, will become a theme of endless reveries.
Man will wonder endlessly from what mud, from what clay he is
made. For in order to create, some kind of clay is always needed,
s ome plastic matter, some a m b i guous m atter i n w h i c h e a rt h a n d
water can come t o gether an d u n i t e , G r a m m a r i ans' discussions on
w hether the w or d c lay is m asculine or f em in in e are not v a in . O u r
softness and our solidity are opposites; androgynous participation is
needed. Clay, to be of the right consistency, must have enough earth
and enough water. How b eautiful th e p assage is where Oscar
Vladislas Milosz tells us that we are composed entirely of clay and
t ears, When h e l a cks sorrow an d t e a rs, man i s d r y , p o or , an d a c -

20. Paul Claudel, L'Oiseau Noir dans le soleil levant, 15th ed. (Paris, 1929), p. 242.
 1 12 • CHA P T E R F O U R

cursed. With a few too many tears, a lack of courage, and stiffening in
the clay, he suffers another kin d o f d estitution: " M a n o f c l ay, tears
h ave drowned your w r e t ched b r a in . W o r d s w i t h ou t salt flo w f r o m
your mouth l ik e w arm w a t er." '
Since I promised myself that in this book I would take every oppor-
tunity to develop a psychology of material imagination, I do not want
to leave these reveries of moulding and kneading without following
another line of material reverie, along which one can trace the slow
and difficult conquest of form by rebellious matter. Here water is ab-
sent. From this point on, the worker will give himself up, as if by acci-
dent, to a parody of vegetal processes. This parody of hydrous power
will help us a l i t tl e t o u n d e r stand th e p o wer of i m a ginary w at er. I
would like to t alk ab out th e r everie of the smith's soul,
A smith's r everie comes late. A s w o r k b e g in s w it h a s o l i d , t h e
worker is, first of all, the consciousness of a will. Will is the first to ap-
pear on th e scene; then cr aft w h i ch , t h r o ugh f i re, pr o d uces malle-
ability. But as, under th e b l ows of th e h a m m er, change is about to
take place, as the bars start to bend, something of the dream of defor-
mation enters the soul of the worker, Then the doors of reverie open
l ittle by litt le. It is then t h a t ftourers of iron are born. It is only exter-
nally, no doubt, that they imitate vegetal glories, but if we follow the
p arody of t h ei r in fl e ctions w it h m o r e s y m p athy , t he n w e f eel t h a t
they have received an inner vegetating power from the worker. Aft er
its victory, the smith's hammer caresses the volute with li t tle taps. A
dream of softness, a vague memory of fluidity is imprisoned in forged
iron. Dreams that have lived in the man's soul continue to live in his
works. The grill that was worked on for so long remains a living
quickset hedge. Along its branches holly, a little stronger, a little
duller than ordinary holly, continues to climb, And for one who can
dream at the boundaries between man and n at ure, for one who can
play on all the poetic inversions, is not field holly in itself a stiffening
of the vegetal, a forged iron>
Moreover, this evocation of the smith's soul can help us to present
material reverie in a new l i g ht . It t a kes a giant, no d o u bt , to soften
iron, but he will yield to dw arfs when it comes to placing the minute
d etails of t r a cings among th e i r o n fl o w e rs. Th e g n om e t h e n t r u l y

21. Oscar Vladislas Milosz, Miguel Manara, in Oeuvres Completes(Paris, 1945),

3:63.
 W'ATER IN C O M B I N A T I O N • 1 13

emerges from th e m e t al . I n f a c t , o n e i m a g ined f or m o f e l e m ental

reverie is the embodying of fantastic beings in miniatures. Creatures
discovered under a clump of earth, in the corners of a crystal, are in-
crusted in matter; they are the elementary forces of matter, They can
be awakened by dreaming not before an object but before its sub-
stance. The small plays a substantial role in relation to the la rge;the
small is the inner structure of the large. Even if it seems to be simply a
matter of form, the small, by being enclosed in the large,by becoming
incrusted, becomes materialized. In fact, truly formal reverie develops
by organizing objects with fairly large dimensions, It expands. Con-
v ersely, a m a t erial r e verie i n l ays it s o b j ects. It c a r ves th em. T h i s
r everie is always th e on e t h a t c a r v es. It d e scends, continuing t h e
dreams of the worker, right d ow n t o t h e d e pth of substances.
M aterial r e v erie, t h en , c o n q u er s a n i n n e r s p a ce, even i n t h e
h ardest substances, even in t h ose that are the most resistant to t h e
dream of penetration, It is naturally more at ease when working with
clay, which yields a dynamics of penetration that is at once easy and
detailed. I have evoked the reverie of the forge only to show to better
advantage how pleasant is the moulder's reverie, to evoke the joys of
softened clay, and the gratitude of the moulder, the dreamer, toward
the water that always gives him a vi ctory over compact matter,
I could go on endlessly if I wanted to follow the daydreams of a
homo faber who abandons himself to the imagination of matters, A
substance will never seem sufficiently worked over for him because he
never stops dreaming of it. Fo rms reach completion. M a t t er, never.
Matter is the rough sketch for u n r estricted dreams.
Maternal Water and Feminine Water
... and, as in ancient times, you could
sleep in the sea.
PAUL ELUARD, Necessities of Life

As I HAvE indicated in an earlier chapter, M arie Bonaparte explains

Edgar Allan Poe's attachment to certain extremely imaginary scenes
in terms of his very early childhood memories. One of the sections of
Madame Bonaparte's psychoanalytic st ud y i s e n t i t led t h e mo t h er-
landscape cycle.Inspired by this psychoanalytic investigation, we can
readily see that the objective features of the landscape do not suffice
t o explain ou r f e e l ing fo r n a t u r e i f i t i s d e e p an d t r u e . I t i s n o t
knowledge of reality that makes us love reality passionately, It is feel-
ing, the first and fundamental value. As for nature, we begin by lov-
ing it wit h out k n o w in g it , w i t h ou t r e ally seeing it, by actualizing in
t hings a love t h a t h a s it s b a sis elsewhere. Then w e search fo r i t s
details because we love it as a whole without knowing why. The en-
thusiastic descriptions given of it are proof that men have looked at it
with passion and the constant curiosity of love. And if the feeling for
n ature is as durable as it i s i n s o m e p e ople, that i s b ecause in i t s
original form it is at the root of all feelings, It is a filial devotion; all
forms of love have in their make-up something of the love for a
mother. Nature is for the grown man, M a d ame Bonaparte states, "an
i mmensely enlarged, eternal mo t h er, pr ojected into i n f i n i t y. " E m o -
tionally, n a t ur e i s a pr o je ction o f t h e m o t h e r. I n p a r t i c u l a r, a d d s
Madame Bonaparte, "The sea is for all men one of the greatest and
most constant maternal symbols." An d Poe offers a particularly clear
example of this projection, this symbolization. To t h ose who object
that Edgar Allan Poe as a child could very well have discovered the
joys of the sea directly, to the realists who misunderstand the impor-
tance of psychological reality, Madame Bonaparte answers,
 116 0 C HAPTER FIV E

The real sea, by itself, would not be enough to entrance humans as

it does. The sea sings a song which reaches them on two different
levels, the higher and more superficial of which is the less appealing.
It i s the d eeper one. . . w h i ch h as f rom t i me i m memorial. . .
drawn men to the sea.
This underlying melody is the maternal voice, the voice of our
mother:

It is not because the mountain is green or the sea blue that we love
it, even if we give these reasons for our attraction; it is because some
part of us, of our unconscious memories, finds that it can be re-
incarnated in the blue sea or the green mountain. And this part of
us, of our unconscious memories, is always and everywhere a pro-
duct of our childhood loves, of these loves which in the very begin-
ning went out only to the one who was our source of shelter, our
source of food, who was our mother or our nurse.
To sum up briefly, filial love is the first active principle in the pro-
jection of images; it is the ability of the imagination to project an in -
e xhaustible force that seizes all images and puts them i n t h e m o s t
r eliable human p e rspective: the m a t ernal p erspective, Ot her l o v e s
will come, of course, and be grafted onto the first ability to love. But
none of these loves will ever be able to destroy the priority of our first
feelings. The chronology of the heart is indestructible, Later, the
more metaphoric a love or friendship is, the more it will need to draw
its strength from t h e o n e f u n d a m ental feeling. U n der t h ese condi-
tions, to loee an image is always to illustrate a love; to love an image is
to find, without knowing it, a new metaphor for an old love. To love
the in finite universe is to give a material meaning, an objective mean-
ing, to the in finity of the love for a mother. To love a solitary place,
when we are abandoned by everyone, is to compensate for a painful
a bsence; it is a reminder for us of the one who n ever abandons. . . .
As soon as anyone loves a reality with all his soul, then this reality is
itself a soul and a memory.

I am going to try to link up these general remarks by beginning

with the perspective of the m a t erial im agination, We shall see that
the one who n o u r i shes us with he r m i l k , w i t h h e r o w n s u b stance,
puts her indelible mark on very diverse, distant, and external images,
 M ATERNA L W A TER AN D F E M I N INE W A T ER • 117

which cannot be correctly analyzed in terms of the usual themes of

formal imagination, In th e main, I shall show that these highly
valorized images have more matter than form, To prove this, I shall
make a somewhat closer study of the literary images that aim at com-
pelling natural waters, river and lake waters, even sea waters, to take
on a milky appearance and metaphors of milk, I shall show that these
absurd metaphors illustrate an unforgettable love.
As I have already mentioned, all liquid is a kind of water for
material imagination. This is a fundamental principle of material im-
agination, which requires that one of the primitive elements be at the
root of all substantial images, This remark has already been justified
visually and dynamically: for the imagination, everything that fto~s
is water; everything t h a t fl o w s p a r t i c ipates in w a t er's nature, as a
philosopher would say, The epithet fIo~ing water is so strong that it
creates its substantive at all times and in all places, The color matters
little; it only provides an adjective, only designates a variety. Material
imagination moves immediately to th e substantial quality,
If we now pursue our quest into the unconscious a little further by
examining the problem from a psychoanalytic point of view, we must
say that all water is a kind of milk. More precisely, every joyful drink
is mother's milk. Here we have an example of an explanation at tw o
levels of material im agination, at t w o s u ccessive degrees of uncon-
scious depth; first, all liquid is a kind of water; then all water is a kind
of milk. The dream has a tap root that descends into the great, simple
unconscious of primitive child life. It also has a whole network of hair
roots which live in a more superficial layer. It is this superficial region,
where consciousness and unconsciousness mingle, that I have studied
most often in m y w o r k s on t h e i m a g ination, But i t i s t im e to sh ow
that the deeper zone is always active and t h at a m a t e r i al ima ge of
milk underlies the more conscious images of the waters. The first axes
of interest form around an o r g anic concern. It is the nucleus of this
organic concern that provides a focal point for adventive images. The
same conclusion could be reached by examining the way that lan-
guage is progressively valorized. The first syntax obeys a sort of gram-
mar of needs. Milk is, then, the first substantive in the order of liquid
r ealities; more exactly, it is the first substantive known to the mouth .
L et me note in passing that none of the values associated with th e
mouth is repressed, The mouth, the lips — here is where we know our
 1 18 • C H A P T E R FI V E

first positive and specific happiness, the place where sensuality is per-
mitted. The psychology of lips deserves an extended investigation in
its own right .
Under the cover of this sanctioned sensuality, let me delve a little
deeper into psychoanalytic regions and offer some examples to prove
the fundamental nature of water's "maternity,"
From all evidence, it is the directly human image of milk that is the
psychological basis for the Vedic hymn quoted by Saintyves: "The
w aters, which are our m o t h ers and w h ich desire to take part in t h e
sacrifices, come to us following their paths and distribute their milk
to us,"' It wo uld be a real mistake to see in this passage only a vague
philosophical image of thanksgiving to the divine power for the gifts
of nature. The bond is much more deep-seated than that, and I feel
that a literary image should be given the absolute integrity of its
realism. It might be said that, for the material imagination water, like
milk, is a complete food. The hymn cited by Saintyves continues:
"Ambrosia is in the waters, medicinal herbs are in the waters. .., Oh
Waters, bring all our remedies for disease to perfection so that my
body may benefit from your good offices and that I may for a long
time see the sun."
Water is a milk as soon as it is extolled fervently, as soon as the feel-
ing of adoration for the maternity of waters is passionate and sincere.
When it i m p r esses a sincere person, the h y m na l t on e r e t r ieves the
primitive, Vedic image with strange regularity. In a book that pur-
ports to b e o b j e ctive, almost learned, M i c h elet co m m u n i cates his
Anschauung (view) of the Sea and discovers quite naturally this image
of the milky sea, of the vital sea, of the nourishing sea;

These nourishing waters are thick with all sorts of particles of fat,
suited to the soft nature of fishes, who lazily open their mouths and
breathe, nourished like an embryo in th e womb of a common
mother. Do they know they are swallowing? Scarcely. The micro-
scopic food is like milk that comes to them. The great fatality of the
world, hunger, is reserved for the earth; here it i s p r evented,
unknown. No effort is needed to move, there is no search for food.
Life must float like a dream."z

1. Pierre Saintyves, Corpus de folklore des eaux en France(Paris, 1934), p. 54. See
also Louis Renou, trans., Hymnes et prieresdu Veda (Paris, 1938), p. 33. "Varuna inun-
dates the ground, the earth, and the very sky when he wants milk."
2. Jules Michelet, La Mer, ed. William Robertson (Oxford, 1907), p. 51.
 M ATERNA L W A T ER AN D F E M I N INE W AT ER • 119

Is this not by all evidence the dream of a satisfied child, of a child

who is floating in his well-being? No doubt Michelet has rationalized,
in many ways, the image which enchants him, For him, as I have
stated above, sea water is mucus. It has already been worked and
e nriched by th e v i t a l a c t io n o f m i c r o scopic beings that co n t r i b u t e
"those soft and fecund elements."

This last word [fecund] opens up a profound view of sea life. Her
children, for the most part, seem to be foetuses in a gelatinous state
who absorb and who produce the mucous matter, fill the waters to
overflowing with it, give them the fertile softness of an infinite
womb where new children endlessly come to swim as if in a warm
milk."

So much softness and so much warmth are revealing features,

Nothing suggests them objectively; everything justifies them subjec-
tively. The greatest reality corresponds first of all to w h a t o ne e ats.
Sea water soon becomes, for Michelet's panbiological vision, "animal
water," the primary nourishment of all beings.
Finally, the best proof that the "nourishing" image governs all the
o ther images is that M i c h elet does not h esitate to cont i nue on t h e
cosmic plane from m i l k t o t h e b r e a st: " w it h i t s assiduous caresses,
rounding the bank, [the sea] gave it a maternal form, and I was going
to say the visible tenderness of a woman's breast, what the child finds
so pleasant — refuge, warmth, and repose." In the curve of which gulf,
before which rounded cape could Michelet have seenthe image of a
w oman's breast if he had not f i rst been won ov er, caught up in t h e
strength of material imagination, in th e power of the substantial im-
age of milk? For such a daring metaphor, there is no other explana-
tion: it is matter that governs form. The breast is rounded because it is
swollen with milk,
Michelet's sea poetry, then, is a reverie that inhabits a deeper zone.
The sea is maternal; water is a prodigious milk. The earth prepares in
its womb a warm and rich food; on its banks swell the breasts that will
give all creatures particles of fat. Optimism is a kind of abundance.

It may seem that to affi rm t h i s i m m e d iate adherence to a maternal

image is to pose the problem of images and metaphors incorrectly. To

3. Ibid., pp. 59, 54, 52, 59.

 1 20 • CHA P T E R F I V E

contradict me, some will insist on the fact that certainly mere vision
a nd contemplation o f t h e s p e ctacles of n a t ur e also seem to e l i c i t
direct images. Some will object, for example, that many poets in-
spired by a tranquil vision tell us of the milky beauty of a peaceful
lake reflecting the light of the moon. Let me then discuss this image,
so often encountered in th e p o etry of w a t ers, A l t h o ugh apparently
unfavorable for these theses on material imagination, it proves in the
end that th e in fl u ence an im age exerts over poets so different from
o ne another must be ex plained in t e rm s of m a t t er, no t f o rm s an d
color.
How, in fact, can we conceive in physical terms of the reality of this
image> In other words, what are the objective conditions that cause
this particular image to be producedl
For a milky image to arise in the imagination, before a lake sleeping
in moonlight, the moonlight must be diffused — water rippling just
enough not to reflect the moonlit surroundings starkly — in short, the
water must go f r o m t r a n s p arence to t r a n slucence, must gradually
become opaque and opalescent. But this is all it can do, Is this really
enough to make poets think of a basin of milk, of the farmwife's foam-
ing pail, of objectivemilk? It does not seem so. Then it must be con-
fessed that neither the principle nor the power of this image lies in
visual stimuli. To justify the poet's conviction, the frequency and the
naturalness of the image, it is necessary to integrate into th e i m age
component parts that are not seen, components whose nature is not
visible, These are precisely the parts through which material imagina-
tion will be made manifest. A psychology of material imagination
alone can explain this image in its real totality and li fe, Let us then
t ry to integrate all the components that set this image in mot i o n .
What is this image of milky water, reallyl It is the image of a warm
and happy night, the image of clear and enveloping matter, an image
that takes air, water, sky, and earth and unites them, a cosmic image,
wide, immense, gentle. If we really live this image, we recognize that it
is not the world that is bathed in milky moonlight, but the spectator
who bathes in a happiness so physical and so reassuring that it brings
back memories of the earliest form of well-being, of the most pleasant
of foods. Therefore, the river's milk will never be frozen, A poet will
never tell us that th e w i n ter m oo n p o urs milky l i ght on th e w at ers,
Warmth of air, softness of light, and peace of soul are necessary for
t his image. These are th e m a t erial co m p onents of th e i m a ge, t h e
 M ATERNA L W A T ER A N D F E M I N I N E W A T E R • 121

strong, primitive components. Whiteness never comes until afterurard. It

is deduced, introduced like a adj'ective brought along by the substan-
tive and after it, In th e r ealm of dr eams, a word order that m akes a
color "white as milk" is misleading. The dreamer first perceives the
milk; his sleepy eyes sometimes see its whiteness only later.
Concerning the question of whiteness in the realm of material im-
agination there are surely no objections, If a golden moonbeam falls
upon a river, a formal and superficial imagination of colors will not
be disturbed. Surface imagination will see as white what is really
yellow because the material image of milk is intense enough to con-
tinue its gentle progress into the depths of the h u man h eart, to ac-
complish its task of realizing calm in the dreamer, and to embody a
happy impression in matter and substance. Milk is the first sedative.
Man's calm impregnates contemplated waters with milk. In Elegies
St.-J. Perse writes: . . Now these calm waters are mi l k / a n d
" .

everything which overflows in the soft solitude of morning."

A foamy torrent, however white it may be, will never have such a
value. Color, then, is really insignificant when material imagination
dreams of its primit ive elements.
The imaginary does not find its deep, nutritive roots in images;first
it needs a closer, more enveloping and material presence.Imaginary
reality is evoked before being described. Poetry is always a vocative. It
is, as Martin Buber would say, in the Thou category before being in
the That ca tegory, Th us t he Mo o n is , in t h e p o e t ic r e alm, m a t t e r
before being form; it is a fluid that penetrates the dreamer, Man in
his natural and elemental poetic state

is not disquieted by the moon that he sees every night, till it comes
bodily to him, sleeping or waking, draws near and charms him with
silent movements, or fascinates him with the evil or sweetness of its
touch. He does not retain from this the visual representation, say,
of the wandering orb of light, or of a demonic being that somehow
belongs to it, but, at first, he has in him only the dynamic, stirring
image of the moon's effect, streaming through his body.4

It could not be better described, The moon is "an influence," in the

a strological sense of th e w o r d , a c o s mi c m a t ter w h i ch , a t c e r t a i n
h ours, impregnates the universe and gives it a material unit y .

Martin Buber, I and Thou, trans. Ronald Gregor Smith (New York, 1937),
p. 251.
 1 22 • CH A P T E R F I V E

However, the cosmic nature of organic memories will not surprise

us if we understand that m aterial imagination is a primary im agina-
tion. It imagines the creation and life of things along with their vital
lights, with th ose certainties borne by an imm ediate sensation — that
is, it imagines by heeding the great lessons in coenesthesis given by
our organs. We have already been surprised by the astonishingly
direct quality of Poe's imagination. His geography,that is his method
of dreaming about the earth, bears the same stamp. Therefore, it is by
g iving material i m agination it s t r u e f u n c t ion t h a t w e s h al l u n d e r -
stand the profound meaning of Gordon Pym's exploration in the
polar seas, seas which Poe — need it be added> — never visited. Poe
describes the singular sea in these terms: "The heat of the water was
now truly remarkable, and its colour was undergoing a rapid change,
being no longer transparent, but of a milky consistency and hue," Let
u s note in passing that th e w a ter becomes milky, according to t h e
remark made above, by losing its transparency.

In our immediate vicinity it was usually smooth, never so rough as

to endanger the canoe — but we were frequently surprised at perceiv-
ing, to our right and left, at different distances, sudden and exten-
sive agitations of the surface.

Three days later the explorer of the South Pole writes again: "The
heat of the water was extreme, even unpleasant to the touch, and its
milky hue was more evident than ever." It is easy to see that we are
no longer dealing with the sea taken as a whole, in its general aspect,
but with water taken as matter, as a substance that is both warm and
white. It is white because it is warm. Its warmth is noticed before its
whiteness.
From all evidence, instead of a sight, it is a memory t hat i n spires
the narrator — a happy memory, the most tranquil and the most sooth-
ing of memories, the memory of breast milk, of the maternal lap.
Everything points to it in a passage that closes by recalling the sweet
abandon the well-satisfied child who falls asleep on his nurse's breast:
"The Polar winter appeared to be coming on — but coming without its
terrors. I felt a numbness of body and mind — a dreaminess of sensa-
tion — but this was all." The harsh realism of the polar winter is con-
quered. Imaginary milk has fulfilled its function. It has numbed soul
and body. The explorer is thenceforth a dreamer who remembers.
 M ATERNA L W A T ER AN D F E M I N INE W AT ER • 123

Direct images, often very beautiful — in an internal, material way-

have the same origins. For example, what is the river to Paul Claudel?
"It is the liquification of the earth's substance; it is the eruption of li-
quid water rooted in its most secret folds, of milk under the sucking
of the Ocean which is nursing.'" Here again, which is governing,
form or matter? The geographical design of the river with the round-
ed hillock of its delta or the liquid itself, milk, the liquid of organic
psychoanalysis> And through what interagent will the reader par-
ticipate in the poet's image, if not through an essentially substantial
i nterpretation, by d y n a m i zing, in a h u m a n w a y , th e m o ut h o f t h e
river fastened to the Ocean which is nursing?
Once more we see that all great substantial values, all valorized
human movements, rise without diff'iculty to the cosmic level. There
are a thousand ways of going from the imagination of milk to the im-
agination of the Ocean because milk is a value for the imagination
that finds release on every occasion. Again it is Claudel who writes:
"And the milk of which Isaiah says it is in us tike a flood." 6 Has milk
not overwhelmed us, submerged us in a boundless happiness> In the
spectacle of a heavy, warm, productive summer rain one might find
the living image of a downpour of milk.
The same material image, well-anchored in men's hearts, has
endless variety in its derived forms. Mistral sings in Mireitle:
There comes a time when the sea
Calms its proud bosom
And breathes slowly through all of its breasts.

Such is the spectacle of a milky sea that is gently soothed; it is the

mother with an i m m e asurable breast and an i m m easurable heart,
It is because water, for the unconscious, is milk that it has so often
in the course of the h i story of scientific th ought been taken for an
eminently nutritious principle. Let us not forget that for the prescien-
tific mind nutrition, far from being a function to be explained, is an
e xplicative f u n ct i on . B e t w een p r e scientific an d s c i entific t h o u g h t
there will occur an inversion in the explanation of the biological and
the chemical. The scientific mind will try to explain the biological by
the chemical. Prescientific th ought, closer to u n c o nscious thought,

5. Paul Claudel, Connaissance deI'Est (Paris, 1945), p. 251.

6. Paul Claudel, L'epee etle miroir (Paris, 1937), p. 39. Cf. Isaiah 60:4 — 5.
 124 • C HAP T E R F IV E

explained the chemical through the biological. Thus the "digestion"

of chemical substances in a "digester" was, for the alchemist, an
operation of remarkable clarity, Chemistry, thus paralleled by simple
biological intuitions, is in a way doubly natural. It rises without dif-
ficulty from m i c r o cosm t o m a c r o cosm, from m a n t o t h e u n i v e r se.
The water that quenches men's thirst overflows the earth, The presci-
e ntific mind t h i n k s c o n cretely about i m ages that we t ake for m e r e
metaphors. It really thinks that the earth drinks water. Fabricius, in
the middle of the eighteenth century, conceived of water as a servant
" to nourish th e earth an d t h e a i r . " I t p a sses, then, to th e r an k o f
nutritive element. It is the greatest of the elementary material values.

IV
To be complete, a psychoanalysis of beverages must present the
dialectic of alcohol and milk, of fire and water, of Dionysus against
Cybele. Then it becomes clear that the eclecticism of conscious and
regulated life is impossible to sustain after these revaluations of the
unconscious are lived through, after one becomes aware of the
primary values of material imagination. For example, in Henry of
Ofterdingen, Novalis tells us that in a house Henry's father once asks
for "a glass of wine or milk," as if, in a story so full of mythic sugges-
tion, the dynamized unconscious could hesitate! What a hermaphro-
ditic weakness! Only in life, where politeness masks basic needs, can
one ask for "a glass of wine or milk." But in dream and true myths,
one always asks for what is desired. One always knows what one
wants to drink, always drinks the same thing. What one drinks in a
dream is an infallible clue to the nature of the dreamer,
A more thorough psychoanalysis of material imagination than this
one should be undertaken to develop a psychology of drinks and phil-
ters. Almost fifty years ago, Maurice Kufferath was already saying:

the love potion (der Liebestrank) is, in reality, the very image of the
great mystery of life, the plastic representation of love — of its im-
perceptible birth, its powerful evolution, and it s passage from
dream to full c onsciousness, through which, finally, its tragic
essence appears to us.

