The Psychoanalysis of Fire

Abstract

This little book constitutes, for me, an excellent introductory piece to the thoughts of Gaston Bachelard. Much more clearly than "Poetics of Space", or "The Right to Dream", this book gives insight into Bachelard's transition from scientist to philosopher. If you haven't yet read any of his works, you should consider doing so if only to reevaluate your own methods of analysis of the world around you, both the material and the immaterial. In the "Psychoanalysis of Fire" Bachelard turns his sciento-phenomonologist methods of analysis to the existence of fire, both as a real presence throughout the history of mankind and as a literary, symbolic presence with perhaps even more significance.