“Pas de puis[s]ance d[‘]imagination sans images pui[s]sante[s]”: literature on the horizon of Bachelard and Ricœur

Abstract

This article discusses Paul Ricœur’s dialogue with Gaston Bachelard regarding the topic of productive imagination, aiming to further explore its contribution to literary studies. If the former’s poetic imagination can provide specific tools to approach texts without the aprioristic need for a historical north considering creative imagination’s autonomy, the latter’s development of the concept allows us to move towards an ethics, reinserting a historical horizon in the reading of literature. This dialectical principle provides the conditions for proposing a methodology that respects poetic language’s capacities without ignoring the contradictions posed by the autonomy of the discipline and literature itself. By bringing the authors closer, we believe it is possible to overcome the contemporary stand-off of the discipline, namely, the debates between the perspectives that privilege the text or, alternatively, the commitment to contemporary issues.