And opposing the literary critics who reproached Wagner for the in-
tervention of that "medicine," Kufferath rightly objects: "the phil-
 M ATERNA L W A T ER A N D F E M I N I N E W A T ER • 125

ter's magic power has no physical role; its role is purely psychologi-
cal.'" The word psychological,however, is too inclusive a word. At the
time Kufferath wrote, psychology did not have at its disposal the
many techniques for study that it has today, The zone of forgetful-
ness is much more differentiated than anyone fifty years ago would
have imagined it could be. The imagination of philters is therefore
subject to mult iple variations. I cannot h ope to develop it along th e
way. My task in t h i s book is to stress fundamental matters. Let me,
then, stress only the fundamental beverage.
Intuition of the fundamental beverage — water nourishing as milk
and conceived of as the nutritive element, the one obviously di-
gested — is so powerful that perhaps through water thus maternatized
the fundamental notion of the element is best understood. The liquid
element then appears as an ultra-milk, milk from the mother of
mothers. In his Fiee Great Odes Paul Claudel somehow bullies his
metaphors into going in a spirited, direct way to th e essence.

Your springs are not springs at all. The element itself!

Primary matter! It is the mother that I need, I tell you!

Of what im p ort is th e activity of w at ers in th e U n i v erse, says the

poet, drunk w i t h p r i m a r y essence, of what i m p or t t h e t r a n sforma-
tions and distribution of th e w at ers:

I want none of your waters which have been arranged, gathered

up by the sun, filtered, distilled, and distributed by the energy of
mountains.
Corruptible, flowing.

Claudel takes up the liquid element that flows no more, carrying

the dialectic of being into th e substance itself. He wants to seize the
element as it is finally brought under control, embraced, held fast,
integrated into ourselves. After the Heracliteanism of visual forms,
comes the strong realism of an essential fluid, a full softness, a
warmth equal to our own but w h ich still warms us, a fluid that
spreads out but still leaves us with the joy of total possession. In
s hort — real water, maternal milk, the perpetual mother, the M o t h er .

7. Maurice Kufferath, Tristan et Iseult,in Le Thedtre de R. Wagner de Tannhaeuser a

Parsifal, 3rd ed. (Leipzig and Paris, 1894), pp. 148 — 49.
 126 • C HAP T E R F I V E

This substantial v a l orization t h a t m a k es w ater an i n e x h austible

m ilk, the m il k o f M o t h e r n a t u re , is no t t h e o n l y v a l o r ization t h a t
characterizes water as profoundly feminine. In every man's life — or at
least in every man's dream life — a second woman appears: the
beloved or the wife, The second woman is also projected upon
nature. The woman-landscape takes its place beside the mother-
landscape. Of course, the two projected natures may interfere with or
s creen each o t h er . B u t t h e r e a r e c a ses i n w h i c h t h e y c a n b e
distinguished. I shall cite an instance in which the woman-nature
projection is very clear. In fact, a dream of Novalis even brings us new
reasons for affirming water's feminine substance.
After dipping his hands and moistening his lips in a basin that he
discovers in a dream, Novalis is seized by an "uncontrollable desire to
bathe." No visioninvites him, It is the substanceitself, which he has
touched with his hands and lips, which summons him, It summons
him materially by virt u e, it seems, of a magic participation.
The dreamer undresses and goes down into the basin, It is only
then that images come. They emerge from the matter; they are born
as if from a seed, from a primitive sensual reality, from a drunkenness
that cannot yet be projected;

From all sides unknown images surged upwards, images which

blended into one another to become visible beings and to surround
[the dreamer], so that each wave of the delicious element stuck
closely to him like a sweet breast. It seemed that there was dissolved
in this water a group of charming maidens who, for an instant,
became corporeal again at this contact with the young man.

It is a marvelous passage, manifesting a profoundly materialized im-

a gination, wh ere water, in it s v o l um e and m a ss, not simply i n the
fairy-world of its reflections, appears like dissolved maiden, like the ti-
guid essence fo maiden,"eine Au ftosung reiZender Madchen."
F eminine forms are born from th e v ery substance of water, at th e
touch of a man's breast when, it seems, man's desire becomes specific,
But a voluptuous substanceprecedes the forms of voluptuousness.

8. Friedrich von Hardenberg, Henry of Ofterdingen, trans. John Owen (Cam-

bridge, 18'f2), pp. 25 —
26.
 M ATERNA L W A T E R A N D F E M I N I N E W A T ER • 127

We would misunderstand one of the peculiar characteristics of

Novalis's imagination if we too readily attributed to him a S~an com-
plex. To do that would require proof that the primitive images are
visible ones. Now it does not seem that these visions are active. The
charming maidens are quickly redissolved in the element and the
dreamer, "drunk w it h j o y , " c o n t i n ues his journey with out experien-
cing any adventure with the ephemeral maidens,
Dream beings in N o v a l is's work, t h en , d o n o t e x ist except when
they are touched, Water becomes woman only against the breast; it
does not provoke distant images, This very peculiar physical charac-
t eristic of certain of N o v a l i s's dreams deserves a name, I t h i nk . I n -
stead of saying that Novalis is a Seerwho sees the Invisible, I would
rather say that he is a Toucher who touches the untouchable, intan-
gible, or unreal. He plunges more deeply than any other dreamer. His
dream is a dream within a dream, not in the ethereal sense, but in the
profound one. He falls asleep in his sleep; he lives a sleep within a
sleep. Who has not desired, if he has not lived, this second sleep in a
more hidden crypt? Then the dream beings come even closer to us;
they come and touch us, come and live in our flesh, like a hidden fire.
As I have already indicated in my Psychoanalysis of Fire,Novalis's
imagination is governed by a catorism,,that is, by the desire for a hot,
soft, warm, enveloping, protective substance, by the need for a mat-
ter that surrounds the entire being and penetrates it intim ately. It is
an imagination that develops in depth. Phantoms come out of the
substance like vaporous but full forms, like ephemeral beings but be-
ings that could be touched, to whom a little of the profound warmth
of intimate life has been communicated. All of Novalis's dreams bear
the mark of this depth. The dream in which Novalis finds the marvel-
o us water, t h i s w a t e r t h a t o f f e r s "maiden" everywhere, offers
"maiden" in the partitive, is not a dream of great scope, of wide vi-
sion. It is at the bot tom of a gr ot to, in th e bosom of the earth, th at
the marvelous lake, which guards its soft warmth jealously, is found.
The visual images born from so profoundly valorized a water will,
however, have no consistency; they will melt into one another, keep-
ing even in this the hydrous and calorific mark of their origin. Only
the matter will remain. For such an imagination, everything is lost in
the realm of the formal image, but nothing is lost in the realm of the
material image. Phantoms truly born from substance do not need to
 1 28 • C H A P TER FIVE

d raw out t h ei r a c t i v i ty . I t i s i n v a i n t h a t t h e w a t e r c l i ngs to t h e

d reamer "like a soft breast." The dreamer will ask for no more.. . i n
fact, he enjoys this substantial possession. How could he fail to ex-
perience a certain disdain for forms> Forms in themselves are clothes;
nudity that is too well defined is frigid, closed, and enclosed within its
lines. Consequently, for the dreamer drawn to heat, imagination is a
purely material imagination. It is of matter that he dreams; it is its heat
that he needs. Of what importance are fugitive visions when, in the
secrecy of night, in the solitude of the shadowy grotto, reality can be
grasped in its essence, in its weight, in its substantial life!
Such material images, soft and hot, warm and humid, cure us.
They belong to that imaginary medicine, so oneirically true and
forcefully dreamed that it retains a considerable influence over our
unconscious life. For centuries health was considered to be a balance
between "radical humidity" and "natural warmth," An old author,
Lessius (who died in 1623), expresses it this way:

Humidity, in which Life principally consists, is consumed together

with the inbred Heat. For whilst the Humidity or Moisture of the
Body keeps on wafting, so does its Heat equally abate too; and as
soon as its Humidity is once quite gone, or dried up, does its Heat
also jointly extinguish along with it, just the same as a Lamp, or
Taper goes out for want of Fuel.

Water and warmth are the two things vital to our well-being. We
must know how t o b e economical with t h em . W e m ust u n d erstand
that one tempers the other. It seems that Novalis's dreams and all his
reveries are an endless search for the union of a radical humidity and
a diffuse warmth. We can explain the beautiful oneiric equilibrium of
Novalis's work in this way. Novalis recognized a healthy dream, a
dream that slept well.
Novalis's dreams go to such depth that they may seem exceptional.
All the same, by searching a little and looking beneath formal images,
one can find them in t h eir r u d i m ent ary forms in certain metaphors.
For example, in a line by Ernest Renan we shall recognize a trace of a
Novalisian phantasm, In fact, in hi s Studies on Religious History,
Renan comments on the epithet Ka lliparthenos(of the beautiful
maidens) given the river by calmly saying that these waters "turned
into maidens." Though the image be turned and turned again, no for-
 M ATERNA L WATER AND FEMIN INE W A T E R • 129

mat characteristics can be found. No picture can legitimize it. Should

we challenge a psychologist of forms, he would not be able to explain
this image. It can be explained only by material imagination. The
w aves receive their w h i t eness and th eir l i m p i d it y f ro m a n i n t e r n a l
matter. This matter is dissolved maiden, Water has taken on the prop-
erty of dissolved feminine substance. If you want an immaculate
water, have virgins dissolved in it. If you want the seas of Melanesia,
have negresses dissolved in it,
There can be found in certain rites pertaining to the immersion of
virgins a trace of this material component. Saintyves recalls that at
Magny-Lambert, on the Gold Coast, "in times of drought, nine
maidens entered the basin of the fountain at Cr u anne and emptied it
completely in order to obtain rain," and he adds: "The rite of immer-
sion is accompanied here by a purification of the spring's basin by
pure beings. ... These girls who go down into th e fountain are
virgins.... " T hey force the water to become pure by a "real con-
straint," by a m a t erial participation.
In Edgar Quinet's Ahasverus,also, there is once again an impression
that is almost a visual image but whose matter is related to Novalisian
matter. "How many times, while swimming in an isolated gulf, have I
fervently pressed the waves to my breast! The water all awry hung on
my neck, the foam kissed my lips, Around me perfumed sparks flew."
A s can easily be seen, the "feminine form" is not yet b o rn , bu t i t i s
about to be b o rn , fo r " f e m i n in e m a t t er" i s t h ere in it s en t i r ety. A
wave "pressed" to the bosom with so warm a love is not far from be-
ing a palpitating breast.
If we are not always attuned to the life of such images, if we do not
grasp them directly, in their clearly material aspect, it is because
p sychologists have not g i ven m a t erial i m agination th e a t t en t ion i t
deserves. All our literary education has been limited to cultivating
formal imagination, clear imagination, On the other hand, since
dreams are most often studied only for the development of their
forms, no one realizes that above all they mime the life of matter, that
their life is strongly rooted in th e m a t erial elements. With a succes-
sion of forms we do not h ave what we need for measuring the
dynamics of transformation. The best that can be expected is a
d escription o f t h i s t r a n s f orm ation f r o m t h e o u t s i de, l i k e a p u r e
kinetics. This kinetics cannot appreciate forces, drives, and aspira-
 1 30 • C H A P TER FIVE

tions from within, The dynamics of dreams cannot be understood if

we separate it from the dynamic quality of the material elements that
dreams work over, We are looking at the mobility of the forms of
dreams from the wr ong perspective if we forget its internal dynamic
quality. In the final analysis, forms are shifting because the uncon-
scious becomes disinterested in t h em . W h a t b i nds the unconscious,
what imposes a dynamic law on it in the realm of images, is life in the
depths of a material element, Novalis's dream is a dream formed
while meditating on a water that enfolds and penetrates the dreamer,
on a water that brings a warm, massive well-being with volume and
density. He is charmed not by image but by substances, That is why
Novalis's dream can be used as a marvelous narcotic. It is virtually a
psychic substance for calming every disturbed psyche. He who is will-
ing to meditate on the passage from Novalis to which I have referred
will realize that it sheds new light on an important point of dream
psychology.

VI
In Novalis's dream there is also a characteristic barely hinted at,
but nevertheless active, and we must give it its full meaning in order
to have a complete psychology of hydrous dreams,Novalis's dream is,
in fact, one of many in the category of dreams of rocking. When he
enters the marvelous water, the dreamer's first impression is that of
"resting among the clouds in the purple of the evening." A little later,
he seems to be "stretched out on a soft lawn," Wh at, then, is the true
matter that carries the dreamer? It is neither cloud nor soft lawn; it is
water. Cloud and l awn are the expressions; water is the impression.
I n Novalis's dream, water is at th e h e art of th e experience; it con -
tinues to rock the dreamer while he is resting on the river bank, This
is an example of the constant activity of an oneiric material element.
Of the four elements, water is the only one that can rock. It is the
rocking element. This is one more feature of its feminine make-up: it
rocks like a mother. The unconscious does not formulate Archi-
medes' principle; it lives it. In his dreams the bather who is not look-
ing for anything, who does not wake up shouting "Eureka" — like a
psychoanalyst astonished by the smallest discovery — who finds night
"his own setting," loves and knows the lightness acquired in water.
He enjoys it directly, like a dream-knowledge, that knowledge, as we
shall see, which opens up an infinity for him.
 M ATERNA L W A T ER A N D F E M I N I N E W A T E R • 131

The drifting bark gives the same delights, brings up the same
reveries. It gives, says Lamartine with no hesitation, "one of the most
m ysterious sensual p l e asures i n n ature."9 I n n u m er able l i t e r ar y
references easily prove to us that the enchanting bark, the rom antic
bark is, in certain respects, a rediscovered cradle. During long, calm,
carefree hours, lengthy hours when, lying in the bottom of a lone
bark, we contemplate the sky, to what memory do you give us over>
All images are absent, the sky is empty, but the movement is there,
living, smooth, rhythmic, in a movement scarcely perceptible and
quite silent. Water carries us. Water rocks us. Water puts us to sleep.
Water gives us back our mother.
In such a general theme with as few formal details as the dream of
rocking, material imagination nevertheless leaves its specific mark. To
be rocked on the waves is, for a dreamer, the occasion for a specific
reverie, which deepens as it becomes monotonous. Michelet has
r emarked on i t i n d i r e ctly: "N o m o r e s p ace and n o m o r e t i m e , n o
f ixed point t hat can catch our at t enti on ; and t hen t h ere is no mor e
attention. Deep is the reverie and deeper and deeper. .. an ocean of
dreams on the smooth ocean of w ater."' T h r o ugh t hi s i mage
Michelet tries to depict the lure of a habit that relaxes our attention. I
f
The metaphoric perspective can be reversed, for being rocked on Ii
III

water truly relaxes our attention. Then we understand that reverie in FI

a bark is not the same as reverie in a rocking chair, This reverie in a F~I
lla I
l'll
bark governs a special habit pertaining to dreams, a reverie that
really is a habit. For example, a very important component of Lamar-
tine's poetry would be lost if we were to remove the habit of dreaming
on the w aters. T hi s r everie sometimes has an i n t i m acy of s t r an ge
depth, Balzac does not hesitate to say: "The voluptuous rocking of a
bark vaguely imitates the thoughts that float in a soul."" A beautiful
image of relaxed and happy thought!
These rocked reveries and dreams multiply in the same way as all
dreams and all reveries that are attached to a material element, to a
n atural force. After t hem come other dr eams that conti nue the im -
pression of extraordinary gentleness. They give happiness a taste for

9. Alphonse de Lamartine, Les Confidences(Paris, 1897), p. 153.

10. Jules Michelet, Le Pretre, in Oeuvres completes de Jules Michelet(Paris,
1893-1899), 32:205.
11. Honore de Balzac, Le Lys dans la vatlee, ed. Marcel Bouteron and Henri
Longnon (Paris, 1912 —
1940), 26:196.
 132 • M A T E R N A L W A TE R A N D F E M I N I NE WA T E R

infinity. It is near water and on water that we learn to sail on clouds,

to swim in the sky. Balzac continues, in the same passage: "The river
was like a path along which we flew." Water invites us on an im-
aginary journey, Lamartine also expresses this material continuity of
water and sky wh en, "eyes wandering over the lumin ous immensity
of the waters which mingled with the lurninous immensity of the
sky,"'2 he no longer knows where the sky begins or the lake ends:

It seemed to me that I w as swimming in pure ether and being

engulfed by the universal ocean. But the inner joy in which I was
swimming was a thousand times more infinite, more luminous and
more incommensurable than the atmosphere with which I was thus
mingled.

Nothing must be forgotten if we want to take the psychological

measure of such texts. Man is transported because he is carried, He flies
up toward the sky because he is truly lightenedby his blissful reverie.
When one has received the benefits of a st rongly dynamicized
material image, when one imagines with the substance and the life of
a being, all images come to life. Novalis, thus, progresses from the
dream of rocking to the dream of carrying. For Novalis, Night itself is a
matter that carries us, an ocean that r o c ks our l i f e: " N i g ht c a r r i e s
thee like a mother,"'

12. Alphonse de Lamartine, Rafael (Paris, 1920), ch. 15, p. 41.

13. Friedrich von Hardenberg, Les Hymnesa la nuit, ed. Charles Dudley Warner,
in Library of the World's Best Literature (New York, 1902), 27:10730.
Purity and Purification
Water's Morality

Everything the heart desires can always

be reduced to a water figure.
PAUL CLAUDEL,Positions et Propositions

I HAvE No intention, naturally, of treating the problem of purity and

purification in all its ramifications, At p r esent this is a problem that
emerges from the philosophy of religious values. Purity is one of the
fundamental categories of valorization and could even, perhaps, sym-
bolize all values. A very condensed resume of this great problem may
be found in Roger Caillois's book Man and the Sacred.My current aim
is more limited. Detached from everything related to ritual purity,
without dwelling on formal purity rites, I want to show especially that
material imagination finds in water a pure matter par excellence,a
naturally pure matter. Water, then, offers itself as a natural symbol of
purity; it gives precision to the prolix psychology of purification. It is
this psychology, applied to material models, that I would like to
sketch.
No doubt, as sociologists have amply shown, social themes are the
beginning for the great categories of valorization. In other words, true
valorization is social in essence; it is made up of values that are readily
interchangeable, that have a characteristic feature known and made
known to all the members of the group. But I believe that we also
must consider a v a l o r ization o f r e v eries that are u n e xpressed, the
reveries of a dreamer who flees from society, who claims the world as
his sole companion. Certainly this solitude is not complete. The
isolated dreamer retains, for in stan'ce, those oneiric values attached
to language; he keeps the poetry that is peculiar to the language of his
race, The words that he applies to things poeticize these things,
valorize them spiritually in a way that cannot completely escape the
 13 f • c HA P T E R s I x

influence of traditions. The poet who has made the most innova-
tions, exploiting a reverie freest from social habits, still bears in his
poems seeds that spring from the social resources of the language. But
forms and words are not all there is in poetry. To link them together,
certain material themes are imperative. My specific task in this book
is to prove that certain substances bring to us their oneiric power, a
kind of poetic solidity that gives unity to true poems. If things help
put our ideas in order, then elementary matter does the same for our
dreams. Elementary m a t ter r e ceives and p r eserves and exalts our
dreams. The ideal of purity cannot be lodged just anywhere, in any
matter. However powerful the purification rites be, they usually seek
a matter that is capable of symbolizing them. Clear water is a con-
stant temptation for a facile symbolism of purity. Any man, with no
guide or social convention, can discover this natural image, A
physics of the imagination, then, must take this natural and direct
discovery into account. It must examine attentively this attributing of
--a value to a material experience which, in this way, shows itself to be
more important t ha n an o r d i n ary experience.
In the specific, limited problem I am treating in this work, there is
therefore a methodological obligation that forces me to set aside the
sociological characteristics of the idea of purity. Here especially I must
be very careful in the use of mythological evidence. I shall use it only
when I find it quite prevalent in the work of poets or in solitary
reverie. Thus I shall relate everything to present-day psychology.
Though forms and concepts harden rapidly, material imagination
still remains an active power. It alone can revitalize traditional images
endlessly; it is the one that constantly breathes new life into certain
old mythological forms. It gives life back to forms by transforming
them, for a form can not t r a n sform itself. It is contrary to its natur e
for a form to transform itself. If we encounter a transformation, we
may be sure that material imagination is at work behind the meta-
morphosis. Culture transmits forms to us too often in mere words. If
we knew how to rediscover, in spite of culture, a little natural reverie,
a little reverie about nature, we would understand that symbolism is
a material power. Our personal reverie would very naturally reform
atavistic symbols because they are natural symbols, Once more I
must emphasize that a dream is a natural force. As we will have occa-
sion to note again, no one can know purity without dreaming it. No
 P URITY AN D PURIFICATION • 135

one can dream it forcefully, without seeing the mark, the proof, the
s ubstance of it in n a t u r e .

If I am sparing in my use of mythological documents, I must also

refuse any reference to rational kn o w ledge. One cannot construct a
psychology of the imagination by founding it on rational principles as
though they were a basic necessity. This psychological truth, so often
hidden, will appear prominently in relation to the problem treated in
this chapter,
For the modern mind, the difference between pure and impure
water is e n t i r ely a r a t i o n a l m a t t er . C h e m i sts an d h y g i enists are
responsible for that; when a sign over the water faucet designates
drinkable water, the final word has been spoken, and every scruple
v anishes. A r a t i o n a listic t h i n ke r m e d i t at in g o n a n a n c i en t t e x t -
with limited psychological knowledge, such as our classical education
so o&en produces — brings his precise knowledge like a recurrent light
to the data in the text. No doubt he realizes that knowledge concern-
ing the purity of waters was very unsound in those days. But he
thinks, nevertheless, that this knowledge corresponds to very spe-
ciflc, very clear experiences. Under these conditions, interpretations
of ancient texts are often overly clever readings.The modern reader too
often pays homage to the ancients for their "knowledge of natural
phenomena." He forgets that knowledge thought to be "direct" is a
part of a system that can be very artificial; he also forgets that the
"knowledge of natural phenomena" is closely connected with "nat-
ural" reveries. It is these reveries that a psychologist studying the im-
agination must unearth. It is , above all, these reveries that we must
r econstruct in o r der t o i n t e r p ret a t ext f ro m a l ost civilization. N o t
only must the facts be weighed, but the weight of the dreams must be
determined. For everything of a literary nature is dreamed before be-
ing seen, even the simplest of descriptions.
Let us read, for example, this old text by Hesiod, written 800 years
before our era: "Never urinate at the mouth of rivers which flow into
the sea, nor at their source: be very careful about this." Hesiod even
adds "Do not satisfy your other needs there either: it is no less
dangerous." To explain these taboos, psychologists who claim that
utilitarian views may be grasped directly will i m mediately find
 1 36 • c H A P TER sIx

reasons for them: they will imagine a Hesiod concerned about the
teachings of elementary hygiene. As if there were, for man, a natural
hygiene!Is there even an absolute hygiene? There are so many ways of
enjoying good health!
In point of fact, only psychoanalytic explanations can see clearly
through the taboos proclaimed by Hesiod. The proof is not far away,
The text that I have just quoted is found on the same page as another
taboo: "Do not urinate while standing facing the sun."' This one ob-
viously has no utilitarian value. The practice it prohibits does not en-
danger the purity of light.
From this point on, the explanation that is valid for one paragraph
must be valid for the other. The virile protest against the sun, against
the father-symbol, is well known to psychoanalysts. The taboo that
p rotects the sun from t h i s o u t r age also protects the river. A s i n g l e
rule of primitive morality here defends the paternal majesty of the
sun and the maternity of th e w aters.
This taboo is made necessary — is still necessary today — because of a
permanent, unconscious drive. Pure, clear water, in fact, is for the un-
c onscious a summ on s t o p o l l u t i on . H o w m a n y t a i n t e d f o u n t a i n s
there are in t h e c o u n t r y ! I t i s n o t a l w ay s a q u estion of d e l iberate
meanness delighting in the anticipated disappointment of passers-by,
The "crime" aims higher than an offense against men. There is, in
c ertain of i t s c h a r a cteristics, a sacrilegious tone. I t i s a n o u t r a g e
against nature, the mot h er .
Therefore, in legends there are numerous punishments inflicted on
vulgar passers-by by the powers of nature personified. Here, for ex-
ample, is a legend from Lower Normandy that has been recorded by
Sebillot:
The fairies who have just surprised a boor who has polluted their
fountain are in secret conference: "What do you wish for the one
who muddied our water, my sister?" "That he become a stammerer
and never be able to articulate a word." "And you, my sister?"
"That he always go about with his mouth open and stand gaping in
the street." "And you, my sister?" "That he never take a step
without, with all due respect to you, breaking wind."~

1. Hesiod,ed. T. E. Page and W. H. D. Rouse, trans. Hugh G. Evelyn-White (Lon-

don and New York, 1914), pp, 57, 59.
2. Paul Sebillot, Le Folklore de France(Paris, 1904 — 1907), 2:201.
 P URITY AN D PURIFICATION • 137

Such tales have lost th eir p o wer t o ac t o n t h e u n c o n scious, and

their oneiric force. When they are passed on now, it is with a smile
because they are picturesque. Therefore, they can no longer protect
our fountains. Let us note, moreover, that the prohibitions of public
hygiene, developed in an atmosphere of rationality, cannot replace
these tales. To fight against an un conscious drive, an active story, a
fable that could spin itself out on the very axis of oneiric drives would
be required.
These oneiric drives work on us for good as well as for evil; we sym-
pathize obscurely with the drama of the purity and impurity of water.
Who, for instance, does not feel a special irrational, unconscious,
direct repugnance for a dirty river? For a river dirtied by sewers and
factories~ We deeply resent this great natural beauty's being ruined
by men. H uysmans plays on t h i s r epugnance, this rancor, to
heighten the tone of certain imprecatory phrases, to make certain of
his scenes truly demoniacal. For example, he expatiates upon the
despairing attitude of Bievre today, dirtied by the City: "That river in
rags,"

that strange river, that dumping-ground for filth, that bilge which
is the color of slate and melted lead, frothing, here and there, with
greenish eddies, starred with muddy spittle, which gurgles on the
sluice gate and is lost, sobbing in the holes of a wall. In places, the
water seems crippled and eaten away with leprosy; it stagnates,
then stirs its flowing soot and takes up its journey again, slowed
down by mire... . Th e Bievre is nothing but a moving dung-heap.3

Let us note in passing water's ability to t ake on or ganic metaphors.

