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\sbasedon0 \snext64 TxBr_p49;}}{\info{\author Leroy F. Searle}{\operator Leroy F. Searle}{\creatim\yr2000\mo5\dy30\hr13\min58}{\revtim\yr2000\mo5\dy30\hr14\min21}{\version3}{\edmins22}{\nofpages11}{\nofwords4936}{\nofchars28139}
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\par }\pard\plain \s16\qc\nowidctlpar\adjustright {\i PAUL }{\fs26 DE }{\i MAN
\par }\pard\plain \nowidctlpar\adjustright {\i 
\par 
\par }\pard\plain \s17\qc\nowidctlpar\adjustright {\b\fs26 Intentional Structure of the Romantic Image 
\par }\pard\plain \s20\qj\fi244\li464\sl-221\slmult0\nowidctlpar\tx464\tx708\adjustright {
\par }\pard\plain \nowidctlpar\adjustright {First printed, in a slightly different French version, under the title \ldblquote Struc\-ture Intentionelle de l'image ro\-mantique\rdblquote  In }{\i Revue internationale de Philosophie}{
, 51, 1960. The translation is the author\rquote s. Copyright \'a9 1968 by Paul de Man, and reprinted with his permission.
\par 
\par Reprinted from Harold Bloom, ed.  }{\i Romanticism & Consciousness}{ (NY: Norton, 1970)
\par 
\par 
\par 
\par }\pard \qj\nowidctlpar\adjustright {In the history of Weste
rn literature, the importance of the image as a dimension of poetic language does not remain constant. One could conceive of an organization of this history in terms of the relative prominence and the changing structure of metaphor. French poetry of the s
i
xteenth century is obviously richer and more varied in images than that of the seventeenth, and medieval poetry of the fifteenth century has a different kind of imagery than that of the thirteenth. The most recent change remote enough to be part of histor
y takes place towards the end of the eighteenth century and coincides with the advent of romanticism. In a statement of which equivalences can be found in all European literatures, Words\-
worth reproaches Pope for having abandoned the imaginative use of figural diction in favor of a merely decorative allegorization. Mean\-while the term }{\i imagination }{steadily grows in importance and com\- 
\par }\pard \nowidctlpar\adjustright {
\par 
\par 66 }{{\field{\*\fldinst SYMBOL 183 \\f "Symbol" \\s 12}{\fldrslt\f3\fs24}}}{ }{\i Paul de Man
\par }\pard \qj\nowidctlpar\adjustright {plexity, in the critical as well as in the poetic texts of the period. This evolution in poetic terminology\emdash of which parallel instances could easily be found in France and in Germany\emdash 
corresponds to a profound change in the texture of poetic diction. The change oftcn takes the form of a return to a greater concreteness, a proliferation of natural objects that restores to the language the material substan\-
tiality which had been partially lost. At the same time, in accord-
\par -ance with a dialectic that is more paradoxical than may appear at first sight, the structure of the language becomes increasingly metaphorical and the image\emdash be it under the name of symbol or even of myth\emdash 
comes to be considered as the most prominent dimension of the style. This tendency is still prcvalcnt today, among poets as well as among critics. We find it quite natural that theo\-
retical studies such as, for example, those of Gaston Bachelard in France, of Northrop Frye in America, or of William Empson in England should take the metaphor as their starting point for an in\-vestigation of literature in general\emdash an app
roach that would have been inconceivable for Boileau, for Pope, and even still for Diderot. An abundant imagery coinciding with an equally abundant quan\-
tity of natural objects, the theme of imagination linked closely to the theme of nature, such is the fu
ndamental ambiguity that characterizes the poetics of romanticism. The tension between the two polarities never ceases to be problematic. We shall try to illus\-trate the structure of this latent tension as it appears in some se\-lected poetic passages.

\par }\pard \nowidctlpar\adjustright {
\par }\pard \qj\nowidctlpar\adjustright {In a famous poem, Holderlin speaks of a tinie at which \ldblquote the gods\rdblquote  will again be an actual presence to man:
\par }\pard \nowidctlpar\adjustright {
\par nun aber nennt er sein Liebstes
\par Nun, nun mussen dafur Worte, wie Blumen entstehn.
