In this paper, the ballet of Igor Stravinsky The Rite of Spring is interpreted from the perspective of Gaston Bachelard’s philosophical thought. Bachelard’s systematic psychoanalysis of literary images in The Psychoanalysis of Fire is applied to the interpretation of musical images in The Rite of Spring. Bearing in mind that rhythm is a key characteristic of Stravinsky’s composition, the paper analyses the immediate correspondences between Stravinsky’s and Bachelard’s perception and interpretation of rhythm in the works under consideration.
The aim of the article is to analyse the relation between the mind and imagination as the main issue of Gaston Bachelard’s book The Psychoanalysis of Fire. The book was published in 1938 and originated Bachelard’s research on the poetic imagination; however, it extended the research into another project of this French philosopher which he refers to as psychoanalysis of objective cognition. That is why The Psychoanalysis of Fire is a unique book among Bachelard’s achievements – two subjects of the research are connected there: scientific cognition and poetic imagination, which in the further years of Bachelard’s activity are separated. In the context of the article’s main aim, there appears also an interesting theme of psychoanalytic inspiration, introduced by Bachelard to his philosophy in two of his works published in 1938, one of which is The Psychoanalysis of Fire itself.
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