Many other passages could demonstrate, through their absurdity,
t he unconscious value attached to p ur e w at er. In t h e t h r eat t o p u r e
crystalline water, we can measure the fervor with w h ich we greet, in
their freshness and youth, the stream, the spring, the river, and all
reservoirs of natural limpidity. We feel that metaphors of limpidity
and freshness will be secure as soon as they become attached to such
directly valorized realities.

3. Joris Karl Huysmans, Croquis parisiens,in Oeuvres completes(Paris, 1928-193'0,

8:88-90.
 1 38 ' c HA P T E R s I x

O f course, the n a t u ral an d c o n c r ete experiences of purity i n c l u d e

o ther, more sensual factors that are closer to m a t erial dream t h a n
those contributed by sight or the simple contemplation on which
Huysmans's rhetoric elaborates. To understand fully the value of
pure water, one must revolt, with all the power of disappointed thirst
after a summer's walk, against the vineyardist who has steeped his
wicker basket in a familiar spring, against all profaners — those Attilas
of springs — who take a sadistic pleasure in stirring up the stream's bed
after drinking from it, The country dweller, better than any other,
knows the value of pure water because he knows that its purity is in
danger, because he also knows enough to drink clear, fresh water at
the right m o m e nt , i n t h o s e r are m o m e nts when th e i n s i pid ha s a
flavor, when our whole being desires pure water.
In contrast to this simple but complete pleasure, we can formulate a
psychology of surprisingly diverse and numerous metaphors of bitter
J l //
II UU II
and salty water, of bad water. These metaphors collectively form a
repugnance that conceals a thousand variations. A simple reference
to prescientific thought helps us understand the essential complexity of
l(ll'
III inadequately rationalized impurity. Let me mention first that it is not
the same thing at all on the present-day scientific level: a chemical
analysis today can designate bad water or undrinkable water in pre-
cise qualifying terms. If the analysis reveals an impurity, we can say
t he water contains selenium, limestone, or b acilli, If th e i m p u r i t i es
are many, the epithets still appear simply as juxtaposed; they remain
isolated, having been discovered in separate experiments, On the
other hand, th e p r escientific mentality — like th e u n c o n s cious-
a masses adjectives. Thus, after a n e x a m i n at ion o f f o u l w a t er , t h e
author of a book in the eighteenth century projectshis judgment — his
d isgust — in six epithets; th e w a te r i s s ai d t o b e a t o n c e , "bitter,
n itrous, salty, sulphurous, bit u m i n ou s an d n a u seating." W h a t a r e
these adjectives if not curses? They belong more to a psychological
analysis of repugnance than to an objective analysis of matter, They
represent the sum total of a drinker's grimaces. They do not represent
— as historians of science too readily believe — the sum total of empiri-
cal knowledge. The meaning of prescientific research cannot be thor-
oughly understood until we have formulated a psychology of the
seeker.
 P URITY AN D PURIFICATION • 139

Impurity, as far as the unconscious is concerned, is always multiple,

always abundant; it has a polyvalent noxiousness. From this point
on, it is understandable that impure water can be accused of all pos-
sible misdeeds. If, for the conscious mind, it is accepted as a simple
symbol of evil, as an external symbol, for the unconscious it is the ob-
ject of a n a c t i v e s y m b o l ization t h a t i s e n t i r el y i n t e r n al , e n t i r ely
substantial. Impure water for the unconscious is a receptacle for evil,
one open to every evil; it is th e substance of evil,
Thus, foul water can be loaded with an infinite number of evil
spells, It can be cursed;that is, through it, evil can be put in active
form. In doing this, we satisfy the requirements of material imagina-
tion, which needs a substance in order to u n d erstand an action. In
w ater thus cursed, a sign is all that is necessary: what is evil in o n e
aspect, in one of its characteristics, becomes evil as a whole. Evil is no
longer a quality but a substance.
This is the reason why the slightest impurity devalorizes pure water
completely. It is an opport u n it y fo r a c u r se; it receives a maleficient
thought naturally. We can see that the moral axiom of absolute pur-
ity, destroyed forever by one pernicious thought, is perfectly symbol-
ized by water that has lost a little of its limpidity and its freshness,
By examining with a n a t t e n t i ve, hypn ot ized eye the impurities in
water, by in t errogating water as we would ou r ow n c o n science, we
can hope to read a man's destiny in it . C e r t ain p r o cesses in hydro-
mancy refer to the clouds that float in water when an egg white or li-
quid substances which produce very curious arborescent trails are
d ropped into it . 4
There are dreamers who concentrate on troubled water. They gaze
in wonder at black ditch water, at water permeated by bubbles, at
water that shows the veins within it s substance and that raises, as if
by itself, a swirl of silt, Then it seems as though the water itself
dreams and is covered over with a n i ghtmarish vegetation. This
oneiric vegetation is already induced by a reverie when one contem-
plates water plants. A q u a tic fl or a is, for some people, a true exoti-
cism, a temptation to d r eam of a beyond far from th e sun's flowers
and a life of limpidity. Numerous are the impure dreams that flourish
in water, that lie heavily on water like the huge webbed hand of a
water lily. Many are the impure dreams in which the sleeping man
4. Jacques Albin Colin de Plancy, Dictionnaire lnfernal (Paris, 1825 — 1826), 4:205.
See article on "oomancie."
 140 0 cHAPTER sIx

feels circulating in him and around him black and muddy currents,
rivers Styx whose heavy waters are burdened with evil. The heart is
stirred by this dynamics of blackness, and our sleeping eyes follow,
endlessly, black upon black, this becoming of blackness.
The manicheism of pure and impure water, however, is far from be-
ing a balanced one. The m oral b alance leans, unquestionably,
toward purity, toward the good side. Water is inclined toward good.
Sebillot, who analyzed an enormous folklore on water, is struck by
the small number of cursed fountains. "The devil is rarely associated
with fountains and very few bear his name, while a great number are
named for saints and many for a fay."~

IV
N or must we assign a rational basis too readily to th e n u m e r ou s
themes of purification by water. To purify oneself is not purely and
simply to wash. There is no justification for speaking of the need for
cleanliness as a primitive need that man might have recognized with
his inborn wisdom. Very well-informed sociologists have allowed
themselves to fall into this trap. Thus Edward Tylor, after recounting
that the Zulus perform many ablutions to purify th emselves after at-
tending funerals, adds: "It is to be noticed that these ceremonial prac-
tices have come to mean something distinct from m ere cleanliness."
But, to affirm t ha t t h ese practices "have come to mean something"
different from the original meaning, we must have documents con-
cerning this original meaning. Very often there is nothing in the ar-
cheology of customs that allows us to grasp an original meaning
which brought a useful, reasonable, and healthy practice into being.
Tylor himself gives us evidence of a kind of purification by water that
has no connection with a regard for cleanliness: "Kaffirs, who will
purify themselves from ceremonial uncleanness by washing, are not
in the habit of washing themselves... for ordinary purposes." Thus
this paradox emerges: The Kaffir ~ashes his body only mhen his soul is
dirty. Many jump to the conclusion that people who are meticulous
in the matter of purification by water are worried about hygienic
cleanliness. Tylor also makes this remark:

The faithful Persian carries the principle of removing legal unclean-

ness by ablution so far that a holy man will wash his eyes when

5. Sebillot, 2:187.
 P URITY AN D PURIFICATION • 141

they have been polluted by the sight of an infidel, He will carry

about a water-pot with a l o n g spout for hi s ablutions, yet he
depopulates the land by his neglect of the simplest sanitary rules,
and he may be seen by the side of the little tank where scores of
people have been in before him, obliged to clear with his hand a
space in the foul scum on the water, before he plunges in to obtain
ceremonial purity.6

This time pure water is so highly valorized that nothing, it seems, can
defile it. It is a substance of good.
Rohde is another scholar who fails to avoid certain rationaliza-
tions. Recalling the principle that recommends the use for purifica-
tion of water from gushing springs or rivers, he adds: "In water thus
drawn from running sources the power of washing off and carrying
away the evil still seemed to be inherent, When the pollution is
unusually severe it has to be purged by the water from several run-
ning springs." "Even the water from fourteen different springs might
be used as a purification from murder" (Suidas), Rohde does not em-
phasize clearly enough that running water, gushing water, is primi-
tively living ~ater, It is this life that remains attached to its substance
which accomplishes the purification. The rational value — the fact
that the current carries refuse away — is too easy to refute for anyone
to hold it in the slightest esteem. It is the result of reasoning. All pur-
ity is, in fact, substantial, All purification must be thought of as the
action of a substance. The psychology of purification is dependent on
material imagination and no t o n a n e x t e r nal experience.
On a primitive level, then, we require of pure water a purity both
active and substantial. Through purification one participates in a fer-
tile, renovating, polyvalent force. The best proof of this inner power
is that it is contained in each drop of the liquid. The texts in which
purification appears as a simple aspersion are innumerable. Fossey, in
his book, Assyrian Magic, stresses the fact that in purification by
water "it is n ever a question of i m m ersion, but o r d i n a r ily of asper-
s ions, either isolated or repeated seven or two times seven times." I n
the Aeneid, "three times he [Corinaeus] passes among the company
bearing pure water and the auspicious olive branch with which he
sprinkles the men lightly and purifies them."

6. Edward Burnett Tylor, Primitive Culture (London, 1903), 2:434, 438.

7. Erwin Rohde, Psyche(London and New York, 1925).
8. Charles Fossey, La Magie assyrienne(Paris, 1902), p. 72.
 1 42 • c HA P T E R s I x

From man y p o i n t s o f v i e w , i t s e em s t hat ur a shingi s the m e t a -

phor, the translation in plain language, and that aspersion is the real
operation, that is, the operation that br i ngs reality to the act. Asper-
sion, then, is dreamed of as the primary operation. This is what pro-
duces the maximum psychological reality. In the fiftieth Psalm, the
idea of aspersion really appears to precede, as a reality, the metaphor
of washing: "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean." The hyssop
of the Hebrews was the smallest of the flowers they knew; it was prob-
ably, Becherelle tells us, a moss used for sprinkling. A few drops of
water, then, will give purity. The prophet then sings: "Wash me and I
shall be whiter t han sn o w." I t i s b ecause water has an inner power
that it can pur ify th e i n ner being, that it can give back to the sinful
soul the whiteness of snow. He who has been sprinkled physically is
cleansed morally.
Moreover, this is not an unusual fact but, indeed, an example of a
fundamental law of material imagination: for material imagination, the
valorized substance, even in an i n f i n i t esimal quantity, can act on a
large mass of other substances. This is the very law of the reverie of
power: to hold a small amount of something in the hollow of one's
hand by means of which one can dominate a universe. This is in con-
crete form the same ideal as knowing the key word, a little word that
unlocks the most hidden of secrets.
In the dialectical theme of the purity and impurity of water, this
fundamental law o f m a t e r ial i m a g ination a ct s i n b o t h d i r e c t i on s,
guaranteeing the eminently active nature of the substance: one drop
of pure water suffices to purify an ocean; one drop of i m p ure water
suffices to defile a universe. Everything depends on the moral direc-
tion of the action chosen by material imagination, If it is dreaming of
evil, it c a n p r o p a gate i m p u r i ty , ca n c a use th e d i a b o l ical seed to
bloom; if it dreams of good, it will have confidence in one drop of
pure substance and be able to cause its beneficial purity to shine
forth. The action of the substance is dreamed like a substantial
becoming, desired in the inner recesses of the substance. Basically it is
the destiny of a person. This action can then change any circum-
stances, surmount all obstacles, break down all barriers. Wicked
water is insinuating; pure water is subtle. In both of these directions,
water has become will. All utilitarian qualities, all superficial values
a re reduced to th e status of lesser properties. It is the i n t erior t h a t
 PURITY AN D PURIFICATION • 143

governs. It is from a central point, the condensed will, that substan-

tial action radiates.
By meditating on this action of the pure and the impure, we can
grasp how material imagination is transformed into dynamic imagi-
nation. No longer are pure and impure waters thought of only as sub-
s tances; they ar e t h o u gh t o f a s f o r c es. For e x ample, pur e m a t t er
" radiates" in the p h y sical sense of the term, it r a diates purity. C o n -
versely, it is also liable to absorb. It can then serve to gather purity in a
single mass,
Let me borrow an example from the Count of Gabalis's Conversa-
tions by the Abbe de Villars. No doubt these conversations have a
bantering tone, but there are some passages that are serious; these are
the very ones in which material imagination becomes dynamic,
Among some rather meager fantasies with no on eiric value, there is
i nterposed a l in e o f r e a soning t h a t v a l o r i zes purity i n a c u r i o u s
way,
How does the Count of G abalis evoke the spirits which roam
abroad in the universe> Not by means of cabalistic formulae but by
means of well-defined chemical operations, It is enough, he thinks, to
purify the element that corresponds to the spirits. With the help of
concave mirrors, he concentrates the fire from t h e s u n's rays in a
glass globe, There will be formed

a solar powder, which having purged itself of any mixture with

other elements.. . becomes.. . eminently fitted for m agnifying
the fire which is in us and for making us become, in a manner of
speaking, of a fiery nature. From that time on, those who inhabit
the sphere of fire become our inferiors; and delighted to see our
mutual harmony re-established, and to see us become nearer to
them, they extend to us the same friendship which they have for
t heir own kind. . . .

As long as the sun's fire is dispersed, it can have no effect on our vital
f ire, C o n d ensation f i r s t p r o d u ces it s m a t e r i alization, t h e n g i v e s
dynamic value to the pure substance, The elementary spirits are at-
tracted b y t he e l e m e nts, O n e m o r e l i t t l e m e t a p h o r, a nd w e c a n
understand that this attraction is a kind of friendship. We yield, after
all this chemistry, to psychology.
In the same way, for th e C o unt o f G a balis water becomes a
 14 f i cHAPTER sIx

" marvelous m a gnet"9 t o a ttract n y m p h s . Th e p u r i f ied w ater i s

nymphized. It will then be, in its substance, the material rendezvous
of nymphs. Thus "without ceremonies and without barbaric words,"
"without demons and without unlawful art," says the Abbe de
Villars, by the physics of purity alone, the wise man becomes absolute
master of elementary spirits. To govern spirits it is necessary only to
become a skillful distiller. The relationship is reestablished between
spiritual spirits and material spirits as soon as one has discovered how
"to separate elements by elements." The use of the word gas (gag), the
Flemish derivative of the word Geist (mind, spirit), gives rise to a
materialistic thought that br i ngs its metaphoric process to the follow-
ing conclusion: a doublet is based on a pleonasm. Instead of saying
that a spiritual spirit is a material spirit — or more simply that a spirit is
spiritual — we should say, in analyzing the Count of Gabalis's intui-
tion, that an elemental spirit has become an element, We progress from
the adjective to the substantive, kom q u a l i t ies to a substance. Con-
versely, when we yield completely to m aterial imagination, the
material dreamed in its elemental power will rise to become a spirit, a
will.
V
O ne of th e c h a r acteristics that m us t b e j o i n e d t o t h e d r ea m o f
purification that limpid water suggests is the dream of renovation sug-
gested by fresh water. One dives into water in order to be reborn and
changed. In The Hanging Gardens,Stefan George hears a wave mur-
muring, "Dive into me so that you can rise up out of me." By this we
should understand "so that you can be conscious of rising up." The
Fountain of Youth is a very complex metaphor deserving of a long
s tudy devoted ex clusively t o i t , S e t t i n g a s id e ev eryth in g i n t h i s
metaphor that comes from psychoanalysis, I shall limit myself to a
few very specific remarks to show how freshness,a very clear corporal
sensation, becomes a metaphor so far removed from its physical basis
that we can speak of a fresh landscape, a fresh painting, a literary
passage full of freshness,
The psychology of this metaphor is not dealt with — it is conjured
away — when we say that between the real and th e figurative mean-

9. L'Abbe de Villats, Le Cornte Gabalis, ou Entretiens sur les sciences secretes,

4th ed.
(Brussels, 1785), 2:296 —
98.
 P URITY AN D PURIFICATION • 145

ings there is a correspondence.Such a correspondencewould then be

only an association of ideas, In point of fact, it is a living union of
s ense impressions. For on e w h o t r u l y l i v e s ou t t h e e v o l u t i on s o f
material imagination, there is no figurative meaning; all figurative
meanings retain a certain amount of sense impressions, a certain mat-
ter perceptible to the senses. Everything depends on determining
what this persistent, perceptible matter is.
Everyone has in his own home a Fountain of Youth in his basin of
cold water on a morning bursting with energy, And wi t h out t his triv-
ial experience, the complex belonging to the poetic Fountain of
Youth could perhaps never have been formulated. Fresh water
awakens and gives youth to o n e's face, that place where a man sees
himself growing old and where he would like to keep others from see-
-ing him age! But fresh water does not rejuvenate our faces for others
so much as for ourselves. Beneath the awakened brow gleams a new
eye. Fresh water puts fire back in the eye. There lies the principle of
i nversion that e x p l ains th e t r u e f r eshness of the co nt emplation o f
water. It i s o u r o u t l o o k t h a t i s r e f r eshed. If w e t r u l y p a r t i c i pate
through material imagination in w ater's substance, we project a fresh
outlook. The impression of freshness that the visible world gives is an
expression that the awakened man projects on things. It is impossible
to realize this without making use of a psychology of sensory projection.
In the early mo r n i ng, w ater on o n e's face reawakens an energy for
s eeing, It m a kes sight a c t i ve, m a kes a g l a nce an a c t i on , a c l e a r ,
distinct, easy action. T h e n o n e i s s t r o n gly t e m p ted t o a t t r i b ut e a
youthful freshness to what is seen. The oracle at Colophon, Iambli-
chus tells us, prophesied by water: "N ow , w h ile water does not com-
m unicate the complete div ine i n spiration t o u s , i t d o e s fu r n ish u s
with the desired aptitude and purifies the luminous breath within
Uso • • • 10
Pure light thr ough pure water, such seems to us to be the psycho-
logical principle of lustration. Near water, light takes on a new tonal-
ity; it seems that l i ght h a s m or e clarity w he n i t m e ets clear water.
"Metzu," Theophile Gautier tells us, "painted in a pavillion situated
in the middle of a small body of water, to preserve the integrality of
his hues."" To be faithful to the projective psychology I would prefer
10. Pierre Saintyves, Corpus du folklore des eaux en France(Paris, 1934), p. 131.
11. Theophile Gautier, "La Toison d'or," in Noueelles(Paris, 1912), p. 183.
 146 • c HAP T E R s Ix

to say, "the integrality of his observation." We are moved to see a scene

with limpid eyes when we have reserves of limpidity. A scene's fresh-
ness is a way of looking at it , D o u b t l ess the scene has to contribut e
too; it must have some greenery and a lit tle water. But m aterial im-
agination has the longer task. This direct action of the imagination is
obvious when we come to l i t erary im agination; a style's freshness is
its most difficult q u ality. I t d e p ends on th e w r i t er , no t t h e s u bject
treated,
To the Fountain of Youth complex is naturally linked the hope for
a cure. A cure by water, in its imaginary principle, can be considered
from the double point of view of material imagination and dynamic
imagination. From th e f i rst viewpoint th e t h eme is so clear that we
need only state it: we attribute to water virtues that are antithetic to
the ills of a sick person. Man projects his desire to be cured and
dreams of a compassionate substance. We should not be too amazed
at the large number of m e d ical studies that th e eighteenth century
devoted to mineral water and thermic waters. Our century dwells less
on this subject. It is easy to see that these prescientific studies arise
m ore from psychology than f r o m chemistry. They i n scribe a
psychology of the patient and th e d o ctor in w a t er's substance.
The point of view of dynamic imagination is more general and less
complex. The first dynamic lesson of water is, in fact, elementary; a
man asks the fountain, as a first proof of his cure, to revitalize him.
Our feeling refreshed provides the common everyday reason for this
reawakening. Water helps us, through it s f r esh an d y o u t hful
s ubstance, to f eel e n ergetic o u r selves. In t h e c h a p ter d e v o ted t o
violent water, we shall see that w a ter can ad d t o i t s t e achings on
energy. But from no w o n w e m u s t r e alize that hy d r o th erapeutics is
not simply peripheral. It has a central component. It awakens the
nerve centers. It has a moral component, It awakens man to the ener-
getic life, Hygiene, then, is a poem.
Purity and freshness join together in this way to give a special hap-
piness which all water lovers know. The union of the sensory and the
sensual upholds a moral value. The contemplation and experience of
water lead us, by many routes, to an ideal. We should not under-
estimate the lessons taught by or i ginal matters. They have left their
mark on our m i n d ' s youth, T hey are necessarily a reserve of youth .
We discover them in c o n n ection w it h ou r m o st personal memories.
 P URITY A N D PURIFICATION i I f7

And when we dream, when we truly lose ourselves in our dreams, we

submit to th e vegetative and restorative life of an element.
It is only w hen w e r e alize the substantial qualities of the water of
Youth that we rediscover, in our own d r eams, myths of birth, water
in its maternal power, water which gives life in death, beyond death,
as Jung has shown. This reverie on the water of Youth is, then, so
n aturat a reverie that we can scarcely understand writers who try t o
rationalize it. Let us call to m i n d , fo r i n s t ance, that poor d r am a by
Ernest Renan, VYater of Youth.In it can be seen a lucid writer's inep-
titude for living alchemic intuitions. He confines himself to covering
the modern idea of distillation with fables. Arnauld de Villeneuve, in
the character of Prospero, believes it necessary to defend his brandy
(eau de vie — water of life) against the charges of contributing to: "Our
fine and dangerous products must be sipped carefully. Is it our fault if,
because they gulp them down, certain people die while we live?"
Reman has not seen that alchemy grows principally out of magic psy-
chology. It is almost a poem; it is closer to dreams than to objective
experiences. The water of Youth is an oneiric power. It cannot serve
as a pretext for an h i s t o r ian wh o t o y s for a n i n s t ant — and so awk-
wardly! — with an anachronism.

VI
As I said at the beginning of this chapter, these remarks fail to get
to the heart of the problem of a relationship between purification and
natural purity. The problem of natural purity would itself require ex-
tensive exposition, Let it suffice for us to evoke an intuition that casts
some doubt on this natural purity. Thus, while studying the Spirit of
Liturgy by Romano Guardini, Ernest Seilliere writes
Consider water, for example, so perfidious, so dangerous too, in its
movements and gyrations which resemble incantations or spells, in
its eternal unrest. Well, then, liturgic rites of benediction exorcise
and neutralize whatever malevolent element may be hiding in its
depths, curb its demoniacal powers, and, awakening in it powers
which are more suitable to its (good) nature, discipline its intangible
and mysterious powers which they put in the service of the soul, all
the while stifling what is magical, engaging and bad in it. Anyone
who has not e x perienced that, i n sists our poet o f C h r i stian
ceremonies, does not understand Nature: but liturgy penetrates its
 148 o C HAPTER SI X

secrets and shows us that in it are sleeping the same latent pocuersas
are in the soulsof men.'

And Seilliere shows that this conception of the demonizing of water

within its substance is deeper than the intuitions of Klages which do
not carry this demonical influence so far. In Guardini's estimation, it
is truly the material element that symbolizes within its substance our
own substance. Guardini agrees with Friedrich von Schlegel's insight,
according to which the malicious spirit acts directly "on the physical
elements." According to this viewpoint, the sinful soul is already an
evil water. The lit u r gic act that pu r i fies the water inclines the corre-
sponding human substance toward purification. Thus emerges the
theme of consubstantial purification, the need to extirpate the evil of all
of nature, evil in the heart of man as well as evil in the heart of
things. The moral life is like the imaginative life in this respect — both
are cosmic. The whole world wants to be renewed. Material imagina-
tion dramatizes the world in it s depths. It finds in the depth of
substances all the symbols of inner human life.
It is understandable, then, t hat p ur e w a t er, water th e substance,
water in itself (en soi), may take the place for some imaginations of a
primordial matter. It appears to be a kind of substance of substances
of which all other substances are attributes. Thus in his project for an
Underground Church in Chicago,Paul Claudel is sure of finding in the
innermost part of th e Earth a genuine, essential Water, a substanti-
ally religious water:

If one digs in the earth, one finds water, The bottom of the sacred
basin, around which would crowd row upon row of thirsty souls,
would then be filled with a l a k e. ... This is not th e place to
elaborate upon the immense symbolism of Water, which chiefly
signifies the Sky. . . .

This underground lake, dreamed of by the visionary poet, will thus

result in a su b t erraneansky. ... Water in its symbolism can bring
everything together. Claudel goes on to say; "Everything the heart
desires can always be reduced to a water figure," Water, the greatest
of desires, is the truly inexhaustible divine gift.
This interior water, this subterranean lake from which an altar

12. Ernest Seilliere, De la Deessenature a la deesse(Paris, 1931), p. 367.

 P URITY AN D PURIFICATION • 149

rises, will be a "basin for decanting polluted waters."" Through its

mere presence it will purify an enormous city. It will be a kind of
material monastery t hat wi ll p r a y w i t h o u t c e a sing in t he i n t e r i o r i t y
and permanence of its very substance. Many other proofs could be
found in Theology for the metaphysical purity of a substance, I have
kept only that which concerns the metaphysics of the imagination. A
great poet imagines intuitively the values that belong naturally to a
profound life.

