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Faced with a quiet world, on a soothing plain, mankind can enjoy peace and repose. But in an imagined world, the sights of the plain often produce only the most commonplace effects. To restore their action to these sights, it is therefore necessary to supply a new image. An unexpected literary image can so move the spirit that it will follow the induction of tranquility.
Where is the main stress, for instance, in being-there (être-là): on being, or on there? In there—which it would be better to call here—shall I first look for my being? Or am I going to find, in my being, above all, certainty of my fixation in a there? In any case, one of these terms always weakens the other. Often the there is spoken so forcefully that the ontological aspects of the problems under consideration are sharply summarized in a geometrical fixation. The result is dogmatization of philosophemes as soon as they are expressed. In the tonal quality of the French language, the là
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In French, one should think twice before speaking of l’être-là. Entrapped in being, we shall always have to come out of it. And when we are hardly outside of being, we always have to go back into it. Thus, in being, everything is circuitous, roundabout, recurrent, so much talk; a chaplet of sojournings, a refrain with endless verses.
Sight says too many things at one time. Being does not see itself. Perhaps it listens to itself.
Being is alternately condensation that disperses with a burst, and dispersion that flows back to a center.
Outside and inside are both intimate—they are always ready to be reversed, to exchange their hostility.
Let us therefore transform our amazement into admiration. We can even begin by admiring. Then, later, we shall see whether or not it will be necessary to organize our disappointment through criticism and reduction.
A philosopher of the imagination, therefore, should follow the poet to the ultimate extremity of his images, without ever reducing this extremism, which is the specific phenomenon of the poetic impulse.
But is it necessary to go and look for “danger” other than the danger of writing, of expressing oneself? Doesn’t the poet put language in danger? Doesn’t he utter words that are dangerous? Hasn’t the fact that, for so long, poetry has been the echo of heartache, given it a pure dramatic tonality?
Supervielle also juxtaposes claustrophobia and agoraphobia when he writes: “Trop d’espace nous etouffe beaucoup plus que s’il n’y en avait pas assez.”8 (Too much space smothers us much more than if there were not enough.)
By means of poetic language, waves of newness flow over the surface of being.
In the third century, Porphyrus wrote: “A threshold is a sacred thing.”
How concrete everything becomes in the world of the spirit when an object, a mere door, can give images of hesitation, temptation, desire, security, welcome and respect. If one were to give an account of all the doors one has closed and opened, of all the doors one would like to re-open, one would have to tell the story of one’s entire life.
But is he who opens a door and he who closes it the same being? The gestures that make us conscious of security or freedom are rooted in a profound depth of being.