13. Paul Claudel, Positions et propositions(Paris, 1928-1934), 2:235, 239.

The Supremacy of Fresh Water

For the Egyptians all water was fresh,

but especially that which had been
drawn from the river, an emanation of
Osiris.
GERARD DE NERvAL, Daughters o f Fire

Snvcz rN THrs study I wanted to limit myself to essentially psychologi-

cal remarks on material imagination, I have decided to draw from
mythological narratives only those examples that can be reawakened
in natural and living reveries today, Only examples from an endlessly
inventive imagination, as far as possible removed from the routines of
our memory, can explain t hi s aptit ude for p r o v i d ing th ese material
images, which go beyond forms and reach matter itself. It has proved
unnecessary to intervene in the debate that has divided mythologists
for a century. As is well known, this division of mythological theories
consists basically of wondering whether it is in the light of man or of
t hings that w e m u s t s t ud y m y t h s . I n o t h e r w o r d s , i s a m y t h t h e
memory of a hero's brilliant feat or that of the downfall of a world~
Now if we consider not myths but parts of myths, that is, the more
or less humanized material images, the debate is immediately more
subtle, and one feels a strong need to reconcile extreme mythological
doctrines. If r e v e ri e b e c omes a t t ached t o r e a l i t y , i t h u m a n i z es,
enlarges, magnifies it. All the properties of the real, as soon as they
are dreamed, become heroic qualities, Thus for the reverie of water,
water becomes the heroine of gentleness and purity. The dreamed-of-
m atter does not , t h en , r e m ain o b j e ctive; we can t r u l y sa y t h a t i t
becomes euhemeristic.
Conversely, despite its general insufficiency, euhemerism brings to
c ommon m a t e r ia l i m p r e ssions t h e continuity a n d u n i t y of a
remarkable human life. Despite its thousand faces, the river takes on
a single destiny; its source takes both the responsibility and the credit
 152 • CHAPT E R S E VEN

for the river's entire course, The strength comes from the source. The
imagination barely takes tributaries into consideration. It wants geog-
raphy to be the history of a king. The dreamer who sees a river flow
by calls up the legendary origin of the river, the far-off source. There
i s a potential euhemerism in all th e great forces of nature, But t h i s
secondary euhemerism must not cause us to forget the profound and
c omplex sensualism of material imagination. In t hi s chapter, I ho p e
to show the import ance of sensualism in the psychology of water.
This primitive sensualism, which provides arguments for a natural-
i stic doctrine of active images in my t hs, offers a reason for th e i m -
aginary supremacy of spring water over ocean water. For such a sen-
sualism the need to feel directly, to t o uc h an d t a ste, supplants the
pleasure of seeing. For example, the materialism of the drink can
o bliterate the idealism of vi sion. A m a t e r i alistic component t ha t i s
weak in appearance can distort a c o smology, Learned cosmologies
make us forget that naive cosmologies have direct sensual features. As
soon as we give material imagination its rightful place in im aginary
cosmologies, we shall realize that fresh ~ater is the true mythical urater.

It is a fact too long ignored by myt h o logists that sea water is an in-
human water, that it f a ils in th e f i rst duty of every revered element,
which is to serve man directly. No doubt sea gods animate the most
diverse mythologies, but I still wonder if sea mythology can be, in
each case and in every aspect, a primit ive myt h o logy.
First of all, as far as I can determine, sea mythology is local mythol-
o gy. It c o n c e rn s o n l y t h e i n h a b i t a nt s o f a c o a st . F u r t h e r m o r e,
historians, too easily swayed by logic, decide too readily that the in-
h abitants of c o a stal r e gions ar e n e cessarily sailors. For n o g o o d
reason they endow all these beings — men, women, and children-
with a real and complete experience of the sea, They do not r e alize
that the distant voyage and the sea adventure are primarily adven-
tures and voyages that have been narrated. For the child who l istens
to the traveler, the first experience with th e sea is on the order of a
story. The sea gives tales before giving dreams. The division — so psy-
chologically important — between story and myth is poorly drawn as
regards sea mythology, In t h e e nd , n o d o u b t , t h e s t o r ies catch up
with the dreams; the dreams, finally, are nourished — though only in
 T HE SU PREM AC Y O F F R ES H W A T E R • 153

a small way — by the stories. But the stories do not really participate in
the fabulating power of n a t u ral d r eams — sea stories, even less than
any others, since the traveler's accounts are not verified psychologi-
cally by the hearer, It is useless for one who comes from afar to lie.
The sea hero always returns from distant places; he comes back from
a beyond, He never speaks of the shore. The sea is fabulous because it
comes first of all from the lips of the traveler who has taken the
l ongest journey. I t c r e a tes fables about w h a t i s d i s t a nt , N a t u r a l
dreams create a fable about what has been seen, touched, and eaten
by the dreamer. It is wrong in psychological studies to obliterate this
first expressionism that d e t r a cts from t h e e s sential im p ressionism of
dreams and material imagination. The narrator says too much for the
hearer to feel it v er y m u ch , T h e sea-oriented unconscious is, from
then on , a sp o k en un c o nscious, an u n c o n s cious too d i s p ersed in
adventure tales, an un c onscious that n e ver sleeps. It th erefore im-
mediately loses all its oneiric powers. It is less profound than that
unconscious which dreams about common experiences and which
continues during the night th e in t erm i n able reveries of the daytime.
Sea mythology, then, rarely touches the origins of fable-making.
Of course, I need not point to the influence of learnedmythology,
which forms an obstacle to the exact psychological study of myths. In
learned mythology, we begin with the general instead of the specific,
We think we can make others understand without taking the trouble
to make them feel. Every subdivision of the universe acquires a god
designated by name, Neptune takes the sea; Apollo the sky and light.
Now it is nothing more than a question of vocabulary. A psycholo-
gist of myths should, therefore, make an effort to rediscover the
things behind the names, to live before the narratives and tales, the
p rimitive r everie, th e n a t u r a l r e v e rie, th e s o l i t ary r e v erie, w h i c h
gathers the experiences of all the senses and projects all our phan-
tasms on all objects, This reverie, once again, must place common
water, everyday water, before the infin ity of th e sea.

Naturally, the superiority of terrestrial water over marine water has

n ot escaped modern m y t h o l ogers, I m e n t io n a t t h i s t i m e o n l y t h e
works of Charles Ploix. They interest me all the more because the
naturalism of Ploix's mythology was originally naturalism on a large
 15 j i CHAPTER SEV E N

scale, created in proportion to th e m ost general cosmic phenomena.

His will be a good example for testing my theory of a material im-
agination that follows an inverse route and makes a place, beside the
visible and the distant, for the tangible and the sensual,
As we know, for C h arles Ploix the fundamental mythological
drama — a monotonous th eme w it h a l l k i n d s o f v a r i a t i ons — is the
drama of day and night. All heroes are solar; all gods are gods of light.
All myths tell the same story: the triumph of day over night. And the
emotion which sparks these myths is the most primit ive emotion of
all: the fear of darkness, the anxiety that dawn finally calms by its
coming. Men like myths because they end happily; myths end hap-
pily because they end as night ends, in the triumph of the day,
through the success of the good hero, the courageous hero who tears
and cuts the veils to pieces, alleviates suffering, and brings back to life
men who were lost in darkness as though in a kind of hell. In Ploix's
mythical theory, all gods — even those who live beneath the earth-
because they are gods, receive a halo. They will come, be it only for
one day, only for one hour, to participate in the divine joy, in the
diurnal action t hat is always some brilliant feat,
To fit in this general thesis, the god of the waters will have to have
his place in the sky. Since Zeus took the blue, clear, serene sky,
Poseidon will take the gray, overcast, cloudy sky. Thus Poseidon will
also have a role in the eternal celestial drama, Haze, clouds, and fogs
will then be primitive conceptsof Neptunian psychology. Now it is
precisely these objects, which are endlessly contemplated by hydrous
reverie, t h a t s q u e eze out the hi d den w ater i n th e sky, The
premonitory signs of r ai n a w a ken a special reverie, a most vegetal
reverie, that truly lives out the meadow's desire for beneficial rain. At
certain times the human being is a plant that desires water from th e
sky,
Charles Ploix brings forward numerous arguments in defense of his
thesis concerning Poseidon's originally celestial nature. It follows
that, if this was his original nature, the attribut ing of oceanic forces
to Poseidon came much later; some other personality must serve as a
double for the god of the clouds if Poseidon is to function as a sea god:
"It is absolutely unthinkable," says Ploix, "that the god of fresh water
and the god of salt water be one and the same." And even before go-
ing kom the sky to the sea, Poseidon will go from the sky to the earth.
 T HE SU P R E M A C Y OF F RESH W A T E R i 155

He will soon be, then, the god of fresh mater, the god of terrestrial
water. At T r o ezen "he was offered the first fruits of the earth," He is
honored under the name of Poseidon Phythalmios, He is, then, "the
god of vegetation." Every divinity concerned with plant life is a fresh
w ater divin i ty , a d i v i n i t y r e l a ted t o t h e g o d s of t h e r a i n a n d t h e
clouds.
In primitive mythologies, it is also Poseidon who causes springs to
gush forth, And Charles Ploix compares the trident to "the magic
wand with which one can discover springs." Often this "wand"
operates with male violence. To defend Danaus's daughter against a
satyr's attack, Poseidon th r ow s hi s t r i d ent , w h ic h b u r ies itself in a
rock; "Withdrawing it again, he causes three rivulets, which become
t he fountain at L e r na , t o fl o w o u t . " I t i s r e adily apparent t hat t h e
sorcerer's wand has quite a long history! It also participates in a very
old, very simple psychology! In the eighteenth century it was often
called Aaron's rod; its magnetism is masculine. Even in our day, when
talents are mixed, women " w ater-diviners" are rarely mentioned, In
the same way, since springs are provoked by the hero in such a
masculine act, it should not be surprising that spring water, above all
others, should be a feminine water.
Charles Ploix concludes: "Poseidon, then, belongs to fresh water."
It is fresh water in general because the waters, scattered in a thousand
springs over the country, all h ave " t heir fetishes."' In hi s f i rst
generalization, Poseidon is consequently a god who generalizes the
gods of springs and rivers. By associating him with the sea, people
only continued this generalization, Moreover, Rohde has shown that
when Poseidon takes possession of the vast sea, when he is no longer
attached to a particular river, he is already a sort of deified concept.2
F urther, there remains attached to the ocean itself a memory of th i s
primitive mythology. By Oceanus, says Ploix, "we must understand
.. . n o t t h e s e a , bu t t h e g r ea t r e servoir o f f r esh w a t er (potamos),
located in the far corners of the earth."
One could not better show how the dreamy intuition of fresh water
persists despite adverse circumstances. Water from the sky, fine rain,
the friendly and salutary spring give more direct hints than all the
water in the sea. It is a perversion that has put salt in th e sea. Salt

1. Charles Ploix, La Nature des dieux(Paris, 1888), pp. 444, 446, 449, 450, 452.
2. Erwin Rohde, Psyche (London and New York, 1925), p. 94.
 156 • C H A P T E R SEVEN

hampers a reverie, the reverie of sweetness, one of the most material

and most natural r everies existing. Nat ural reverie will always give
preference to fresh water, water that r efreshes, water that quenches
thirst.

IV
As regards gentleness, like freshness we can follow almost materi-
ally the formation of the metaphor that causes all assuaging qualities
to be attributed to water. Through certain insights water, so gentle to
the palate, becomes materially gentle. An e x ample taken from
Boerhaave's chemistry will show us the significance of this substan-
tialized gentleness.
For Boerhaave, water is very gentle. In fact,

it is so gentle that, reduced to the degree of heat found in a healthy

person and then applied to the most sensitive parts of our body
(like the cornea of the eyes, the membrane of the nose), not only
does it cause no pain, but it produces no sensation at all which dif-
fers from that caused by our humors. .. in their natural state.
What is more, applied lightly on nerves, distended by some inflam-
mation and so sensitive to the least thing, it does not affect them at
all. Poured onto ulcerous parts or on raw flesh. .. it produces no
irritation.
Hot compresses applied to exposed nerves partly consumed by an
ulcerated cancer, far from increasing the acuteness of the pain, ac-
tually alleviate it.

We see the following metaphor at work: water eases pain; therefore, it

is gentle, Boerhaave concludes:
Compared with other humors in our body, it is the most gentle of
all, without making exception even for Oil, which, although very
soothing, nevertheless acts on our nerves in an extraordinary and
inconvenient fashion, because of its very viscosity. ... Finally, we
have proof of its great sweetness, in that all sorts of acid bodies lose
their natural acidity which makes them so harmful to the human
body.'

Here sweetness and acidity no l o n ger h ave any reference to taste

impressions; they are substantial qualities that can contend with each

3. Herman Boerhaave, Elemensde Chimie (Paris, 1754), 4:50-52.

 THE SUPREMACY OF FRESH W A T E R • 1 57

o ther. In this struggle water's sweetness triumphs, It is a mark of i t s

substantial character.4
Now the road t r aveled between the first sensation and th e m et a-
phor is evident. The impression of gentleness which a thirsty throat
or a dry tongue can receive is no doubt very clear; but this impression
has nothing in common with the visual impression of the softening
and dissolving of substance by water. Nevertheless, material imagina-
tion is at work; it m ust b r in g pr i m i t ive impressions to substances. It
must then attrib ute to w ater the qu alities of a'drink a nd , above all,
the qualities of the first drink. T hen from a new point of view water
m ust be a m i l k ; w a t e r m u s t b e s w eet l ik e m i l k . S w eet w a ter w i l l
always be, in men's imagination, a special water.

The sweetness of water impregnates the soul itself. In Hermes Trismegiste,trans.

Louis Menard (Paris, 1866), p. 219, can be found these lines: "An excess of water
makes the soul sweet, affable, easy, sociable, and pliable."
Violent Water

There is a very unfortunate tendency

in our era to i m agine that nature is
reverie, laziness, and languor.
MIcHELET, The Mountain

The Ocean boils with fear.

DU BARTAS

As sooN As we give dynamic psychology its true role, as soon as we

begin to distinguish — as I have tried to do by considering the com-
p osition of w a ter an d e a rth — every matter in a c cordance with t h e
human labor it induces or demands, we shall not be long in under-
standing that reality can never be well founded in men's eyes until
human activity is sufficiently and intelligently aggressive. Then all
the objects in the world receive their true coefficient of adversity. These
activist overtones are not, I think, sufficiently expressed by "phenom-
enological intentionality," The examples phenomenologists give do
not show to great enough advantage the degrees of tension in int en-
tionality; they remain too "formal," too intellectual, Principles of
intensive and material evaluation are lacking, then, in a doctr ine of
objectivation that objectifies forms and not forces. There must be at
once a formal intention, a dy n amic int enti on, and a material inten-
tion so that an object can be understood in its force, resistance, and
matter — that is, completely. The world is just as much the mirror of
our times as it is the reaction to our strengths. If the world is my will,
it is also my adversary. The greater the will, the greater the adversary.
To understand Schopenhauer's philosophy well, w e must k e e p
human will in its position as initiator, In the battle of man against the
world, it is not the world that initiates. We will bring Schopenhauer's
insight to it s c o n clusion; we shall co m p ute th e sum o f i n t e l lectual
representation and clear will from The World as Witt and Representa-
tion in a formula: The urorld is my provocation. I understand the world
 160 • C H A P T E R EI GHT

because I surpriseit with my incisive forces, with my directed forces,

in the rightful hierarchy of my offenses, which are like embodiments
of my joyous anger, my ever-victorious, ever-conquering anger. In-
sofar as he is a source of energy, a being is an a priori anger.
From this activist point of view, the four material elements are four
different types of provocation, four types of anger. And vice versa, if
psychology is sufficiently concerned about the aggressive quality of
our actions, it will f in d a q u adruple root of anger in studies of
material imagination. T h ere it w il l see objective causes for those ex-
plosions that seem to be subjective. There it w ill f in d elements that
symbolize crafty or violent, obstinate or vengeful anger. How can we
hope to attain acuteness of judgment in this psychological quest
without a sufficient wealth, without a forest of symbols? How can we
convey all these returns, all these revivals of a reverie of power that is
n ever satisfied, never weakened, if we have given no attention to th e
very diverse objective occasions in which it triumphs>
If provocationis a notion that is indispensible for understanding the
active role of our knowledge of the world, it is because psychology is
not built upon defeats. We do not come to know the world all at
once, with a p l acid, passive, quiet knowledge. All constructive
reveries — and there is nothing more essentially a builder than the
reverie of power — are brought to life by the hope of surmounting
adversity, by the vision of a vanquished adversary, No one will find
the vital, vigorous, real meaning of objective notions except by study-
ing the psychological history of a proud victory over an adverse ele-
m ent, It is p r ide t hat g i ves dynamic u n it y t o a b e i ng; t hat i s w h a t
creates and stretches the nerve fibers. It is pride that gives the vital
upsurge (etan vital) its rectilinear tr a its, that i s t o s ay , it s absolute
success. It is the feeling of certain victory that gives the reflex its direc-
tion, its sovereign joy, its masculine joy in piercing reality. This vic-
torious living reflex goes systematically beyond its former scope. It
goes further. If it went only as far as the preceding action, it would be
merely mechanical and animalized. Defense reflexes that truly bear
the human stamp, that ma n a c quires, conditions, and ho lds ready,
are acts that defend while attacking. They are constantly dynamized
by a will-to-attack. They are a response to an insult and not to a sen-
sation, And let no mistake be made: the adversary who does the in-
s ulting is not necessarily a man, for t h i ngs also question us. On t h e
other hand, in his audacious experimenting, man brutalizes the real.
 V IOLENT WATER • 161

If we are willing to accept this anagenetic definition of a human

reflex duly dynamized by provocation, by a need to attack things, by
work undertaken aggressively, we shall understand that victories
over the four material elements are especially healthful, invigorating,
and refreshing. These victories govern four types of health, four types
of vigor and courage capable of furnishing categories for a classifica-
tion of behavior that are perhaps more important than the theory of
the four temperaments. An active hygiene, characterized by the mat-
ters on wh ich a c t ion i s ex erted — and how can w e f ail t o g i v e f i r st
place to the matter on wh ich the action is exerted, to the matter that
is being wrought — will therefore have, naturally, a quadruple root in
natural life. The four elements determine dynamically, even more
than materially, four types of therapy.

In order that this difference in the conquest of types of behavior

and states of health, which corpe from a struggle with material
elements, may be felt distinctly, we are going to study impressions of
adversity surmounted as closely as we can, still leaving them their
profound material stamp, Such will be the case for the dynamic
genius of the man who walks against the wind, on the one hand, and
o f the swimmer who swims against the current, on th e o t h er .
Since my aim in this work is to make a contribution to the psychol-
o gy of literary creation, let us take up tw o l i t e r ary heroes from th e
start to illustrate these remarks: Nietzsche the walker and Swinburne
the swimmer,
Nietzsche patiently trained his will for power by means of long
walks in the mountains, through a life in the open air on their sum-
mits. On these summits he loved "The harsh divinity of the savage
rock,"'
His thought is in the wind; he makes a battle of walking. Better,
uralking is his battle. This it i s w h a t g i v es rhythmic energy to
Zarathustra. Zarathustra does not speak sitting do wn ; h e d oes not
speak while strolling like a peripatetic. He pronounces his doctrine
while walking energetically. He throws it out to the four winds of
heaven.
Thus how easy is his vigor! Defeat comes rarely in a fight against
1. Friedrich Nietzsche, "A la Melancolie," Chants 1871 — 1888, in EcceHomo suivi
de poesies,trans. Henri Albert (Paris, 1909), p. 183.
 162 • CHAP T E R E IG HT

the wind. A ur ind herowho could be knocked down by one gust

would be the most ridiculous of all conquered generals. The hero
who challengesthe wind does not accept the reed's motto, "I bend and
do not break," for this is a passive motto, a motto that advises waiting
and bending with power. It is not the active motto of the walker, for
the dauntlesswalker bends for~ard in the face of the wind, against the
wind. His walking stick pierces the hurricane, makes holes in the
earth, thrusts through the wind. Dynamically speaking, the walker in
the wind is the reverseof the reed.
No more sadness: the tears occasioned by the icy wind are the most
a rtificial, the most exterior, th e l east sad of all tears. They are no t
feminine tears. The struggling ~alker's tears are not of sorrow but of
rage. They respond with anger to the anger of the tempest. The con-
quered wind will dry t h e m, While waiting, like d'Annunzio, the
walker in the excitement of his battle breathes in "the sulphurous
odor of the hurricane."z
The draped walker in the wind, how easily he symbolizes the Vic-
tory of Samothrace! He immediately becomes a pennant, a flag, a
standard, He is a sign of courage, a proof of power, the taking of a
field. The coat whipped about by the hurricane is thus a sort of in-
herent flag, the untakeable flag of the wind hero.
Walking against the wind, in th e m o u n t a ins, is no doubt th e best
way of conquering an inferiority complex.Conversely, this walking
that needs no goal, this pure ~alking, like pure poetry, gives constant
and immediate impressions of the will for power. It is the will for
power in its digressive stage. The most timid men are great walkers;
they win symbolic victories with each step, They compensatefor their
timidity with every blow struck by their walking stick. Far from cities
and women, they seek the solitude of the heights. "Flee, my friend,
into thy solitude", Flee the struggle with men to discover pure struggle,
the struggle with the elements, Go and learn to fight by fighting with
the wind. An d Z a r a t h u stra ends the stanza with t h ese words: "Flee
thither, where a rough, strong breeze bloweth!'"

2. Gabriele d'Annunzio, Forse che si, force cheno, trans. Donatella Cross, 17th ed.
(Paris, 1910), p. 37.
3. Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra, in The Philosophy of Nietpsche(New
York, n.d.), p. 5't.
 V IOLENT W A T E R • 163

Now let us see the second tableau of the diptych.

In water, victory is rarer, more dangerous, and more deserving of
credit than vi ctory in t h e w i n d , T h e sw i m mer conquers an element
that is more alien to his nature. The young swimmer is a precocious
hero. And w h a t t r u e swimmer was not f i rst a young swimmer? The
first attempts at swimming provide an opportun ity for overcoming a
fear. Walking does not have such a threshold for heroism. Besides, to
this fear of a new element is associated a certain fear of the swimming
instructor who o f ten pu shes his pupil int o deep water. It is not sur-
prising, therefore, that a slight Oedipus complex should manifest
itself, with the swimming instructor playing the role of the father.
Biographers tell us that at the age of six, Edgar Allan Poe, who was
later to be a daring swimmer, was afraid of water. A conquered fear is
always succeeded by a certain pride. Madame Bonaparte quotes a let-
ter from Poe in which he displays his pride as a swimmer: "I did not
think I was doing anything out of the ordinary by trying to cross the
Strait of Calais between Dover and Calais," She also tells of scenes in
which Poe, no doubt reliving old memories, plays the part of the
e nergetic swimming instructor, of the swimming Father, by throw in g
Helen's son, the son of the beloved, into the waves, Another young
boy was initiated in the same way; the game nearly turned out disas-
trously, and Poe had to leap into the water to save his pupil. Madame
Bonaparte concludes: "The profound Oedipal desire to take the
father's place rose up from the depths of the unconscious to join these
memories, already working in their fashion."4 No doubt, in Poe's
case, the Oedipus complex has other, more important sources, but it
is, I feel, interesting to n ot e t hat th e u n c o n scious multiplies father-
images and that all forms of initiation present Oedipal problems,
Still, Edgar Allan Poe's hydrous psyche remains exceptional. The
a ctive component t ha t w e h av e just grasped in Poe, the swimmi n g
i nstructor, is not able to ov ercome the melancholy component th at
remains the dominating feature of water insights in Poe's poetics. We
shall turn to an o t her poet to il lustrate the virile experience of swim-
ming, It is Swinburne who will allow us to portray the hero of violent
water,

Marie Bonaparte, Edgar Poe(Paris, 1933), pp. 341-<2.

 16'f i C H A PT E R E I G H T

Many pages could be written on Swinburne's thoughts and images

pertaining to the general poetry of water. Swinburne spent his child-
hood hours near water, on the Isle of Wight. Another of his grand-
parents' estates was sixteen miles from Newcastle, where great parks
extended over a section filled wit h l a kes and rivers. The estate was
bounded by the water of the Blyth River h o w t r uly is one a land-
owner when the domain has "natural frontiers" such as this one! As
a child, then, Swinburne knew the most delightful of all possessions:
having a river of one's own. At t h a t m o m ent the water images really
belong to us. They are ours; we are they. Swinburne understood that
he belonged to the water, to the sea. In gratitude to the sea he writes:

Me the sea my nursing-mother, me the Channel

green and hoar
Holds at the heart more fast than all things,
bares for me the goodlier breast
Lifts for me the lordlier love-song, bids for
me more sunlight shine,
Sounds for me the stormier trumpet of the
s weeter strain to me . . .
"A Ballad at Parting"

Paul de Reul has recognized the vital importance of such poems, He

writes, "It is not o n l y t h r o ugh m e t aphor t hat th e poet calls himself
the son of the sea and of the air and blesses these impressions of
nature which give unity to an existence and bind together the child
and the adolescent, the adolescent and the man."6 And, in a note, de
Reul quotes these verses from "The Garden of Cymdoce":
Sea and bright wind, and heaven and ardent air
More dear than all things earth-born; 0 to me
Mother more dear than love's own longing. Sea. . .

How could one show that things, objects, forms, and the many-
colored picturesqueness of nature are dispersed and effaced when the
call of the element resounds? The call of water demands, as it were, a
total offering, an inner offering, Water needs an inhabitant. It sum-
mons like a fatherland. In a letter to W. M, Rossetti that Lafourcade
quotes, Swinburne writes: "I have never been able to be on the water

5. Georges Lafourcade, La Jeunesse deSminburne (Paris, 1928), 1:43.

6. Paul de Reul, L'Oeuvre deSminburne (Brussels, 1922), p. 93.
 V IOLEN T WATER • 165

without wanting to be in i t." To see water is to want to be "in it." A t

the age of fifty-two, Swinburne tells us again of his ardor: "I ran for-
ward like a child, tore off my clothes, and threw myself into the
water, It lasted only a few m i n u t es, but I was in h eaven!"
Let us go on, then, without lingering any longer over this dynamic
aesthetics of swimming; let us listen, with S w i n b u r ne, to th e active
invitation of th e fl o o d s,
H ere is the leap, th e casting, a f i rst leap, a f irst casting int o t h e
Ocean:
As for the sea, its salt must have been in my blood before I was
born. I can remember no earlier enjoyment than being held up nak-
ed in my father's arms and brandished between his hands, then
shot like a stone from a s l ing t h r ough the air, shouting and
laughing with delight, head foremost into the coming wave — which
could only have been the pleasure of a very little fellow.

Here we have an initiation scene of which no precise analysis has yet

been made. On Swinburne's word all the elements of suffering and
hostility have been excised, and the status of a primary pleasure has
been conferred on it, Scholars believe Swinburne when, at the age of
thirty-eight, he writes to a friend: "I remember being afraid of other
things, but never of the sea." Such an affirmation amounts to forget-
ting the first drama, that drama which is always connected with a first
act. It is the acceptance as substantial joy of the initiation festival that
covers up, even in memory, t he i n n er t e rr or of t he i n i t i a te.
In point of fact, the leap into the sea, more than any other physical
event, awakens echoes of a dangerous and hostile initiation. It is the
only, exact, reasonable image, the only image that can be experi-
enced of a leap into the unknoum. There are no other real leaps "into
the unknown." A l eap into the unkn own is a leap into water. It is the
first leap of the novice swimmer. When an expression as abstract as
"leap into the unknown" is found to be motivated by only one real
experience, it is obvious evidence of its psychological importance.
Literary criticism does not pay enough att ention, I feel, to th e r eal
elements of images. In this example it seems that we can sense how
much psychological weight can be contained in a locution used as

7. Algernon Charles Swinburne, The CompleteWorks of Algernon Charles Swin-

burne, ed. Edmund Grosse and Thomas James Wise (London, 1925 —
1927), 18:181.
 166 • CHA P T E R E IG HT

concretely as "a leap into the un k n o wn " w h en m a t erial imagination

brings it back to its element. Man, equipped with his parachute, has a
new experience along these lines, If material imagination w o rk s on
this experience, it will open up a new field for metaphors.
Let us, t h en , r e store th e t r u l y p r i m a r y , t r u l y d r a m a ti c c h a r ac-
t eristics to i n i t i a t i on . W h e n w e h a v e l eft o u r f a t h e r's arms t o b e
thrown "l ike a stone &om a sling" int o th e u n k n ow n element, there
can be no other first impression than bitter hostility. One feels like "a
very little fellow." The one who laughs with a mocking laugh, a
wounding laugh, an initiator's laugh, is the father, If the child laughs,
it is a forced laugh, a constrained laugh, an astonishingly complex
nervous laugh. After the initial test, which may be very short, the
childish laughter becomes natural again; a recurrent courage will
mask the first revolt, The easy victory, the joy of being one of the in-
itiated, the pride of having become, like the father, a water being, will
leave "the stone from th e sling" w i t h ou t r a n c or. Th e j oys of swim-
ming will wipe out the trace of the first humiliation. Eugenio d'Ors
c orrectly saw th e p o l y v alent c h a r acteristics of " l a u ghter f ro m t h e
water." While the guide who shows the Hellbrunn estate near
Salzburg is displaying the Bath of Perseus and Andromeda, a con-
cealed mechanism makes a "hundred fountains" play and sprinkle
the visitor from head to foot. Eugenio d'Ors feels rightly that "the
l aughter of the perpetrator of this joke and the laughter of hi s
v ictims" do no t h a v e t h e s ame t o n alit y . "The surprise bath," says
Eugenio d'Ors, "is a variety of the sport of auto-humiliation."
Swinburne was also deceived by the impressions, accumulated dur-
ing his lifetime, that had been superimposed over an initial impres-
sion when he wrote, in Lesbia Brandon:"It was rather desire than
courage that attracted and attached him t o th e r o ugh experience of
water." He does not see the exact composition of desire and courage.
He does not see, remembering his first courage when desire was ab-
sent, that the swimmer obeys the desire for courage.In an energetic ex-
perience like swimming, there is no alternating between desire and
courage, only the vigorous action of a genitive. Like so many psychol-
ogists of the antepsychoanalytic era, Swinburne slips into a simple
analysis that plays on pleasure and pain as though they were isolated,

8. Eugenio d'Ors, La vie de Goya (Paris, 1928), p. 153.

 V IOLEN T WATER • 167

separable, contrary entities, Swimming is ambivalent, The first swim

is a tragicomedy.
Georges Lafourcade has properly appreciated the coenesthetic joy
of violence. Throughout his fine work, he very rightly gives a place to
numerous psychoanalytic themes. In pursuing Lafourcade's thesis, I
am going to a t t e mp t a c l a ssification o f d y n a mi c c h a r acteristics of
marine experience. We are going to see how the elements of objective
life symbolize with the elements of inner life. In the muscular action
required by swimming, there intervenes a specific ambivalence that
will allow us to recognize a particular complex. This complex, which
brings together so m a n y c h a r a cteristics of S w i n b u r n e's poetry, I
would name the Surinburne complex.
A complex is always the hinge of ambivalence. Around a complex,
joy and sorrow are always ready to exchange their eagerness. In the
experience of swimming, t h en , am b i v alent du alities can be seen to
a ccumulate, For ex ample, cold w a t er , w h e n o n e t r i u m p h s o ver i t
courageously, gives a sensation of warm circulation. The result is an
impression of special freshness, of tonic freshness: "the sharp sweet
minute's kiss/Given of the wave's lip of a breath's space curled. . . , "

But these are ambivalences working on the will for power, which
governs everything. As Georges Lafourcade puts it: "The sea is an
enemy who seeks to vanquish and w h o m w e m u st v a n q uish; these
waves are so many blows we must face; the swimmer has the feeling
that he hurls his whole body against his adversary's limbs." Let us
r eflect on th e v ery u n u sual n at ure of t h i s p ersonification wh ich i s ,
nevertheless, so accurate! The combat is seen before the combatants.
More precisely, the sea is not a b od y t h a t can b e seen, nor even a
body that can be grasped. It is a dynamic environment that responds
to the dynamic quality of our assaults. Even though visual images
arise from the imagination and give a form "to the adversary's limbs,"
we should certainly recognize that these visual images come second
and in a subordinate position because of the necessity of conveying to
the reader an essentially dynamic image that is itself primary and
direct and which, therefore, has its origin in dynamic imagination, in
the imagination of courageous movement. This fundamental dy-
namic image is, then, a kind of struggle in itself. More than anyone

9. Lafourcade, La Jeunessede Scuinburne, p. 49.

 168 • CHAP T E R E IG HT

else, the swimmer can say: the world is my will; the world is my prov-
ocation. It is I wh o stir up th e sea.
To experience the taste, the ardor, the virile delights of this "strug-
g le in itself," let us not p r o ceed too qu i ckly to a c o n c lusion, to t h e
end of the exercise when the swimmer rejoices in his success, finds
peace in healthy fatigue. To characterize dynamic imagination, let us
rather, as before, consider the action in the light of its premises; and
even though we wish to construct an image of "pure swimming" as a
specific type of "pure dynamic poetry," let us first psychoanalyze the
swimmer's pride when he dreams of his impending prowess. We shall
realize that his thought is an imaged provocation.Even in his reverie,
he is already saying to the sea: "Once more I am going to swim against
you, I am going to fight, proud of my new strength, fully aware of my
a bounding strength , a g ainst y ou r c o u n t l ess waves." T h i s e x p l o i t
dreamed by the will is the experience about which poets of violent
w ater sing. I t i s m a d e u p l e s s o f m e m o r ies t ha n o f a n t i c i p ation .
Violent water is a schema for courage.
Lafourcade, however, proceeds a little too rapidly to the complexes
of classical analysis. These general complexes must be rediscovered by
psychological analysis: all individual complexes are, in point of fact,
products of p r i m i t iv e c o m p l exes, but p r i m i t iv e c o m plexes become
capable of giving aesthetic experience only if they take on the distinc-
t ive characteristics of a c o s m i c e x p e rience b y a c q u i r in g c o l o r f u l
features and by being embodied in objective beauty. If the Swinburne
complex develops an Oedipus complex, the setting must be in propor-
tion to the person. That is why only swimming in n at ural waters, in
the middle of a lake or river, can awaken complexual forces. The
swimming pool, with it s ri diculous name, will never give its true set-
ting to the working out of a complex. It will also fail to provide the
ideal of solitude, so necessary for the psychology of a c o smic
challenge. In order to project our will successfully, we must be alone,
Poems about voluntary swimming are poems about solitude. The
swimming pool will always lack the fundamental psychological ele-
m ent that makes swimming healthy from a m o ral po int of v i e w .
Even though will furnishes the dominant theme for poetry about
swimming, feeling, naturally, is also present. It is thanks to feeling
that the special ambivalence of the struggle against water, with its vic-
tories and its defeats, can be included in the classic ambivalence of
 V IOLEN T W'ATER • 169

pain and joy. Moreover, we shall see that the ambivalence is un-
balanced. Fatigue is the destiny of the swimmer: sadism, sooner or
later, must yield to m asochism,
First and foremost, in the exaltation of vi olent waters, sadism and
masochism are for Swinburne quite mixed, as is fitting for a complex-
ual nature. Swinburne says to the wave:

My lips will feast on the foam of thy lips

Thy sweet hard kisses are strong like wine

Thy large embraces are keen like pain.

But there comes a moment when the adversary is the stronger, when,
consequently, masochism comes to the fore, Then, "each wave hurts,
each one cuts like a whip." "The scourging of the surf made him red
from the shoulders to the knees, and sent him on the shore whipped
by the sea into a single blush of the whole skin. ..," And faced with
such metaphors, often repeated, Lafourcade rightly calls to mind the
ambivalent suffering of flagellation, which is so characteristic of
masochism.
If we recall now that this flagellation appears in a narrated s~im,
that is, as a metaphor of a metaphor, we will understand that this is a
literary masochism, a virtual masochism. In the psychological reality
of masochism, flagellation is a preliminary condition for pleasure; in
literary "reality," flagellation appears only as a consequence, as the
sequel to excessive happiness. The sea flagellates the man whom she
has conquered and thrown up on th e shore, Nevertheless, this inver-
sion must not deceive us. The ambivalence of pleasure and pain
marks poems as it marks life. When a poem strikes a dramatic, am-
bivalent note, we feel that it is the multiplied echo of a valorized mo-
ment when the good and evil of a whole universe are bound together
in the poet's heart. O nce again, imagination can r aise insignificant
incidents of private life to the cosmic plane, The imagination is
awakened by these dominant images. A great part of Swinburne's
poetics can be explained through this dominant image of flagellation
by the floods. Therefore, I consider myself justified in using Swin-
burne's name to designate a special complex. The Surinburnecomplex,
I am sure, will be recognized by all swimmers, Above all, it will be
recognized by swimmers who tell about their swimming experiences,
 170 • C H A P T E R EI GHT

w ho make poetry out of t h eir swimming, for this is one of t h e

poeticizing complexes of swimming. It is therefore a useful theme for
explaining and characterizing certain psychological conditions and
certain poems.
Byron could be the subject of a similar study, His work abounds in
formulae that arise from a poetics of swimming, He furnishes many
variations on the fundamental theme. Thus in "The Two Foscari,"
we read:
How many a time have I
Cloven with arm still lustier, breast more daring
The wave all roughen'd; with a swimmer's stroke
Flinging the billows back from my drench'd hair,
And laughing from my lip the audacious brine

... again I spurn'd

The foam.' 0

The gesture of the hair flung back is in itself signiflcant. It is the mo-
ment of resolution, the sign that th e swimmer accepts the challenge
of combat, This movement of the head marks a will to be the head of
a movement. The swimmer tr uly comes face to face with the waves;
then "the waves bound beneath me," says Byron in "Childe Harold,"
"as a steed that kn ows his rider."
Of course there are many other types of swimming besides the
violent and active kind that we have just examined in this paragraph.
A complete psychology of water could find passages in literature in
which a dynamic communion between the swimmer and the waves
appears. For example, John Charpentier very aptly says of Coleridge:
"He surrenders himself to its dreamy seduction; he lolls in it like the
medusa in the sea, where she swims lightly, seeming to espouse the
rhythm of its parachute-like swelling, to caress the currents with her
soft, floating umbels."" Through this image, lived so completely from
a dynamic point of view, so faithful to the forces of material imagina-
tion, John Charpentier helps us to reach an understanding of the
relaxed, eotumetric swim at the precise dividing point between active
and passive, floating and propulsion, which is allied to the reverie of

10. George G. N. Byron, "The Two Foscari," in The Poems and PlaysfoLord Byron
(London and New York, 1927 — 1933), 3:382.
11. John Charpentier, Coleridge, LeSomnambule sublime (Paris, 1928), p. 135.
 V IOLEN T WATER • 171

rocking (for everything is related in the unconscious), This image is a

great Coleridgian truth. Did Coleridge not write to Wedgewood in
1803: "... my whole Being is filled with waves, as it were, that roll &.
stumble, one this way, &. one that way, like things that have no com-
mon master." Such is th e d r eam of a ma n wh o c a n not pr o vokethe
world; this will be the kind of swimming for a man who cannot pro-
voke the sea.
A study pursued further along these lines would allow me to go
&om types of swimming to pisciform metamorphoses. Then I would
have to establish the natural history of imaginary fish. These im-
aginary fish are not very numerous in literature, for our dynamic im-
agination is weak with respect to water. In his story The Water Man,
Tieck has sincerely tried to describe the metamorphosis of a man
dedicated to elementary water. Yet Giraudoux's The Undine does not
conform to myth ical sincerity; it does not draw on a profound oneiric
experience. The excuse offered is that Giraudoux escapes, as from a
game which tires him quickly, from these "fish metaphors." He was
unable to go from metaphor to metamorphosis, To ask a siren to do a
split is nothing but a static formal joke lacking sympathy with the
dynamic imagination of th e w aters.
Since complexual psychology is often clarified by the study of
weakened or derived complexes, I am now going to study Swinburne
complexes that have lost their power. For the challenge to the sea
also has its br aggarts. From th e s h o re, for i n s t ance, provocation is
easier and is therefore more eloquent, It designates masked S~inburne
complexes that are dressed up with very diverse aesthetic components.
I shall examine some of these new aspects of reverie and literature
that deal with w a t er .

IV
Is there a more banal theme than that of the Ocean's anger?A calm
sea is suddenly seized with wrath. It grumbles and roars. It is given all
the metaphors of fury, all the animal symbols of fury and rage. It
shakes its lion's mane, Its foam resembles "the saliva of a leviathan,"
"the water is full of claws."" Thus, Victor Hugo composed in Toilers
of the Sea an admirable psychology of the tempest. In these passages,

12. Victor Marie Hugo, Les Travailleurs,in Oeuvres completes de Victor Hugo
(Paris, 1905), 11:178.
 172 • CHA P T E R E IG HT

which have spoken so clearly to the minds of common men, Hugo

g athers th e m o s t d i v e r s e m etaphors, certain t hat h e will be
understood. It is because the psychology of anger is basically one of
the richest and most varied. It goes from hypocrisy and cowardice to
cynicism and crime, The number of psychological conditions pro-
jected is much greater for anger than for love, Metaphors for a good-
natured, happy sea, therefore, will be less numerous than those for ill-
natured sea.
Since my primary purpose in this chapter is to clarify the principle
behind dynamic projection, I shall study only one well-defined case of
the projection of violence by setting aside, insofar as is possible, the
influence of visual images and by following certain attitudes that are
part of the dyn amic in t i m acy of th e u n i v erse.
For example, on several occasions Balzac shows us in The Cursed
Child a soul in complete accord with the sea's dynamic life.
Etienne, the cursed child, is, so to speak, dedicated to the Ocean's
w rath. At t h e m o m en t of hi s b i r t h ,

a horrible tempest roared through the chimney which re-echoed its

smallest gusts while giving them a lugubrious sound, and the width
of its flue put it in such close contact with the sky that the many
logs on the hearth seemed almost to breathe; they glowed and
dimmed by turns at the whim of the wind,

This strange image, in which a chimney flue like a rough unfinished

t hroat, awkwardly r a t i on alizes — its awkwardness is no doubt i n t e n -
tional — the hurricane's angry breathing. By this rude means, the
o cean's prophetic voice carries into th e m ost closed of rooms. Th i s
birth in a night of horrible tempest marks the life of the accursed
child forever with a fatal sign.
In the middle of his story, Balzac conveys his inmost thought to us;
there is a correspondence, in the Swedenborgian sense, between the
life of an enraged element and the life of an unhappy conscience.
He had already, on several occasions, found a mysterious relation-
ship between his emotions and the Ocean's movements. The ability
that his occult knowledge had given him to guess matter's thoughts
made this phenomenon more meaningful to him than it w o uld
have been to anyone else.
How can we recognize more clearly that matter possesses a thought, a
 V IOLEN T WATER • 173

reverie, and that it is not limited to thinking, dreaming, and suffering

within us? Let us not forget that the "occult knowledge" of the cursed
child is not clever magic; it has nothing in common with the "learned
skill" of a Faust. It is both an obscure foreknowledge and a direct
knowledge of the elements' inner life. It has not been acquired in a
laboratory by experimenting with substances but in a face to face en-
counter with N a t u r e an d th e O c e an, in sol itary meditation. Balzac
continues: "During the fateful evening when he was going to visit his
mother for th e l ast t i me , th e O c ean wa s disturbed by m o v e m ents
which seemed to hi m e x t r a or d in ary." N eed I p o in t ou t t h a t an e x -
traordinary tempest is a tempest seen by someone who is in an extraor-
dinary psychological state? Then really there is, between the universe
and man, an extraordinary correspondence, an internal, intimate, sub-
stantial communication. Correspondences are established in rare and
s olemn m o m e n ts. I n w ar d m e d i t a t io n p r o v i de s c o n t emplation i n
which the inmost recesses of the world are disclosed, Meditation with
closed eyes and contemplation with wide-open eyes suddenly have
the same life, The soul suffers in things; to the distress of a soul cor-
responds the misery of an ocean:
There was a movement in the waters which showed that the sea
was being disturbed internally; it was swollen by huge waves which
broke on the shore with lugubrious sounds, like the howling of dogs
in distress. Etienne was surprised to discover that he was saying to
himself: "What does it want of me? it labors and complains like a
living creature! My mother often told me that the Ocean was in the
grip of horrible convulsions during the night I was born. What is
going to happen to me?"
The convulsions of a dramatic birth thus increase in power until they
are the convulsions of an ocean,
From then on, the correspondencebecomes more pronounced from
page to page. "After searching diligently for another self to whom he
could confide his thoughts and whose life could become his own, he
finally reached an intimate understanding with the Ocean. The sea
became, for him, a living, thinking being. ..." The scope of these
passages would be imperfectly grasped if nothing were seen in them
but a banal animism or even a literary device to animate the setting
along with the character. In fact, Balzac will discover psychological
nuances so rarely noted that t h eir n o v elty is a guarantee of genuine
 17 f i C HAPTER EI GH T

psychological observation. We must remember them as most infor-

mative observations for a psychology of dynamic imagination,
Let us watch the will for p o wer as it comes on the scene. Between
Etienne and the Ocean there is not merely a vague, indifferent sym-
pathy. There is, above all, an angry sympathy,a direct and reversible
communication of violence. It seems, therefore, that the objective signs
of a tempest are no longer necessary for the cursed child to predict it.
This prediction is not of a semeiological type; it is of a psychological
order. It arises from the psychology of anger,
Between two beings who grow angry the first signs are tri fles, trifles
t hat are not d eceptive. Is there a m or e i n t i m ate di alogue than t h e
dialogue between two angers> The angry I and thou are born at the
s ame instant, in t h e s am e a t m osphere of dead calm, I n t h e i r f i r s t
manifestations, they are both direct and veiled. The angry I and thou
c ontinue their repressed life together, They are hidden and i n
evidence; their hypocrisy follows a common pattern, one of almost
conventional politeness, Finally, the angry I and t h ou burst out
together in a warlike fanfare, They sound the same pitch. Between
the cursed child and the Ocean is drawn the same diagram of anger,
the same scale of violence, the same agreement between two wills for
power. Etienne

felt a real tempest in his own soul when [the sea] became angry; he
breathed in his anger in sharp hisses, he ran along with the enor-
mous tears which broke into a thousand liquid fragments against
the rocks, he felt as dauntless and as terrible as the sea itself and like
it bounded in prodigious retreats; he kept its dismal silences, he im-
itated its sudden mercies.'

Here, Balzac has just discovered a genuine psychological feature

that proves the generality of a particular action, For who has not seen a
lymphatic child on the seashore giving orders to the waves> The child
calculates his command so that he will u t ter it at th e m o m ent wh en
the wave will obey. He regulates his will for power with the cycle of
the swell that deposits its waves on the sand and pulls them back. He
establishes within himself a sort of cleverly timed anger in which a
defense that is easy and an attack that is aturays victorioussucceed one

13. Honore de Balzac, Enfant Maudit, in Oeuvres completes de Honore de Batzac,ed.

Marcel Bouteron and Henri Longnon (Paris, 1912 — 1940), 28:335, 386, 391, 392.
 V IOLENT W A T E R • 175

another. Dauntless, the child pursues the retreating water; he defies

the hostile sea as it is retreating. While fleeing the advancing sea, he
flouts it. All human battles are symbolized in this child's game. For
hours on end the child commanding the waves feeds in this manner a
masked Swinburne complex, the Swinburne complex of a landsman,
It seems to me that, once all the forms of the Swinburne complex
have been properly identified, literary criticism should attach more
i mportance than i t d o e s t o s u c h c h a r acteristic passages. With h i s
usual psychological depth, Michelet has noted the same scene:
Every young imagination [sees in the waves' violence] an image of
war, a combat, and, at first, is afraid. Then, observing that this fury
has limits which it does not overstep, the child, reassured, hates
more than fears the savage thing which seems to wish him harm.
He, in turn, throws stones at the huge, roaring enemy. I observed
this duel in Le Havre in July, 1831. A little girl whom I had brought
there, into the presence of the sea, felt her youthful courage within
her and became indignant over these challenges. She gave back war
for war. An unequal fight, enough to bring a smile to the lips, be-
tween the delicate hand of this fragile creature and the unspeakable
might which took so little notice of it.'4

It is, however, quite obvious that to und erstand a complex so well,

one must participate in it oneself, And Michelet is a good example of
this, Does he not seem to suffer philosophically from the fact that the
Ocean "takes so little notice" of m en's courage?
In such reciprocal challenges, the poorer the writer is, the more ver-
bose the Ocean. But still our pride is always aroused when the wave is
fleeing. Everything which flies before us, though it be only inert,
lifeless water, makes us valiant, In a novel by Jules Sandeau, we find
in many details the same masked Swinburne complex: "When the
Ocean withdrew from the shore, Marianna loved to follow the fleeing
wave and see it come back upon her. Then she, in turn, fled. .., She
fled, but one step at a time, with unwilling step as though she wanted
to be caught." Sometimes it is the cries of the coastguardsman that
snatch her "from the clutches of the wave which is on the point of
devouring her." Further on, dramatizing the danger, Sandeau tells us
that the billows leap "like a hyena" on Marianna and waves "trample
14. Jules Michelet, La Mer, ed. William Robertson (Oxford, 1907), bk. 1, pt. 1,
pp. 5-6.
 176 • CHAP T E R E IG HT

on her body,"" We can see that the sea has an animal fury, a human
fury.
Here, then, is a novelist who must depict the revolt of a wounded
soul, of a much-beloved woman, betrayed by life, embittered by the
most unjust of betrayals, and the writer finds nothing better to repre-
sent so intimate a revolt than the game of a child who defies the
Ocean! That is because images of our earliest imagination govern our
entire life, because they are placed as if of their own will on the axis of
human dramas, The tempest gives us the natural images of passion,
A s Nov alis, w it h h i s g e n i u s fo r d i r e c t e x p r ession, p ut s i t , "The
tempest encourages passion."
Thus when we go to the root of images, when we relive images in
t heir basic m atter an d s t r e n gth , w e c a n d i s cover th e e m o t io n i n
passages unjustly accused of declamation — as if declamation itself
were not, by vi r tue of its beauty, a verbal tempest, a passion for ex-
pression. Thus when we understand the realistic meaning of a Swin-
burne complex, we discover a note of sincerity in a passage like this
one:

0 vanity of sorrow! In the presence of the sea, Marianna did not

humble herself before this great sorrowful creature, which filled its
banks with eternal lamentations. She thought she heard a soul
answer her soul's sobs. ... There was established between them
some sort of mysterious communication. When the swollen waves
were leaping up in f ury — mares with white manes — pale, wind-
blown, she went down to the shore; and there, like the Spirit of the
Tempest, she mingled her cries with th e h u r ricane's clamor-
Good!, she said, walking against the wave; good! tormented like
me, this is the way I like you! — And offering herself with somber joy
to the icy spray which the wind threw into her face, she thought
she received a kiss from her sister in despair.'

Need we underscore the nuance of this terrible, this active melan-

choly, a melancholy that desires the repeated insult of things after
having already suff'ered men's insult> It is the melancholy of violent
waters, very different from Poe's melancholy of dormant waters.
The gentlest of souls can be surprised in the act of heroic "compen-
sation." Th e t e n der M a r celine Desbordes-Valmore — heroldest
15. Jules Sandeau, Marianna, 9th ed. (Paris, 1871), pp. 202, 209.
16. Ibid., p. 197.
 V IOLEN T WATER • 177

daughter was named Ondine — tells how, coming back alone from
America, at the age of fifteen, she had herself fastened securely in the
shrouds by th e sailors so as to be p r esent wit h out g r o ans, with o ut
cries, without a murm ur, at "the moving spectacle of the tempest and
the fight waged by men against the unleashed elements."' Without
m aking an y j u d g m en t c o n c e r n in g t h e t r u e f a c t s o f t h i s d i s t a n t
memory or wondering if it might not be one of those recurrent scenes
of heroism so frequent in writers' "childhood memories," let us note
in passing the great prerogative of a psychology of the imagination:
the exaggeration of a n a c t ua l f act p r o ves no t h ing — quite the con -
trary — against a fact of the imagination. The imaginedfact is more
important than the real fact. In Marceline Desbordes-Valmore's re-
collections, memory dr a matizes;t herefore we can be s u re t h a t t h e
writer imagines. The drama of the young orphan girl has been
engraven in a great image, Her courage in the face of life has found its
symbol in her courage before the sea in fury,
Moreover, there are cases in which we see a sort of guarded, con-
trolled Swinburne complex in action, They provide, I believe, valu-
able confirmation of my theses on dynamic imagination. What is true
human calm> It is calm acquired by self-control; it is not natural
calm. It is calm gained by defeating violence and anger. It disarms the
adversary, imposes its calm on th e a d v ersary, declares peace in the
world. We dream of a magic, reciprocal accord between the world
and man. Edgar Quinet expresses this magic of the imagination with
singular force in his great poem about Merlin the Magician:
What dost thou do to pacify the furious sea?
I control my own anger."

How could it be better stated> Anger is a basic means of under-

standing dynamic imagination. We give and receive it; we transmit it
to the universe, and we curb it in our heart as in the universe. Anger
is the most direct of all the tr ansactions between man and th i n gs. It
a rouses no v ai n i m a g es, for i t i s t h e o n e t h a t p r o v i d e s p r i m ar y
dynamic images.
Violent water is one of the first settings for universal anger. There-
fore there can be no epic without a storm scene. J. Rouch notes this,

17. Arthur Pougin, La Jeunesse deMme Desbordes-Valmore (Paris, 1898), p. 56.

18. Edgar Quinet, Oeuvres completes d'EdgarQuinet (Paris, 1891-1933), 16:412.
 178 • CHAPTER EIGH T

and he studies — as a meteorologist — the tempest described by Ron-

sard in the Franciade." Human grandeur needs to compare itself to
the world's grandeur: "Noble thoughts are born of noble sights," says
Chateaubriand, after the description of the tempest in The Martyrs.
In fact, there are passages in which the Swinburne complex gives
life to a grandiose philosophy, in which a man conscious of his
superhuman strength raises himself to the role of a dominating Nep-
tune. Is it chance that makes Goethe, partisan, as we know, of Nep-
tunism in geology, one of the most obvious psychological Neptunes?In
Faust Part Il is found this passage:
Faust. Mine eye was fixed upon the open sea:
Aloft it towered, upheaving; then once more
Withdrew, and shook its waves exultingly,
To storm the wide expanse of level shore-
That angered me, since arrogance of mood,
In the free soul, that values every right,
Through the impetuous passion of the blood,
Harsh feeling genders, in its own despite.
I deemed it chance; more keenly eyed the main:
The billow paused, and then rolled back again,
And from its proudly conquered goal withdrew;

On through a thousand channels it doth press,

Barren itself, and causing barrenness;
It waxes, swells, it rolls and spreads its reign
Over the waste and desolate domain.
There, power-inspired, wave upon wave sweeps on,
Triumphs awhile, retreats — and naught is done:
It to despair might drive me to survey
Of lawless elements the aimless sway!
To soar above itself then dared my soul;
Here would I strive, this force would I control!
And it is possible. Howe'er the tide
May rise, it fawneth round each hillock's side;
However proudly it may domineer,
Each puny height its crest doth 'gainst it rear,
Each puny deep it forcefully allures.
So swiftly plan on plan my mind matures:
This glorious pleasure for thyself attain;

19. J. Rouch, Orages et ternpetes dansla litterature (Paris, 1929), p. 22.

 V IOLENT WATER • 179

Back from the shore to bar the imperious main,

Narrow the limits of the watery deep,
Constrain it far into itself to sweep!
My purpose step by step I might lay bare:
That is my wish, to aid it boldly dare!

To curb the tumult u ous sea with a glance, as Faust's will desires, to
throw a stone at the hostile floods, as Michelet's child does, these are
the same image in dynamic imagination. It is the same dream of a will
for power. This unexpected bringing together of Faust and a child
may help us to understand that th ere is always a little naivete in the
will for power. The destiny of the will for power is, in effect, to dream
of power beyond actual power. Without this fringe of dream, the will
for power would be powerless. It is through its dreams that the will
for power is most aggressive. From this point on, he who would be a
superman very naturally rediscovers the same dreams entertained by
the child who would be a man, To govern the sea is a superhuman
dream. It is both an inspired and a childlike will.

V
In the S~inburne complex, the masochistic elements are numerous.
We can relate to the psychology of violent waters a complex that is
more clearly sadistic; it might be called the Xerxescomplex.
Let us look at an anecdote told by Herodotus;"
To this shore, then, beginning at Abydos, they, on whom this task
was imposed, constructed bridges, the Phoenicians one with white
flax and the Egyptians the other with papyrus. The distance from
Abydos to the opposite shore is seven stades. When the strait was
thus united, a violent storm arising, broke in pieces and scattered
the whole work. When Xerxes heard of this, being exceedingly in-
dignant, he commanded that the Hellespont should be striken with
three hundred lashes with a scourge, and that a pair of fetters
should be let down into the sea. I have, moreover, heard that with
them he likewise sent branding instruments to brand the Helles-
pont. He certainly charged those who flogged the water to utter
these barbarous and impious words: "Thou bitter water! thy master
inflicts this punishment upon thee, because thou hast injured him,

20. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust Part II, ed. F. H. Hedge, trans. A. Swan-
wick (Boston, 1884), act 4, lines 160-70, 174 —
95.
21. Herodotus,trans. Rev. Henry Cary (London, 1898), bk. 7, sec. 34-35, p. 424.
 1 80 • CHA P T E R E I G H T

a lthough thou hast not suffered any harm from him. An d k i n g

Xerxes will cross over thee, whether thou wilt or not; it is with
justice that no man sacrifices to thee, because thou art both a
deceitful and briny river!" He accordingly commanded them to
chastise the sea in this manner, and to cut off the heads of those
who had to superintend the joining of the Hellespont.

If this were an isolated anecdote, an unusual form of mental

disorder, this passage would be of little importance for a study of the
imagination. But q u it e the opposite is true, and the most extraordi-
nary mental disorders are never exceptions. There is no lack of
legends that take up anew the practice of the king of the Medes. After
their incantations have failed, how many sorcerers have objectified
their wrath by s t r i k in g th e m a r shy w aters!' S a i n t y ves also reports,
on Pouqueville's authority, the practice of the Turks who lived on the
banks of the Inachus, still in use around 1826:
By a petition properly drawn up and signed, the Turks inform the
cadi that the Inachus, having left its banks, is ruining their fields,
and they beg him to order it to go back to its bed. The judge makes
an award in accordance with t h eir conclusions, and they are
satisfied with this decision. But if the waters increase, then the cadi,
accompanied by all his people, descends to call upon the river to
withdraw. They throw a copy of the judge's notice to it; the people
c all it a usurper, a devastator, they throw rocks at it. . . .

The same practice is recounted in Achille Millien's Popular Songs fo

Greece and Serbia. The wives of lost sailors assemble on the seashore.
Each
In her turn whips the surface of the floods
0 sea, wicked sea with your foaming waves,
Where are our husbands, where are our loved ones?
All these scenes of violence obey the psychology of resentment, of
symbolic and indirect vengeance. In the psychology of water there
are similar incidents of violence that employ another form of angry

22. Cyrus had already taken vengeance upon the Synide which had carried off
one of his sacred horses. "Full of indignation at the river's insult, Cyrus threatened to
weaken it to such an extent that afterwards, even women could cross it without wet-
ting their knees, and he had his army build three hundred canals to change the river's
flow."
23. Paul Sebillot, Le Folklore de France(Paris, 1904 — 1907), 2:465.
 V IOLEN T WATER • 181

excitement. We shall see, by examining them attentively, that all the

details of the psychology of anger are on the cosmic plane. In the
practices of the Tempestarians, in fact, there is a clear psychology of
teasing.
To obtain the desired storm, the tempestarian, the homo faber of
the tempest, stirs up the waters as a child teases a dog. A fountain is
enough for him. He comes to the edge of the water with his hazel
wand, his Aa ron's rod. With i t s p o i n ted end he s c ratches the
f ountain's transparent mi r r or ; h e j e rks it b ack o ut ; w it h a n abrupt
gesture, he pushes it in again; he pricks the water.
The tranquil and placid water, which in repose is truly "Water, like
a skin/Which nothing can hurt,"z4 is finally irritated. The water's
nerves are now raw. Then th e t empestarian plunges his wand down
to the mud; he lashes the spring right down to its entrails, This time
the element becomes angry; its anger becomes universal; the storm
rumbles, lightning flashes, hail rattles down, and water inundates the
earth. The tempestarian has fulfilled his cosmological task. In so do-
ing he projects a psychology of teasing, certain to find in water all the
characteristics of a universal psychology.
In Saintyves's Folklore of the Waters, there are numerous examples
of the tempestarians' practices," Let me recount a few of them very
briefly. In Nicolas Remi's Demon Worship, we read the following:
It was declared, by the free and spontaneous assertion of more than
200 persons, that two men, condemned to be burned as sorcerers,
met, on certain days, on the banks of a pond or a river, and that
there, armed with a black rod which they had received from the
demon, they struck the water heavily until there were raised up
abundant vapors that carried them off into the air; then, having ac-
complished their artifices, they fell back down to earth in the midst
of torrents of hail.. . .

- Certain lakes are particularly excitable; they react immediately to

the slightest teasing. A n a n c i e nt h i s t o r i an of t h e c o u n t i es of F oi x ,
Bearn, and Navarre reports that th ere are in th e Pyrenees
two lakes which produce flames, fire, and thunder. ... If anyone
throws anything into them, then immediately there is seen such a
confusion in the air that most of the witnesses to such a fury are
24. Paul Eluard, "Mouille," in Les Animaux et teurs hommes (Paris, n.d.).
25. Pierre Saintyves, Corpus dufolklore des eauxen France (Paris, 1934), pp. 205-11.
 182 o C HAPTER EI G H T

touched by the fire and broken by the ordinary lightning which

originates in the pond.
Another chronicler "mentions a little lake, four leagues from Bade,
i nto which n e i t her earth , no r s t o ne, no r an y o t h e r o b j ect may b e
thrown wit h out th e sky's becoming immediately troubled by rain or
t empest." Pompo n iu s M e l a a l s o c a ll s a t t e n t io n t o a p a r t i c u l a r l y
" susceptible" fou n t a i n . "When a man's hand happens to touch [a
rock on its bank] then immediately the fountain swells to immoderate
size and causes swirls of sand, like the waves of a sea stirred up by a
t empest, to fill th e air . "
There are, a s w e h a v e s e en , s ensitive w a t ers, I c o u l d d i s c u ss
numerous variations on t h i s t h e me, to show t ha t th e o f fense given
w aters can lessen physically w i t h ou t c h a n g ing th e r e action o f t h e
violent waters in any way; I could show that the offense might be not
flagellation but a mere threat, The touch of a fingernail, the slightest
stain can arouse water's anger.
My task as a literary psychologist would not be complete if I were to
limit myself to q u o t in g legends and ancient stories. As a m a t ter of
fact, Xerxes complexes are demonstrably active in c e r t ain w r i t e r s'
reveries. I shall relate a few cases.
First of all, there is an instance where there is only a faint tr ace of
the complex, in w h ich th e o ffense given the waters is scarcely more
serious than scorn. It is i n E dgar Quinet's Ahasverus.The king,
haughty and sure of his will for power, provokes the Ocean that is
swelling up for a flood in these words:
Ocean, distant sea, have you really counted ahead of time the steps
of my tower.. . . T ake care, poor angry child, that your foot not
slip on my flagstones and that your saliva not dampen my stairs.
Before climbing one half of my steps, ashamed, panting, hiding
yourself under your spray, you will go back to you home thinking: I
am tired.
In Ossian it is often wit h a sw ord t h a t me n co m bat th e tempest; in
the third book, Calmar marches against the floods with naked blade:
"When the lowered cloud passes near him, he seizes its black particles
and plunges his steel into its shadowy fog. The spirit of the tempest
abandons the air... ." Men fight against things as they fight against
other men. The spirit of b a t tle is always the same.

26. Ibid., p. 209.

 V IOLEN T WATER • 183

S ometimes t h e metaphoric d i r e c t io n r e v e rses it self: i t i s t h e

resistance to the sea that lends its images to the resistance to men,
V ictor Hugo depicts Mess Lethierry th u s:

Never had heavy weather caused him to retreat; that was because
he was not very open to contradiction. He tolerated no more from
the ocean than from another. He meant to be obeyed; too bad for
the sea if it resisted; it would have to make up its mind. Mess
Lethierry did not yield. A wave that rises succeeded no better in
stopping him than did a quarrelling neighbor. 7

Man is an integrated being, He has the same will against all adver-
saries. All resistance awakens the same wish. In the realm of will,
there is no distinction to be made between things and men, The im-
age of the sea retiring vexed from the resistance of a single man does
not call forth any cr i t i cism from the reader. If we reflect carefully on
t his matter, w e w i l l se e t ha t t h i s i m age is simply a m e t a p hor f o r
Xerxes' senseless act.
A great poet rediscovers primitive thoughts, and under his pen the
naivete of the legend fades before an indefinable legendary beauty.
Xerxes caused the Hellespont, which had revolted, to be branded
with a red-hot iron? Paul Claudel rediscovers this image without
thinking, it seems, of Herodotus's text, At t h e beginning of the first
act of Break of Noon, there is a splendid image which I quote here
from memory: " Th e sea with its resplendent spine is like a cow that
has been thrown down to be branded," Does this image not have the
moving beauty of an evening sky that wounds the astonished sea and
draws blood> It is drawn f ro m n a t u re, by a po etic nature — far from
the books and advice learned in school. Such passages are of in-
calculable value for my thesis. They show that poetry is a natural and
durable synthesis of images that are only artificial in appearance. The
conqueror and the poet both want to put the brand of their power on
the universe. They both take the branding iron in hand; they brand
t he dominated un i v erse. What seems senseless to us when p art o f
history and in the past, is now in the eternal present a profound truth
of free imagination. Metaphor, physically inadmissable, psycholog-
ically absurd, is, nevertheless, a poetic truth. It is because metaphor is
a phenomenon of the poetic soul. It is also a phenomenon of nature,
a projection of h u man n a t ure on u n i v ersal nature.

27. Hugo, Les Travailleurs,in Oeuvres,10:152.

 184 • C HAP T E R E I G H T

VI
Even when one has included all these legends, all these mental
disorders, all these poetic forms under the heading of animism, there
i s more to be said, We must realize that t his kin d of a n i m ism t r u l y
animates; it is an extremely subtle animism that goes into detail and
unerringly discerns all the nuances of an impressionable and volun-
tary life in th e i n a n i m ate wo r ld , t h a t r e ads nature like a ch anging
human countenance,
Anyone who wishes to understand the psychology of the imagina-
tion conceived as a n a t u ral f aculty an d n o l o n ger as a f aculty ac-
quired through tr ain ing must ascribe a place to this prolix animism,
t o an a n i m i s m t h a t a nimates everyth i ng , p r o j e cts e v e r y t h i n g ,
mingles, on every o ccasion, desire and v i sion, i n ne r i m p u l ses and
natural forces. Then he will, as he should, once more put images
before ideas. First will come natural images, those that nature gives
directly, those that follow both the laws of nature and the laws of our
n ature, those that t a k e o n t h e m a t t e r a n d m o v e m ent o f n a t u r a l
elements, the images that we feel to be active within ourselves, within
our organs.
No matter what h u man action is considered, we can perceive that
it does not have the same flavor in the midst of men as in the midst of
fields. For example, when a child in the sawdust-pit of a gymnasium
strains in the broad jump, he feels only a human rivalry. If he comes
in first in the event, he is the first among men. But what a di fferent
pride, what a superhuman pride comes from jumping over a natural
obstacle, from crossing the creek in one leap! Being alone affects this
pride not at all; he is first, first in nature's order. And the child, play-
ing endlessly under the willows, goes from one meadow to another,
m aster of two worlds, braving the tum u l t u ous water. How many im -
ages have their natural origin there! How many reveries acquire there
their taste for power, for triumph, for scorn toward what can be over-
come. The child who jumps over the creek in a broad meadow can
dream of adventures, strength, drive, and daring. He really has seven-
league boots on his feet!
The jump across a creek as natural obstacle is, moreover, the one
most similar to th e j um p w e l ik e t o m a k e in ou r d r e ams. If anyone
should try, as I am suggesting, to find before the threshhold of his ac-
 V IOLEN T WATER • 185

tual experiences those imaginary experiences that he has in the great

land of his sleep, then he would realize that in the realm of imagina-
tion and of reverie the day has been given to us so that we may verify
the experiences of our nights. Charles Nodier writes in his Reveries:
One of the most ingenious and profound philosophers of our times
t old me.. . t hat h aving dreamed several nights in a row, in hi s
youth, that he had acquired the marvelous ability to hold himself
up and to move about in the air, he could never convince himself
that this impression was not true, except by making the attempt
when crossing a stream or a ditch.

The sight o f a s t r e a m r e a w akens di stant d r e ams; it v i t a l i zes our

reverie.
Conversely, literary images, when correctly dynamized, also
dynamize the reader; they govern, in kindred souls, a sort of physical
hygiene of reading, an imaginary gymnastics, a gymnastics of the ner-
vous system. The nervous system needs such poems, Unfortun ately,
in our confused poetics we cannot easily find ou r p e rsonal system,
R hetoric, with its insipid encyclopedia of the beautiful, with i t s
childish rationalizations about th e ob v i ous, does not allow us to be
truly faithful to our element, It prevents us from following, in full
flight, the real phantom of our imaginary nature, which, if it ruled our
lives, would give us back the truth of our being, the energy of our
own dynamism.
Conclusion

Water's Voice
I hold the river's wave like a violin.
PAUL ELUARD,The Open Book

Mirror less than a shudder.. . both

pauses and caresses, the passage of a li-
quid bow on a concert of moss.
PAUL CLAUDEL )
The Black Bird in the Rising Sun

I woULD LIKE to draw together in my conclusion all the insights into

lyricism that the river gives us. These insights, in the final analysis,
have great unity, They are truly the insights of a fundamental ele-
ment.
To show clearly the vocal unity of water poetry, I shall develop
from the start an e x t r eme paradox: W a ter is th e m i stress of liquid
language, of smooth flowing language, of continued"arid continurng
language, of language that softens rhythm and gives a uniform sub-
stance to differing rhythms. I shall not hesitate, then, to give their full
meaning to those words that express the qualities of a fluid and
animated poetry, of a poetry t hat fl ow s straight from it s source.
Without exaggerating, as I have been doing, Paul de Reul has
observed Swinburne's predilection for liquid consonants:
The tendency to use the liquids, to prevent an accumulation and
clash of the other consonants, leads him to increase the number of
other transition sounds. The use of the article, of a derived word in
place of a simple one, often has no other reason: in the june (sic)
days — Life within life inlaid.'

Where de Reul sees the means, I see an end: liquidity is, in my opin-
ion, the very dcsire of language. Language nee'8s-to flo'w'." 'It'flow's
1

naturally. Its clashing, its ruggedness, its harshness are its rnore artifi-
cial efforts, those that are more difficult to re nder natural.
1. Paul de Reul, L'Oeuvre deSuinburne (Brussels, 1922), p. 32 n.
 188 o CONCLUSI ON

My thesis does not stop with what is learned from imitative poetry.
Imitative poetry seems to me, i n f a ct , co ndemned to superficiality.
From a living sound it r e t a ins only coarseness and awkwardness. It
g ives sonorous mechanics; it does not give hu m an , l i v in g sonority .
For example, Spearman says that the reader almost hears galloping in
these lines:

I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris and he,

I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped, all three.'

To reproduce a sound accurately, it must be produced still more

profoundly; the poet must l ive out th e w il l t o p r o d uce it; h ere, the
p oet would have to in d uce us to move our legs, to run and t u rn , i n
order to live fully the asymmetrical movement of the gallop. Dynamic
preparation is lacking. It is t hi s d y n amic preparation that p r o d uces
active hearing, hearing that makes us speak, move, and see. In fact,
Spearman's theory on the whole is too conceptual. His arguments are
based on designs; they give sight the predominant role. The only
result of such a practice is a formula for a reproductive imagination,
which masks and hinders creative imagination. In the final analysis
t he true dom ain fo r s t u d y in g th e i m a gination is no t p a i n t i ng; it i s
literature, the word, the sentence. How little form matters then! How
dominant matter becomes! What a great master the stream is!
T here are, says Balzac, "mysteries buried in every human w o r d . " 3
But the real mystery is not necessarily in its origins, in its roots, in its
a ncient form s. . .. There are words that are in full flower, in full
vigor, words that th e past has not exhausted, whose beauty the an-
cients did not fully recognize, words that are the mysterious jewels of
a language. Such a word is riviere. It is a phenomenon that cannot be
communicated to other languages. Let us think phonetically of the
sonorous brutality of the word "river" in English. We will come to
the realization that rieiere is more French than any other word. It is a
word that i s c o m p osed of th e v i s ual i m age of th e m o t i o n l ess rive
(bank) and yet has never stopped flowing. . . .

When a poetic expression is revealed as both pure and dominant,

then we can be sure that it has a direct relationship with the elemen-

2. Charles Edward Spearman, Creative Mind (New York, 1931), p. 94.

3. Honore de Balzac, Louis Lambert, in Oeuvres completes,ed. Marcel Bouteron
and Henri Longnon (Paris, 1940), 31:49.
 W ATER S V O I C E • 189

tary material sources of the language. I had always been struck by the
fact that poets associate the harmonica with water poetry. The gentle
blind woman of Jean-Paul's Titan plays the harmonica, In Pokal,
Tieck's hero plays on the edge of a cup, as on a harmonica. And I
w ondered what a t t r a ction c aused the m u sical glass of water to b e
given the name "harmonica." Much later, I read in Bachofen that the
vowel a is the water vowel. It is dominant in aqua, apa, ~asser. It is
the phenomenon of creation by water. The letter a marks a primary
matter, It is the first letter of the un iv ersal poem. It is the letter that
stands for the repose of the soul in Tibetan mysticism.
I will be accused at this point of accepting as solid proofs mere ver-
bal resemblances; I will be told that liquid consonantscall up no more
than a curious metaphor belonging to.the phoneticians. But such an
objection seems to me to be a refusal to feel, in its profound life, the
correspondenceof word and reality. Such an objection reflects a will to
reject a whole field of creative imagination: imagination through the
spoken word, t h r ough speaking, the i m a gination t h at r e j o ices
muscularly in speaking, speaks with volubility, and increases the
psychic volume of a being. This imagination knows very well that the
river is speech with no punctuation, an Eluardian sentence that does
not accept punctuators. 0 so ng of t he r i v e r, ma rvelous logorrhea of
the child Nature.
And how can w e f ail t o r e l ate to l i q uid l anguage, bantering
language, the jargon of the brook!
And if this aspect of vocal imagination is not easy to grasp, it is
b ecause we give onomatopoeia too limited a sense. We think of it as
an echo, guided by hearing alone. In point of fact, the ear is much
more liberal than we suppose; it readily accepts a certain tr ansposi-
t ion in i m i t a t ion an d is soon im i t a t ing th e first im i t ation. W it h t h e
joy of hearing man associates the joy of active speech, the joy of a
whole countenance expressing its imit ative talent. Sound is only one
aspect of the mimologism.
I n his w ar m b u t l e a rned w ay, C h a rles Nodier h a s clearly
understood the projective aspect of onomatopoeia. They abound in
de Brosses's sense:
Many onomatopoeias have been formed, if not in accordance with
the noise produced by the movement that they represent, at least in
accordance with a noise based on the one that the movement
 1 90 • C O N C L USION

should produce, if we consider its analogy with some other par-

ticular movement of the same-kind and its ordinary effects; for ex-
ample, the action of blinking, on which he bases his conjectures,
produces no real sound, but actions gf this same-'kind recall very
clearly, through the noise that ac~ompanies -them, the sound that
served as the root for this word.4
There is in this phenomenon, then, a sort of delegated onomatopoeia
that must be produced,must be ~jected, so that it can be heard, a
sort of abstract onomatopoeia that-gives a voim to a trembhng eyelid.
Dripping from the foliage after the storm there are drops of water
that also wink and make the light fhcker and the mirror of the waters
quiver. To see them is to hear them qui ver.
In poetic activity t h er e is , t h en , a s o r t o f c o n d i t i o ned reflex, a
strange one, for it has three roots: it brings together visual, auditory,
and vocal impressions. And the joy af.expressing oneself is so ex-
uberant that finally it is vocal expression which marks a scene with
its dominant "highlights." The voice projectsvisions, Lips and teeth,
then, produce different spectacles.There are scenes conceived with
fists and jaws. ... There are labiate scenes, so gentle, so-good, so easy
to pronounce. ... If we could group together all the words with li-
quid phonernes, then an aquatic scene would naturally emerge. Con-
versely, a poetic scene expressed by a-hydrous~yche, by the waters'
word, discovers liquid consonants quite naturally. Sound, native
sound, natural sound — that is, the voice — places things in their
proper order. Vocalization governs the painting of true poets. I shall
offer an example of this vocal function that determines the poets' im-
aginations,
Thus listening to the stirrings of the stream, Hound it very natural
that in many verses the stream makes the lilies and the gladioli
bloom. By studying this example closely, we sha11 understand the vic-
tory of verbal imagination over visual imagination or, more simply,
the victory of creative imagination over realism. We shall under-
stand, at the same time, the poetic inertia of etymology.
The gladiola got its name — visually, passively — from the sword
(glaive-glaieul). It is a sword that no one takes in hand, that does not
cut, with a blade whose point is so fine, so well designed but so fragile
4. Charles Nodier, Dictionnaire raisonne des onomatopeesfrangaises,2nd ed. (Paris,
1828), p. 90.
 WATER S VOICE • 191

that it does not prick. Its form does not belong to water poetry. Nor
does its color. This vivid color is a warm color; it is flame from hell;
the gladiola in some countries is named "the flame of hell." Scarcely
any are to b e s een al on g a s t r e am. Bu t w h e n p o e tr y i s i n v o l v ecl,
realism is always wrong. Sight is no longer in command; etymology
no longer thinks. The ear also wants to name flowers; it wants what it
hears to flower, to fl ower d irectly, to fl ower i n l a n guage. The
g entleness of water's flow, t oo , w a nt s i m ages to offer, L i sten! T h e
gladiola (glaieul) is now the river's special sigh, a sigh that comes at
the time when, within us, there appears a slight, very slight sorrow,
which spreads, melts away and will not be mentioned again. The
gladiola is the half mourning of melancholy water. Far from being a
striking color, that is remembered and reflected, it is a delicate sob
that is forgotten. The "liquid" syllables soften and carry off images
lingering for a moment over an old memory. They give a little fluidity
to sadness.'
How can we explain o t her t h a n t h r o u g h p o etry t h a t t h e w a t ers'
sounds are so many sunken bells, so many submerged bell towers that
still ring, so many golden harps that lend solemnity to crystalline
voices! In a lied that Schure records, the lover of a girl ravished by the
river Nix plays, in turn, on the golden harp. The Nix, slowly won
over by the harmony, gives up the girl. The spell is vanquished by
another spell; music by music. That is the way magical dialogues run.
In the same way, water's laughter will tolerate no dryness so that to
express it, like slightly mad bells, "sea-green" (glauques)sounds, which
ring out with a certain greenness, are needed, The frog (grenouille) is
already — in true ph o n etics, wh ich i s i m a g ined p h o n etics — a water
animal. It is an added bonus that makes the frog green. And the good
people who call water frog's syrup (sirop de grenouille) make no
mistake: only a simpleton (gribouille) would drink it!

5. Mallarme associates the gladiola and the swan: "the wild gladiola, with the
slender-necked swans," from "Les Fleurs," in Oeuvres completes,ed. Henri Mondor
and G. Jean-Aubry (Paris, 19'}5), p. 33. In my opinion, this "association" has a
hydrous origin,
6. Edouard Schure, Histoire du lied (Paris, 1876), pp. 102 — 03.
7. To translate the "willful confusion" of a vedic hymn called "To the Frogs,"
M. Louis Renou (p. 75) feels that there should be a masculine form of grenouille (frog).
In the stories told in a village in Champagne, Father Gribouille was the mate of
Mother Gribouille. Here are two verses translated by L. Renou:
 1 92 • C O N C L U SION

A fter the "a's" of the tempest, after the howling of the north w i n d ,
we are happy to hear the "o's" of water (eau), the whirlwinds and the
lovely roundness of their sounds, When we have this happy state,
regained words reverse themselves crazily; the stream laughs and the
laughter streams.
We could search forever and not find all the doublets in this im-
aginary water phonetics as we listen to the whirlwinds and gusts, and
study the cries along with the caricatures of the gargoyles. To spit out
a storm like an i n sult, to v o mi t t h e w a t er's guttural curses, a gutter
would have to be given in monstrous forms, huge-mouthed, thick-
lipped, horned, and gaping, The gargoyle jokes endlessly with the
downpour. It wa s a sound before being an i m a ge or, at t he l e ast, a
sound that in stantly fo un d an i m age in stone.
In sorrow and in joy, in its tum ult and in its peace, in its jokes and
complaints, the spring is truly, as Paul Fort says, "the Word made
water," Hearing all its sounds, so beautiful, so simple, so fresh, seems
"to make our mou ths water." M ust we really quiet all the happiness
t hat comes of a m o i stened ton gue? How can we u n d erstand, th en ,
certain formulae which call forth the inner depths of dampness? For
example, in two lines a hymn of the Rig Veda associates the sea and
the tongue; "Indra's breast, thirsty for soma, must always be full of it:
as the sea is always (filled with water), so the tongue is endlessly
moistened by saliva."9 Liquidity is a principle of language; language
m ust be filled wit h w a t er . A s s oon as we are able to t a lk , t h en , as
T ristan T z a r a says, " a cloud of i m p etuous rivers fills the d r y
m outh,"' o
Nor is there any great poetry w i t h ou t l on g i n t ervals of relaxation
and leisure, nor an y g r eat p o ems w i t h ou t s i l ence. Water i s also a
model of calm and silence. Dormant and silent water adds to scenes,

...When at the beginning of the Rains, it rained on (the frogs) accepting and
thirsty, they cried Akhkhala: and as a son goes to his father, they moved
toward each other talking as they went.
... If one of them repeats another's words as a student repeats his teacher's,
the whole is in harmony, as a piece of music which you entone over the waters
with your beautiful voices.
8. Paul Fort, Ermitage(July 1897), p. 13.
9. Rig Veda, trans. Langlois (Paris, 1848 —1851), 1:14.
10. Tristan Tzara, Ou Boieent les loups (Paris, 1932), p. 151. "Une nuee de fleuves
impetueux emplit la bouche aride."
 W'ATER S VO ICE • 193

as Claudel puts it, "lakes of song." N ear it , p o etic gravity deepens.

The water lives as a grea't','mater'ialized silence. It is near Melisande s
=
f ountain t h a t PeEeas murmurs: " T h er e is alw'ays an extraordinary ~
silence... . O n e m i g h t h e a r t h e w a t e r s leeping." It s eems'that', to
understand silence-th'orough'ly; our 'soul needs to-see something that is'
silent; to be assured of repose, it needs to feel near it a great natural j ,I

being asleep, Maeterlinck worked at the borderline between poetry,'

a nd silence, with a m i n i m u m o f v o i ce, in t h e so n or ity o f d o r m an t l
water.

Water also has indirect voices. Nature resounds with o n t o l o gical

echoes. Creatures answer each other by im it ating elementary voices.
Of all the elements, water is the m ost faithful " m i r ro r o f v o i ces.""
The blackbird, for example, sings like a cascade of pure water. In his
great novel, W o lf Sotent, P owys seems to be p u r sued by t h i s
metaphor, by this metaphony. For example,
That particular intonation of the blackbird's note, more full of the
spirits of air and of water than any sound upon the earth, had
always possessed a mysterious attraction for him. It seems to con-
tain, in the sphere of sound, what amber-paved pools surrounded
by hart's-tongue ferns contain in the sphere of substance. It seemed
to embrace in it all the sadness that it is possible to experience
without crossing the subtle line into th e region where sadness
becomes misery.
I have often reread these pages, which show me that the blackbird's
roulade is a crystal that is falling, a cascade that is dying. The black-
bird does not sing fot the heavens. It sings for near-by water. Further
on, Powys hears the blackbird's song again, accentuating its relation-
ship with w ater, " t hi s stream of cool, liqu id, tr emulous melody."
If there were not in n a t u r e's voices such redoublings of onomato-
poeia, if falling water did not re-echo the notes of the singing black-
bird, it seems that we could not u n d erstand natural voices poetically.
Art needs to learn from reflections, and music from echoes, By imi-
tating that we invent. We t h in k w e conform to r eality and, instead,
we translate it into human terms. In imitating the river, the blackbird
also projects a little more purity. The fact that Wolf Solent is himself
11. Ibid., p. 161
 19'f • C O N C L U SION

the victim of an imitation and that the blackbird, heard in the foliage
above the river, is the limpid voice of the beautiful Gerda gives even
more meaning to th e m i m esis of natural sounds.
Everything in the Un™iv™erse is an ecKo. Tf tEe -Biids, in the opinion
o f certain dreaming linguists, are the first creators of sound who i n -
s pired men, they t h e mselves imitated nature's voices, Quinet, wh o
listened for so long to the voice of Bourgogne and Bresse, discovers
"the lapping on,the shopes in gbee.nasal,ecryu.,of„aquatic birds the frog's
croaking in the brook ouzel, the whistling of the reed in the bullfind»
the cry of the tempest in the frigate bird." Where did the night birds
borrow the trembling, thrilling sounds which seem the repercussion
of a subterranean echo in old ruins? "Thus all the sounds of natural
scenes — still life or animated — have their echo and their counterpart
in living nature."'
Armand Salacrou also rediscovers the euphonic relationship of the
blackbird and,the stream. After having noted' that sea' b'irds do 'not
sing, he wonders to what chance our groves' songs are due: "I knew,"
he said, "a blackbird raised near a swamp which mingled with his
songs raucous and broken cries, Was he singing for the frogs? Or was
he the victim of an obsession?"" Water,,is. . also a yast unity. It h a r -
monizes the toad's and the blackbird's notes, or at least, a poeticized
ear brings unity to d i scordant voices when it submits to the song of
tPe water as its fundamental sound.
The stream, the river, the cascade have, then, a speech that men
understand naturally. As Wordsworth said, "it is a music of human-
' ity": "The still, sad music of humanity" (Lyrical Ballads).
How could voices listened to with so fundamental a sympathy fail
to be prophetic> To give back their oracular value to things, should
we listen to them from close by or fr'om a6r? Is it necessary that they
, hypnotize us, or should we contemplate them? Two great movements
of the imaginary begin close to objects. Everything in nature pro-
duces giants and dwarfs.;, the:noisc.of. the.fIgosds fills- th'e'immens'ity o'f
the sky or the hollow of a shell, It is in these two movemerits that hv-
12. At liquidas avium voces imitarier ore
Ante fuit multo quam laevia carmina cantu.
Concelebrare homines possent, auresque juvant.
Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, trans. W. H. D. Rouse (London and New York, 1924),
bk. 5, lines 1379-1381.
13. Armand Salacrou, "Le mille tetes," Cahiers du Sud, 20 gune-July 1933): 93.
 WATER S VOICE • 19 5

ing imagination must live. It hears only voices that are approaching
or fading in the distance. He who listens to things is well aware that
they will speak too loudly or too softly. We must hurry to hear them.
Already the cascade shatters or the stream stammers. The imagina-
tion is a sound-effects man; it must amplify or soften. Once the -im-
agination is mistress of-dynamic correspondences, images truly speak.
We shall understand this accord of sound and images if we mcditate
on "these subtle verses in which a girl, bent over the stream, feels
passing into her face th,ebeauty born of murmuring sound": "... beauty
born of murmuring sound/Shall pass into her face,"
These correspondences between images and speech are the truly
salutary ones. The consolation of a p a inful, disturbed, emptied
psyche will be helped along by the coolness of the stream or river.-But
this coolness must be spoken. The unhappy person must speak to the
river.
Come, oh m y f r i e n ds, o n a c l e a r m o r n i n g t o s i n g t h e s t r e am's
v owels! Where is our first sufferingl We h ave hesitated to say. . . . I t
was born in the hours when we have hoarded within us things left
u nsaid. Even so, the stream will t each you to speak; in spite of th e
pain and the memories, it will teach you euphoria through euphuism,
.epergy through poems. Not a moment will- -pass without repeat ing'
'

some lovely round wor'd that r o lls over the stones.

Dijon
23 August 1941
 Endnotes

Like many o f h i s c o n t e mporaries i n F r a n ce, G a ston B a chelard

documented his sources in a rather desultory fashion, footnoting or not at
his discretion. This practice, so disconcerting to A m erican readers ac-
customed to stricter conventions, was exacerbated by wartime conditions.
Yet the very casualness of Bachelard's documentation may well contribute
to the characteristic flow of his prose. For this reason, the author's original
notes, corrected when necessary, have been kept in place at the bottom of
the page. All other information or commentary has been assembled in these
endnotes. They are referenced neither by means of superscripts in the text
nor by page and line numbers but by page and keyword or phrase.
The reader can locate a keyword in the text by scanning the left margin.
For instance, bibliographical information for the two citations on page
four — from Lessius and Tieck — is listed after the respective keys; "and
amorous Sports" and "landscape appears." If the quotation occupies more
than one line, the final line is the one referenced.

P. 1 Let us help: Stephane Mallarme, Divagations (Paris, 1933), p. 352.

P. 3 "A new image: Could not be verified.
p. 4 and amorous sports: Leonard Lessius, Treatise of Health and Long
Life... (London, 1743), p. 71.
landscape appears: Ludwig Tieck, Phantasus,in Schriften (Berlin,
1828), 4:10.
P. 8 in w a t ers... B audelaire:
Charles Baudelaire, "Mon coeur mis a nu,"
in Journaux intimes, ed. Jacques Crepet and' Georges Blin (Paris,
1949), p. 85.
P. 13 th e guise of "paste":The French word is pBte, which has a broader
meaning than any one English equivalent. It can mean "clay,"
"dough," "paste," or simply "a mixture of the elements earth and
water." Thus "clay" and "dough" are not separate topics in this con-
text but different translations of the same word. However, there also
exist specific equivalents for "clay" (argile)and "mud" (limon)in
French.
P. 14 sc honheit": Max A l e x a n der F r i e drich S c hasler, Ae sthetik als
Philosophie des Schonenund die Kunst (Berlin, 1872).
P. 17 in h isReveries:Charles Nodier, Oeuvres completes(Paris, 1832-1837),
6:162.
 198 • ENDNOTES

P. 19 A sad flower: Stephane Mallarme, "Herodiade," in Oeuvrescom-

pletes, ed. Henri Mondor and G. Jean-Aubry (Paris, 1945), p. 46.
There have even been: Ramon Gomez de la Serna, El Incongruente
(Madrid, 1922), p. 17.
P. 20 "direct communication": the French is des correspondances.
P. 23 The least sigh: Paul Valery, "Cantate du Narcisse," in Me lange
(Paris, 1941), p. 173.
P. 24 a book that... Joachim Gasquet:Joachim Gasquet, Narcisse,6th ed.
(Paris, 1931), p. 45.
P. 25 And on the bank: John Keats, "I stood tiptoe upon a little hill," in
The Complete Poetical Works and Letters (Boston, 1899), p. 16.
beauty, is... pancalism: This word is explained in a footnote to Air
and Dreams, p. 61. "To answer objections which some have made to
the use of 'pancalism,' let me remind my readers that I borrowed it
from Baldwin's terminology. By it I mean that 'pancalistic' activity
tends to transform all contemplation of the universe into an affirma-
tion of universal beauty." Cf. J. M. Baldwin, Genetic Theory o f Real-
ity (New York, 1915).
P. 26 he says:Percy Bysshe Shelley, "The Witch of Atlas," in The Complete
Poetical Works, ed. George E. Woodberry (Boston, 1901), p. 279.
Here no one: Paul Eluard, Le Liere oueert(Paris, 1947), p. 87.
We know for a certainty: Friedrich von Schlegel, Lucinde, ein Roman
(Berlin, 1926), p. 12.
P,31 of both: coolness: The French word fraicheur translates both as
"freshness" and as "coolness," depending on the context. Here
Bachelard seems to imply both.
P. 32 the Peneus:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust Part II, trans. Anna
Swanwick (Boston, 1884), act 1, line 697. All references to Goethe
are from this edition. Bachelard cites from the French translation of
Porchat.
reply: Ibid., act 2, lines 705-06. The word order is different in the
French version,
P. 36 find gratification... complexual: The English form of the French
word complexuel, which means "pertaining to complexes."
taine's swan sings:Jean de La Fontaine, "Le Cygne et le cuisinier," in
Oeuvres choisies,4th ed., ed. G. Le Bidois (Paris, 1921), pp. 164 — 65.
P. 38 by circling.. . " giving her sideiong glances": This is not a d i rect
quotation from the text.
P. 39 the title "a blue river flower": Pierre Louys, "Leda," in Le Crepuscule
des nymphes (Paris, 1926), p. 24.
Louy's writes: Pierre Louys, Psyche(Paris, 1927), pp. 63, 65.
 E NDNOTES • 199

A young shepherd: Paul Sebillot, Le F o lklore de France(Paris,

1904-1907), 3:207.
Paul's dreams:Jean-Paul Friedrich Richter, Titan, trans. Charles T.
Brooks (Boston, 1864), 1:13.
P. 40 even occurs. .."to have the egg": Louys, Le Crepuscule,p. 26.
P. 41 SmurI,.Here: Gabriele d'Annunzio, La Leda sans cygne,trans. Andre
Daderet (Paris, 1922), p. 51.
earth. "The ancient rhythm": Ibid., pp. 68-69.
P. 42 Thibaudet's youthful works:Albert Thibaudet, Le Cygne rouge(Paris,
1897), pp. 175-77. The word "eternal" in Bachelard's citation has
been changed to "immortal," the word used in this edition of Thi-
baudet's text.
P. 43 In the pond sings: The English edition of Jung's book does not
translate this poem; this version is the present translator's.
The swan spreads:Jules Laforgue, Moralites legendaires, in Oeuvres
completes (Paris, 1902-1905), 2:115.
p. 45 stand the picture: Friedrich Nietzsche, Schopenhauer as-an Educator,
ed. Oscar Levy, trans. Adrian Collins, in The Complete Works of
Friedrich Nietgsche(Edinburgh, 1910), 2:125.
P. 48 pany with. .. for the purpose: The English "for the purpose of sus-
t aining it" g i ves even more o f a n i m p r ession of r eality t h an
Baudelaire's French text, quoted by Bachelard, where this phrase
reads "comme pour la soutenir" — "as if sustaining it."
P. 51 sible to believe: Edgar Allan Poe, "Landor's Cottage," in The Com-
plete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. James A. Harrison (New York,
1902), 6:262.
P. 52 Grots, pebbles: William Wordsworth, "The Prelude," in The Com-
plete Works of William Wordsmorth, ed. Andrew J. George (Boston
and New York, 1919), 3:86 f.
P. 53 I no longer: Maurice Maeterlinck, Alladine et Palomides,act 4, sc. 1,
in Theltre (Brussels, 1909-1911), 3:157. All references to Maeter-
linck's plays are from this edition.
tion in the eyes:Poe, "The Island of the Fay," in Works,4:194.
shade." But: Ibid., pp. 196-97.
depths of: Ibid., p. 198.
P. 54 separated itself: "separated itself sullenly from the trunk" seems to
mean more than a regret ("with regret") in the French version.
be to the death: Ibid.
P. 55 blackness more black:Poe "The Island of the Fay," in Works,4:199
p. 56 humidity.": Heraclitus of Ephesus, The Fragments of the Work of
Heraclitus of Ephesus. On Nature, trans. G. T. W. Patrick (Baltimore,
 200 • ENDNOTES

1889), p. 52. No such quotation was found among the fragments,

although several, such as Fragment 30, resemble it.
death to the: Ibid., p. 101
P. 58 nabel Lee: The quotation is not from "Annabel Lee" but from "For
Annie," in Works, 7:113
length encircled:Poe, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, in Works,
3:185-87.
P. 59 nermost recesses:Ibid., p. 41.
P. 61 The sad valley's:Poe, "The Valley of Unrest," in Works, 7:55.
P. 62 fresh nature: Marie Bonaparte, Edgar Poe (Paris, 1933), p. 322.
That nature loves: Poe, "Al Aaraaf," in Works, 3:30.
about them'?:Bonaparte, p. 322.
P. 63 In the ghoul-haunted:Poe, "Ulalume," in Works,7:102.
Sheeted Memories: Poe, "Dreamland," in Wo rks, 7 :89-90. In the
English text, "aghast" modifies traveler, not Memories. The word
"sheeted" is omitted by the French translator.
For the dews: Poe, "Fairy-Land," in The Complete Poems of Edgar
Allan Poe, ed. Louis Untermeyer (New York, 1 943), p. 30.
dim,/Is: Poe, "Irene," in Poems,p. 61.
P. 64 sleep, on:Poe, "Annabel Lee," in Works,7:117.
greenest of our: Poe, "The Haunted Palace," in Works,7:83.
As long as: Poe, "Irene," in Poems,p. 63.
p. 65 All beauty sleeps:Ibid., pp. 61 — 62.
All beauty sleepsf:Poe, "The Sleeper," in Works, 7:51.
love except where:Poe, Poems, p. 24. Since this line was suppressed in
the edition of 1831, it is not included in the volume of poems used
for these notes. It is, h o wever, given in t h e e d itor's notes of
Untermeyer's edition.
p. 66 Th'uncertain: Poe, "Irene," in Poems,p. 63.
be deep:Ibid., p. 64.
P. 67 solitude and stretch: In this citation, the English word "ghastly was
mistakenly translated as de spectre ("ghostly").
became accursed:Poe, "Silence," in Works, 2:223.
P. 68 itself. It is: Ibid., p. 239.
liness only to: Ibid., p. 240
domain and: Ibid., p. 242.
turned, at length: Ibid.
P. 71 nature....: Laforgue,Moralites legendaires,p. 71
P. 72 human remains:Joseph Xavier Boniface Saintine, La Mythologie du
Rhin (Paris, 1862), pp. 19 — 20. The phrase "to the four elements" is in
Saintine but not in Bachelard's citation.
 E NDNOT E S • 201

P. 73 again." Death: C. G. Jung, Metamorphoses et symboles dela libido,

trans. L. De Vos (Paris, 1927), p. 225.
in its depths: Ibid., p. 209
fiques
P. 74 sink'?:Marie Delcourt, Sterilites mysterieuses et naissances male
dans l'antiquite classigue (Liege, 1938), p. 66.
tle. To die: Edmond Haraucourt, "Rondel de l'adieu," in Choix de
poesies(Paris, 1922), p. 98.
chinesischen Lebens:Could not be verified,
P. 75 aware of it. "We are seven:Wordsworth, "We Are Seven," in Works,
2:8-11.
P. 77 a few years: Paul Sebillot, Le Folklore, 2:151
in Poe's tale: Poe, "MS Found in a Bottle," in Works, 2:13.
P. 78 unaccountable memory: Ibid., p. 10
P. 79 drowned men:Paul Claudel, Connaissance de l'Est(Paris, 1945), p. 36.
the dense shade:Ibid., p. 38.
saints: Saintine, pp. 395 — 96.
P. 80 rigidly fixed: Bonaparte, p. 584.
P. 81 Be all: William Shakespeare, Hamlet, act 3, sc. 1, in Th e Living
Shakespeare, ed. Oscar James Campbell (New York, 1949), p. 777.
All references to Shakespeare are from this edition.
is rather clear: Jules Derocquigny's version, which Bachelard cites,
renders "dead men's fingers" as patte-de-loup ("wolfs paw").
P. 82 The woman will: Ibid., act 4, sc. 7, pp. 800 — 01. In Derocquigny's
translation, "but long it could not be" is rendered "ce ne fut pas
long" ("it was not long"), which does not show as clearly the neces-
sity of death for Ophelia, who was not, in reality, a water creature.
P. 83 water dreamed. .."opheliazed": In French, s'opheliser.
Drunken Boat": Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud, "Le Bateau ivre," in
Oeuvres (New York, 1932), p. 87. In the French text, this citation is
erroneously attributed to "Delire II."
despite disaster:Mallarme, Divagations, p. 169.
lessly comb:Sebillot, 2:200.
clothed in a: Ibid., p. 340.
P. 84 Of the tresses:Poe, "For Annie," in Works,7:113.
suddenly above:Gabriele d'Annunzio, Force che si,forseche no, trans.
Donatella Cross, 17th ed. (Paris, 1910), p. 282.
P. 86 them." And: Honore de Balzac, Seraphita, in Oeuvres completes,ed.
M. Bouteron and Henri Longnon (Paris, 1940), 31:309.
marriage.": Ibid., p. 310.
'ironically'. Guy de Pourtales, La Vie de Franz Liszt, 18th ed. (Paris,
1925), p. 158.
 202 • ENDNOTES

P. 87 destiny, murmurs: Maurice Maeterlinck, La Princess Maleine,act 4,

sc. 3, in Theltre, 1:114 — 15
P. 88 calm flowed: Gasquet, Narcisse,p. 99.
P. 89 Ophelia thus: Laforgue, Moralites legendaires,p. 56.
P. 90 soul was a: Poe, "Eulalie — A Song," in Works, 7:91. The original
English text has "is" rather than "was."
P. 91 because water weeps:Alphonse de Lamartine, Les Confidences(Paris,
1897), p. 61.
water-drops/And: Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus,sc. 16, lines
117-18, in The Works of Christopher Marlome,ed,.A. H. Bullen (Lon-
don, 1885), 1:282.
P. 92 Like a dead man: Eluard. Could not-be verified.
P. 93 that is in you: Claudel, Connaissance,p. 96.
P. 97 without comment: Balzac, Gambara, in Oeuvres,28:107.
canal.": Joseph Deltheil, Cholera (Paris, 1923), p. 42.
Novalis: Could not be verified.
water which: In Hackett's text the word continue ("continuous") is
used instead of continuelle ("continually").
P. 99 image of the: Could not be verified.
P. 103 To the terror: Poe, "The Lake. To ," in Works, 7:21.
visible as its: Claudel. Could not be verified.
P. 104 seen." What: L. J. B. Berenger-Feraud, Superstitions et survivances
(Paris, 1896), 2:43.
matter when: Rene Char. Could not be verified.
appears salty: Claudel, Connaissance,p. 110.
P. 106 shapeless,":Victor Hugo, Les Travailleurs dela mer, in Oeuvres com-
pletes de Victo~ Hugo (Paris, 1905), 10:76.
iron, and other:Johann Albert Fabricius, Theologie de l'eau(La Haye,
1743), p. 30
P. 107 origin, in part: Herman Boerhaave, "Traite du l'eau," in Elemens de
Chymie, trans. anon. (Paris, 1754), 4;2.
P. 108 matter in hand: In French: "qui ont mis la main h la pate."
to Soma: Louis Renous, trans., Hymnes et prieres du Veda (Paris,
1938), p. 44.
P. 110 swamp is: Ernest Seilliere, De la Deesse nature a la deesse vie(Paris,
1931), p. 66.
P. 111 life, warmth: Jules Michelet, La M o ntagne, in Oe uvres completes
(Paris, 1893-1899), 33:76-77.
P. 115 sleep in the: Paul Eluard, Les Necessites dela vie et lesconsequences des
reves (Paris, n.d.), p. 87.
immensely enlarged: Bonaparte, p. 363.
most constant:Ibid., p. 367.
 E N DN 0 TEs • 203

P, 116 drawn men: Ibid,, p. 370.

source of food: Ibid., p. 371.
P. 118 time see:Pierre Saintyves, Corpus defolklore des eaux en France(Paris,
1934), p. 54.
P, 121 everything whicQ: Alexis Saint-Leger, Eloges and Other Poems, bi-
hngual edition, trans. Louise Varese (New York, 1944), p. 62.
P. 122 being.no:Poe,,The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym," in Works, 3:239.
sive agitations: Kid,
milky hue: Ibid., p;. 24O
tion — but this ISK1,
P, 123 And- breathes:Frederk Mistral, Mireille (Paris, 1930), p. 131.
P. 124 "to, nourish.'Fabrkius, Theologie,p. 5.
one ask for:, Friedrich;. von Hardenberg (Novalis), Henry of Ofter-
dingen, trans. John Owen (Cambridge, 1842), p. 30.
P. 125 Corruptible: Paul Claudel, Cinq grandes odes(Paris, 1913), p. 48.
P, 126 nature. The woman-landscape:In French, la femme paysagemay be
translated either "the woman landscape" or "the wife landscape."
P. 127 "maiden" in the partitive: In the French text, "de la jeune fille au par-
titif' refers to the grammatical construction with de by which one
speaks of part of a whole or of "some maiden."
P. 128 dreamer "like: Hardenberg, Henry, p. 26
Taper goes out: Lessius, p. 65.
into maidens:Ernest Renan, Etudes d'histoire religieuse,ed. Henriette
Psichari, in Oeuvres completes(Paris, 1947-1953), 7:54.
P, 129 straint," by a: Saintyves, p. 205.
my neck: Edgar Quinet, Ahasverus,in Oeuvres completes(Paris,
1891-1933), 11:175,
P. 130 "resting among:Hardenberg, Henry, p. 25.
P. 132 was like a: Balzac, Le Lys dan la vallee, in Oeuv~es completes,26;196.
mingled: Alphonse de Lamartine, Rafael (Paris, 1920), pp. 41 — 42.
P. 133 be reduced: Paul Claudel, Positions et propositions(Paris, 1934), 2;235.
be found in: Roger Caillois, L'Homme et le sacre,in Mythes et religions
(Paris, 1939), especially chap. 2, "L'Ambiguite du sacre."
P. 141 sprinklesthe men: Virgil, Aeneid, bk. 6, lines 229 — 31, in Virgil and
Other Latin Poets, ed. J. B. Greenough et al. (Boston, 1930), p. 202.
This translation was made directly from the Latin and not from the
French version Bachelard cites.
P, 142 of washing: Psalm 51:7, The Holy Bible, Authorized (King James)
Version (Cleveland, n.d.).
P, 144 nymphized: In French, nympheisee.
of nymphs:Abbe de Villars, Le Comte de Gabalis,4th ed. (Brussels,
1785), 2:297.
 Z04 • ENDNOTES

"without demons:Ibid., 2:298.

"to separate: Ibid., 2:297. This does not appear to be a direct quota-
tion but a rephrasing of the ideas on this page,
muring. "Dive: Stephan George, The Book of the Hanging Gardens,in
The Works of Stephan George, trans. Olga Marx and Ernest Morwitz
(Chapel Hill, 1949), p. 78.
P. 147 as Jung: Jung, p. 283.
because they:Ernest Renan, L'Eau de Jouvence,act 4, sc. 4, in Drarnes
philosophiques (Paris, 1888), p. 210.
P. 151 Osiris: Gerard de Nerval, "Isis," in Les Filles dufeu (Paris, 1888),
p. 191,
P. 155 located in: Charles Ploix, La Nature des dieux (Paris, 1888), p. 447.
P. 157 phor is.. . gentleness:In French, the word douceur hastwo meaning,
"gentleness" and "sweetness," both of which are intended in this
paragraph.
P. 159 laziness, and languor: Jules Michelet, La Montagne, p. 232.
The Ocean: Du Bartas. Could not be verified.
P. 162 do not break:Jean de La Fontaine, "Le Chene et le roseau," verse 21,
in Oeuvres choisies,ed. G. Le Bidois, 4th ed. (Paris, 1921), p. 124.
P. 164 Sounds for me:Algernon Charles Swinburne, "A Ballad at Parting,"
in The Poems of Algernon Charles Surinburne (London, 1905), 6:116.
Mother more: Swinburne, "Garden of Cymodoce," in Poems,3:326.
P. 165 without wanting: Ge orges Lafourcade, Surinburne, a Literary
Biography(New York, 1932), p. 46.
water. It: Georges Lafourcade, La Jeunesse de Surinburne(Paris, 1928),
1:49
P. 166 water." He: Algernon Charles Swinburne, Lesbia Brandon(London,
1952), p. 19
P. 168 swimming pool: In French, piscine, from the Latin piscina("fish
pond").
P. 169 Thy large embraces: Lafourcade, La Jeunesse de Sminburne, p. 50.
each one cuts: Ibid., p. 51.
by the sea: Swinburne, Lesbia Brandon,p. 18.
P. 170 "as a steed: George G. Byron, "Childe Harold," in The Poems and
Plays of Lord Byron (London and New York, 1927 — 1933), 2;56. The
metaphor of riding the waves as steeds is not in the French version.
P. 171 mon master: Samuel T. Coleridge, in The Collected Letters foSamuel
Taylor Coleridge, ed. Earl Leslie Griggs (Oxford, 1856), 2:916.
P. 176 tempest encourages:Hardenberg. Could not be verified.
P. 178 the world's grandeur:Chateaubriand. Could not be verified.
P. 180 call it a: Saintyves, p. 209.
 E NDNO T E S o 205

Where are our: Achille Millien, Chants populaires(Paris, 1891), p. 68.

P. 181 of torrents of:Nicholas Remi, Demonolatry, ed. Rev. Montague Sum-
mers, trans. E. A. Ashwin (London, 1930), bk. 1, chap. 25, p. 74.
P. 182 originates:Saintyves, p. 209
am tired: Quinet, Ahasverus,in Oeuvres completes,2:18
abandons the air: The Poems of Ossian, trans. James Macpherson
(Glascow and London, 1824), 1:238.
P. 183 has been thrown:Paul Claudel, Partagede midi (Paris, 1949), act 1,
p. 25.
P. 185 when crossing:Nodier, Reveries,6:165 — 66.
P. 187 I hold:Eluard, Le Livre ouvert, p. 86.
quid bow: Paul Claudel, L'Oiseau noir dans le soleil levant (Paris,
1929), p. 230.
P. 188 I ga11oped: This passage is quoted by Spearman from "How They
Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix."
P. 193 as Claudel:Claudel. Could not be verified.
silence....: Ma urice Maeterlinck, Pelleas et Melisande,act 2, sc. 1,
in Thedtre, 2:24
becomes misery:John Cowper Powys, Wolf Solent (New York, 1929),
1:137.
ship with water: Ibid., p. 143.
P. 194 the cry of the:Quinet. Could not be verified.
ity": "The sti11:Wordsworth, "Tintern Abbey," in Works, 2:89.
P. 195 born of murmuring: Wordsworth, "Three Years She Grew," in
Works, 2:169-70.
 Author /T i tle Index

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 170, 171

A Coleridge, Le Somnambule sublime, 170
"A la Melancolie," 161 Complete Works of Algernon Charles Smin-
Aeneid, 141 burne, The, 165
Aesthetics, 14 Condillac, 7
Ahasverus,129, 182 Confidences, Les,131
"Alastor," 25, 76 Connaissance de l'Est (The East I Knoui),
Ame romantique et le reve, L', 90 60, 78, 93, 123
Amours jaunes, Les,75 Conquest of the Irrational, 106
Animaux et leurs hommes, Les, 181 Contemplazione della morte, 16
"Annabel I ee," 58 Corbiere, Tristan, 75
Art of Long Life, The, 4 Corpus de folklore deseaux en France, 98,
Assyrian Magic, 141 118, 145, 181
Count of Gabalis's Conversations,143
B Creative Mind, 188
Bachelard, Gaston, 51, 95 Creuzer, George Frederic, 29
Bachofen, Johann Jakob, 100 Croquis Parisiens,137
Balzac, Honore de, 85, 86, 97, 131, 132, Cursed Child, The, 172
172, 173, 174, 188
Baudelaire, Charles, 8, 75 D
Baudouin, Charles, 17, 18 d'Annunzio, Gabriele, 16, 41, 84, 162
Beguin, Albert, 90 dOrs, Eugenio, 26, 49, 166
Berenger-Feraud, L. J. B., 83, 103 Dali, Salvador, 106
Bergson, Henri, 108 De la Deesse nature a la deesse,148
Birth of Tragedy, The, 37 de Reul, Paul, 164, 187
Blackbird in the RisingSun, The (L'Oiseau De Rerum Natura, 194
Noir dans le soleil levant), 187 .Decharme, Paul, 100, 101
Boerhaave, Herman, 107, 156 Delatte, Armand, 24
Bonaparte, Marie, 9, 45, 46, 56, 58, 59, Delcourt, Marie, 40, 74
62, 65, 80, 109, 115, 163 Deltheil, 97
Bousquet, Jacques, 3 Oemon Worship, 181
Break of Noon, 183 Der Sch~an in Sageund Leben, 40
Bruges the Dead, 89 Desbordes-Valmore, Marceline, 176, 177
Buber, Martin, 121 "Descent into the Maelstrom, The," 102
Byron, George G. N., 170 Dictionnaire Infernal, 139
Dictionnaire Raisonne des onomatopees
C frangaises,190
Caillois, Roger, 133 Divigations, 1
Cassell, Paulus, 40 "Domain of Arnheim, The," 48
Catoptromancie grecque et ses derives, La, "Drunken Boat, The," 83
24 du Bartas, 159
Char, Rene, 104 Duino Elegies,89
Charpentier, John, 170
Chateaubriand, 178 E
"Childe Harold," 170 East I Knocu, The (Connaissance de l'Est),
Chimie Medicinale, 93 104
Cinq grandes odes (Five Great Odes),9, 54 Edgar Poe,59, 65, 109, 163
Claudel, Paul, 9, 28, 31, 54, 59, 60, 78, Elegies,121
93, 103, 104, 111, 123, 125, 133, 148, Elements o f Chemistry (Elemens de
149, 183, 187, 193 Chimie), 107
 208 • A U T H O R / T I T L E INDE X

Elemens de C h i mi e ( E l ements of Hall, Stanley, 109

Chemistry), 156 Hanging Gardens, The, 144
"Eleonora," 68 Hardenberg, Friedrich von, 126
Eluard, Paul, 26, 91, 115, 181, 187 Henry of Ofterdingen, 124, 126
Epee et le miroir, L', 123 Hermes Trismegiste, 157
Ermitage, 87, 192 Herodiade, 19
Erreur de Narcisse, L', 21 Herodotus,179, 183
Esteve, Claude-Louis, 12 Hesiod, 135, 136
Etudes de mythologie et d'archelogie egyp- Hesiod, 136
tiennes, 56 Histoire du Lied, 191
Etudes philosophiques sur l'expression Hugo, Victor, 30, 106, 171, 183
litteraire, 12 Huysmans, Joris Karl, 137, 138
Evening for Nymphs,38 Hymnes a la nuit, Les, 132
F
Fabricius, Johann Albert, 94, 96, 106, I and Thou, 121
124 Incongruente, El, 19
"Fairy-Land," 63 "Island of the Fay, The," 49
Fargue, Leon-Paul, 97
Faust Part II, 34, 36, 99, 178, 179
Feeries Interieures, Les, 87 Jeunesse de Surinburne, La, 164, 167
Figures d'evocateurs, 90 Jeunesse deMme Desbordes-Valmore, La,
Five Great Odes (Cinq grandes odes),125 177
"Fleurs, Les," 191 Jung, C. G., 43, 73, 147
Fleurs du Mal, Les, 75
Folklore de France, Le,77, 180
Folklore of the Waters, 181 Keats, John, 25
Fontaine, Jean de la, 36, 74 Klages, Ludwig, 26
"For Annie," 55, 84
Koffka, Kurt, 109
Formation de l'esprit scientifique: contribu- Kufferath, Maurice, 124, 125
tion a une psychanalyse de la con-
naissance objective, La, 95 L
Forse che se, forse che no (Maybe Yes,
Maybe No), 162 Laforgue, Jules, 43, 71, 86, 89
Fort, Paul, 87, 192 Lafourcade, Georges, 164, 167, 168, 169
Fossey, Charles, 141 Lamartine, Alphonse de, 30, 90, 131,
Franciade, 178 132
From the Goddess Nature to the Goddess Landor's Cottage,51
Life, 110 Laundress of My First Sorrours, The,86
Lautreamont, 15
G Lautreamont, 51
Gant de crin, Le, 42 Lavelle, Louis, 21
Gasquet, Joachim, 24, 87, 89 "Leda," 38
Gautier, Theophile, 145 "Leda or i n P r a ise o f t h e B l e ssed
Geoffroy, 97 Shades," 38, 39
George, Stephan, 144 "Leda Without a Swan," 41
Giraudoux, 171 Legendary Moralities, 43
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 34, 35, Lelia, 86
38, 99, 178, 179 Lesbia Brandon, 166
Grabersymbolik der Alten, 100 Lessius, Leonard, 4, 128
Graziella, 30 Lettres a un ami par Victor Hugo, 30
Gromth of the Mind, The, 109 Life of Franz Liszt, The, 86
Long Way Around, The, 71
H Louis Lambert, 188
Hackett, Cecil Arthur, 97 Louys, Pierre, 38, 39, 40
 A UT H O R / T I T L E IN D E X • 209

Lucretius, 194 Oeuvres completes(Mallarme), 22, 191

Lyrical Ballads, 194
Lyrisme de Rimbaud, Le, 97
Lys dans la vallee, Le, 131
M Open Book, The,26, 187
Maeterlinck, Maurice, 52, 193
Magie assyrienne, La, 141
Magische Geistesleben, Das, 90
Mallarme, Stephane, 1, 19, 22, 37, 83,
191
Malouin, Paul Jacques, 93
Man and the Sacred, 133
Marianna, 176
Martyrs, The, 178
Maspero, Gaston Camille, 56
MaybeYes, Maybe No (Forse che si, forse
che no, 84
Memoire Litteraire de Trevoux, 96
Mer, La, 105, 118, 175
Metamorphoses et symboles de la libido,43, PopularSongsof Greece and Serbia,180
73
Michelet, Jules, 105, 109, 110, 118, 119, Pougin, Arthur, 177
131, 159, 175, 179
Michelet, Victor-Emile, 90
Miguel Manava, 112
"Mille tetes, Le," 194
Millien, Achille, 180
Milosz, Oscar Vladislas, 111, 112
Mireille, 123
Mistral, Frederic, 123
Monet, Claude, 27
Montagne, La, 110, 159
Moralites legendaires, 86, 71
"MS Found in a Bottle," 77
Mythologie de la Grece antique, 100, 101
Mythology of the Rhine, 71
N
Narcisse,88
Narcissus,24
Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, The, 57,
60
Nature des dieux, La, 155
Necessities of Life, 115
Nerval, Gerard de, 151
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 37, 45, 161, 162
Nodier, Charles, 16, 185, 189
Nouvelles, 145
Novalis, 97, 124, 126, 127, 128, 130, 132, Richter, Jean-Paul, 34, 39, 43, 189
176
Nympheas, Les,27
0 Rimbaud, Arthur, 83, 97
Oeuvres de Sminburne, L', 164, 187
Oeuvres completes d'Edgar Quinet, 177
Oiseau Noir dans le soleil levant, L' (The
Blackbird in the Rising Sun), 28,
31, 111
Orages et tempetes dans la litterature, 178
Ou Boivent les loups,192
Pascal Blaise 94
Perse, St.-John, 121
Picciola, 71
Plancy, Jacques Albin Colin de, 139
Ploix, Charles, 153, 154, 155
Poe, Edgar Allan, 9, 11, 12, 45, 46, 47,
49, 50, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 59, 60, 61,
62, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 77, 90, 102,
115, 122, 163, 176
Pokal, 189
Positions et Propositions, 133, 149
Pourtales, Guy de, 86
Powys, John Cowper, 193
Prelude,51
Preter, Le, 131
Primitive Culture, 141
"Prometheus Unbound," 28
Psychanalyse, La, 18
Psyche,39, 141, 155
Psychoanalysis of Fire, The, 3, 6, 96, 109,
127
Psychoanalysis of Water, The, 6, 8
Quinet, Edgar, 129, 177, 182, 194
Rafael, 132
Red Scuan, The, 42
Religions de l'antiquite, 29
Remi, Nicolas, 181
Renan, Ernest, 128, 147
Reverdy, Pierre, 42
Reveries, 17, 185
Rhin, Lettres a un ami par Victor Hugo, Le,
30
Rig Veda, 192
Rilke, Rainer Maria, 89
Robert, Madame, 84
Rodenbach, Georges, 22, 89, 90
 2 10 • AU T H OR / T IT L E I N D E X

Rohde, Erwin, 141, 155 Travailleurs, Les, 171, 183

Rouch, J., 177 Tristan et Iseult, 125
"Two Foscari, The," 170
S Tylor, Edward Burnet, 141
Saintine, Joseph Xavier Boniface, 71, 72, Tzara, Tristan, 192
79
Saint-Pol-Roux, 86 U
Saintyves, Pierre, 98, 118, 145, 181 "Ulalume," 55
Salacrou, Armand, 194 Underground Church in Chicago, 148
Sand, George, 86, 103
Sandeau, Jules, 175 V
Schasler, Max, 1'} Verhaeren, Emile, 78
Schindler, Heinrich Bruno, 90 Vie de Goya, La, 26
Schlegel, Friedrich von, 26, 148 Villages Illusoires, Les,78
Schopenhauer,45 Villars, Abbe de, 143, 144
Schopenhauer, Arthur, 27, 30, 159 Villeneuve, Arnauld de, 147
Schure, Edouard, 191 Visions de la nuit dans la campagne, Les,
Sebillot, Paul, 136, 140, 180 103
Seilliere, Ernest, 110, 1'}7, 148 Voyages imaginaires,8'}
Seraphita, 85
Serna, Ramon Gomez de la, 19 W
Shakespeare, William, 82, 83, 89 Wagner, Richard, 124, 125
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 24, 26, 28, 76 Water and Dreams,6
"Silence," 67 Water of Youth, 147
"Sleeper, The," 65 Wolf Solent, 193
Songs of Maldoror, 51 Wordsworth, William, 51, 75, 194
Sous la lampe,97 World as Will and Representation, The,
Sous les filets,78 159
Souvestre, Emile, 77, 78
Spearman, Charles Edward, 188
Spirit of Liturgy, 147
Sterilites mysterieuses et naissances male-
fiques dans l'antiquite classique,40, 74
Sternbald's Voyages,49
Strindberg, August, 29, 30
Studies on Religious History, 128
Suidas, 1'}1
Superstitions et survivances, 84
Sman,37
Suranmhite, 29
Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 161, 163,
164, 166, 167, 169, 187
T
Theatre de R. Wagner de Tannhaeuser a
Parsifal, Le, 125
Theologyof Water, 94, 96
Thibaudet, Albert, 42
"Third Elegy," 89
Thus Spake Zarathustra, 162
Tieck, Ludwig, 4, 49, 189
Titan, A Romance,34, 43, 189
"Toison d'or, La," 1'}5
Traite de la matiere medicale, 97
 Subject Index

Novalis's, 126 — 30, 132; psychoanaly-

A sis of, 4, 6; psychochemistry of, 4
aesthetic, 2, 13, 14, 23, 168, 171; con- dissymbolism, 42
sciousness, 31; contemplation, 27;
destiny, 25; dynamic, 165; fire, of, 5; E
emotions, 4; literary, 10; passion, 4; earth, 3, 4, 31, 61, 72, 74, 75, 83, 95, 96,
philosophy, 1 100, 103, 104, 105, 107, 109, 110,
air, 3, 4, 31, 95, 120, 164, 182, 193 111, 113, 118, 119, 120, 124, 127,
ambivalence, 5, 11, 13, 29, 72, 100, 101, 148
105, 167, 168, 169 Echo, 22, 25
animism, 184 elements, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 14, 56, 90, 94,
axes, 1, 10 143, 144, 147, 152, 160, 161, 162,
166, 173, 177, 184, 185, 187, 193
B Eros, 68
beauty, 2, 22, 23, 25, 26, 65, 97; ag- eye, 22, 25, 28, 29, 30, 31, 100, 106, 145
gressive, 30; formal, 2; matter, of, 2;
natural, 4; objective, 168; Poe, for, F
62; substances, of, 14 Faust, 32, 173, 179
blood, 59, 60, 61, 183 feminine,5, 14,23,33,34,36,81,82,95,
96, 100, 110, 121, 126, 129, 130
C fire, 3, 4, 5, 72, 76, 82, 95-100, 105, 109,
cause: formal, 1, 3, 13; material, 1, 2, 3, 112, 124, 145, 181
13 form, 1, 2, 3, 10, 13, 108, 109, 113, 120,
Charon, 79, 80 123, 128, 184, 188
complexes, 6, 37, 85, 86, 87, 168, 175; formal imagination, 1, 13, 16, 41, 42, 93,
Charon complex, 12, 76; culture 106, 117, 127
complex, 17, 18, 33, 40, 41, 55, 56,
76; Hoffman complex, 96; Nausicaa
complex, 33; Oedipus complex, 163, Hades, 75, 79
168; Ophelia complex, 12, 55, 83, 87; Hamlet, 81, 86
primitive complex, 168; swan com- hand, 13, 22, 107, 108, 141
plex, 11, 37, 38, 127; Swinburne heart, 1, 2, 5, 66, 104, 116, 140, 148
complex, 167, 168, 169, 171, 175, Heraclitean death, 68
176, 177, 178, 179; Xerxes complex, Heraclitean flux, 6
179, 182, 183 Heracliteanism, 6, 12, 106, 125
contemplation, 4, 27, 28, 30, 31, 42, 108, homofaber, 113, 181; Bergsonian theory
120, 146 of, 108
correspondence, 172, 173, 189, 195
I
D image, 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 18, 19, 31, 33, 95,
death, 6, 12, 36, 37, 43, 46, 47, 54, 55, 56, 96, 97, 98, 119, 120, 127, 128, 151,
59, 63, 64, 65, 66, 68, 69, 71, 72, 80, 165, 176, 184, 195
83, 87, 89, 91; imagination of, 81; imagination, 1, 2, 6, 12, 14, 16, 18, 31,
journey, as a, 74, 78, 79; literary, 81; 33,36,42,45, 51, 57, 66,84, 85,93,
suicide, 81, 82; water, in (see water) 94, 106, 113, 116, 117, 121, 129, 1LI9,
dreams, 3, 8, 9, 17, 36, 101, 106, 107, 152, 167, 169, 185, 188, 189, 190,
108, 109, 112, 117, 126, 127, 130, 195; dynamic, 14, 146, 167, 168, 171,
131, 139, 147, 152, 179, 185; 174, 177, 179; forms, of, 5; human,
material, 55, 138; natural, 22, 153; 2, 3, 10; intimate, 2; materializing,
 212 . SUBJECT INDEX

N
10; muscular, 15; o pen, 2, Z 1 ;
organic, 10, primordial law of, 11, narcissism, 11, 20, 21, 23-32; cosmic, 24,
61; psychologists of, 1; psychology 25, 27, 30, 42, 52, 66
of, 16, 31 85, 135, 177, 184; sub- Narcissus, 21, 2Z — 26, 87
stances, of, 5, 6; types of, 3; vocal, nature, 24, 27, 31, 62, 83, 115, 118, 126,
189 131, 136, 147, 183, 184, 185, 189,
imaginitive unity, 45, 93 193, 194
imagining powers, 1, 2, 3 Neptune, 178
L night, 101 —04, 132, 154
Laertes, 82 0
lake, Z6, 28, 31, 47, 49, 100, 117, 127, oneiric power, 147, 153
132, 148 onomatopoeia, 189, 190, 193
language, 12, 15, 133, 181, 188, 189, 191, of, Ophelia, 81-89
192; of Poe, 45, 142; water,
187-95 P
law of the four elements, 3, 161 pancalism, 25, 26, Z8, 30
Leda, 38, 39, 40 paste (la pate), 13, 104, 105, 106, 107,
literary criticism, 17, 18, 45, 57, 124, 165, 108, 109, 111
175 poetic creation, 1, 2, 3, 10
M poetry, 16, 188; dynamic, 47, 168; imita-
tive, 188; primal, 16; reflections, of,
masculine, 36, 95, 107, 110 33; true, 16; water, 43, 187, 189, 191
material elements, 3, 4, 5, 6, 11, 12, 14, Poseidon, 154, 155
46, 80, 85, 90, 130, 131, 148, 161 prereflective attitudes, 17
material imagination, 1, 3, 5, 6, 10, 11, prescientific mind, 123 — 24, 138
12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20, 24, 27, 31, projection, 108, 115, 145, 172, 183
32, 42, 47, 53, 56, 64, 76, 93, 95, 98, psychoanalysis, 4, 6, 7, 8, 17, 20, 36, 40,
101, 104, 106, 110, 112, 116, 117, 60, 82, 109, 118, 123, 136, 144
118, 120, 121, 122, 124, 128, 129, psychology, 4, 5, 10, 17, 18, 45, 83, 85,
131, 133, 134, 139, 141, 142, 143, 96, 107, 112, 120, 125, 130, 133, 134,
144, 145, 146, 148, 151, 152, 153, 138, 141, 143, 145, 147, 159, 160,
154, 157, 166, 170 171, 174, 181; literary, 17, 182;
matter, 1, 2, 3, 10, 11, 101, 109, 110, 113, anger, of, 160, 172, 173, 174, 177,
120, 123, 126, 145, 188; constancy 181; creative unconscious, of, 13, 64;
of, 2; elementary, 134; individualiz- imagination, of the, 16, 31, 85, 135,
ing power of, 2; i r r ational, 12; 177, 184; resentment, of, 180; teas-
melancholy of, 61 ing, of, 181; water, of, 31, 180, 181
melancholy, 7, 61, 63, 64, 90, 101, 176, purity, 31, 133, 134-49, 193
191,
metaphors, 19, 32, 33, 36, 41, 42, 43, 85, R
97, 101, 116, 117, 119, 124, 125, 128, reading, 48, 49, 57
131, 137, 138, 142, 143, 144, 156, reflecti on, 24, 25,33,37,43,47,48,50,
157, 164, 166, 169, 171, 172, 183, 51, 52, 66, 87, 88, 193
189, 193 reverie,3, 5,7,8,9, 13, 14, 16, 25,45, 55,
mirror, 21, 22, 24, 25, 35, 49, 66, 143, 89, 90, 93, 94, 101, 105, 107, 108,
181, 187, 193 131, 133, 147, 151, 152, 168, 171,
moulding, 105, 108, 109, 112, 113 173, 181, 184; death, of, 46, 73; for-
myth, 40, 42, 43, 73, 99, 124, 147, 151, mal, 1; manichaeism of, 12; material,
152, 154 3, 4, 20, 93, 98, 111, 112, 113;
mythology, 14, 17, 32, 38, 40, 152, 153, natural, 153 —
56; Poe's, 54, 72, 86, 87,
155
 S UBJECT IND EX • 213

90; power, of, 142, 160; sweetness,

of, 156, 157; water, of, 151
rhetoric, 185
river, 117, 123, 128, 151, 152, 187, 188,
189, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195

U
unconscious, 13, 36, 37, 45, 50, 54, 56,
57, 60, 61, 64, 65, 75, 86, 96, 105,
106, 117, 123, 124, 128, 130, 136,
137, 138, 139, 171
V
valorization, 60, 85, 100, 109, 123, 126,
127, 133, 137, 139, 141, 142, 143
W
water, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 18, 20, 93; classic, 23,
60; coolness of, 31, 32, 33, 195; death
in, 65 — 73, 80, 82, 89, 92; feminine
characteristics of, 14, 73, 96, 100,
119, 126, 129, 155; fresh, 144, 145,
146, 152, 154—56; milk, and, 117—26,
157; organic, 9; Poe's imagination,
in, 46, 64 — 67; poetry of, 43; primi-
tive, 32; psychoanalysis of, 4, 8, 21,
36; purity of, 133 — 49, 151; silent, 68,
192, 193; violent, 15, 146, 159, 163,
168, 169, 176, 177, 179, 180;
warmth, and, 128
will, 25, 27, 28, 30, 50, 88, 112, 142-44,
159, 168, 183; appear, to, 20; attack,
to, 15, 160; beauty, to, 30; contem-
plate, to, 27, 28; power, for, 107,
161, 167, 174, 179, 182; produce, to,
108, 188; reject, to, 189
wind, 161 — 63, 192