\par (\ldblquote Brot und Wein\rdblquote , stanza 5)
\par 
\par }\pard \qj\nowidctlpar\adjustright {Taken by itself, this passage is not necessarily a statement about the image: Holderlin merely speaks of words (\ldblquote Worte\rdblquote ), not of images }{\i (\ldblquote Bildef\rquote ). }{
But the lines themselves contain the image of the flower in the simplest and most explicit of all metaphorical structures, as a straightforward simile introduced by the conjunc\-tion }{\i wie. }{
That the words referred to are not those of ordinary speech is clear from the verb: to originate (\ldblquote entstehn\rdblquote ). In every\-day use words are exchanges and put to a variety of tasks, but they are not supposed to originate
 anew; on the contrary, one wants them to be as well known, as \ldblquote common\rdblquote  as possible, to make cer\-
tain that they will obtain for us what we want to obtain. They are used as established signs to confirm that something is recognized as being the same as before; and re-cognition excludes pure origina\-
\par }\pard \nowidctlpar\adjustright {
\par 
\par }{\i Intentional Structure of the Romantic Image }{{\field{\*\fldinst SYMBOL 183 \\f "Symbol" \\s 12}{\fldrslt\f3\fs24}}}{ 67
\par }\pard \qj\nowidctlpar\adjustright {tion. But in poetic language words are not used as signs, not even as names, but in order to }{\i name: }{\ldblquote Donner un sens plus pur aux mots de Ia tribu\rdblquote  (Mallarme) or \ldblquote 
erfand er fur die Dinge eigene Nahmen\rdblquote  (Stefan George): poets know of the act of naming\emdash \rdblquote nun aber }{\i nennt }{er sein iebstes\rdblquote \emdash as implying a return to the source, to the pure motion of experience at it
s beginning.
\par }\pard \qj\fi720\nowidctlpar\adjustright {The word \ldblquote entstehn\rdblquote  establishes another fundamental distinc\-tion. The two terms of the simile are not said to be identical with one another (the word }{\b = }{
the flower), nor analogous in their general mode of being (the word is like the flower), bu
t specifically in the way they originate (the word originates like the flower) .1 The similarity between the two terms does not reside in their essence (identity), or in their appearance (analogy), but in the manner in which both originate. And Holderlin 
is not speaking of any poetic word taken at random, but of an authentic word that fulfills its high\-
est function in naming being as a presence. We could infer, then, that the fundamental intent of the poetic word is to originate in the same manner as what Holderlin here calls \ldblquote flowers.\rdblquote 
 The image is essentially a kinetic process: it does not dwell in a static state where the two terms could be separated and reunited by analysis; the first term\rquote  of the simile (here, \ldblquote words\rdblquote ) has no independent existence, poet
ically speaking, prior to the metaphorical statement. It originates with the statement, in the manner suggested by the flower-image, and its way of being is determined by the manner in which it originates. The metaphor requires that we begin by for\-
getting all we have previously known about \ldblquote words\rdblquote \emdash \rdblquote donner un sens plus pur aux mots de la tribu\rdblquote \emdash and then informing the term with a dynamic existence similar to that which animates the \ldblquote flow
\-ers.\rdblquote  The metaphor is not a combination of two entities or experi\-ences more or less deliberately linked together, but one single and particular experience: that of origination.
\par How do flowers originate? They rise out of the earth without the assistance of imitation or analogy. They do not follow a model other than themselves which they copy or from which they derive, the pattern of their growth. By calling them }{\i natuTal }{
objects, we mean that their origin is determined by nothing but their own be\-ing. Their becoming coincides at all times with the mode of their origination: it is as flowers that their history is what it is, totally de\-
fined by their identity. There is no wavering in the status of their existence: existence and essence coincide in them at all times. Un\-
\par }\pard \nowidctlpar\adjustright {
\par }\pard \qj\nowidctlpar\adjustright {1.\tab }{\fs18 The line is ambiguous, depending on whether one gives the verb \ldblquote entstehn\rdblquote  a single or a double subject. It can mean: words will originate that}{\b\fs18  }{\fs18 are like flowers (
\ldblquote Worte, die wie \-Blumen sind. mussen dafur entstehn\rdblquote ). 
\par But the meaning is much richer if one reads it: words will have to originate in the same way that flowers originate (\ldblquote Worte mussen dafur entstehn wie Blumen entstehn\rdblquote ). Syntax and punctua tion allow for both readings.
\par }\pard \nowidctlpar\adjustright {\fs18 
\par }{68 }{{\field{\*\fldinst SYMBOL 183 \\f "Symbol" \\s 12}{\fldrslt\f3\fs24}}}{ }{\i Paul de Man
\par }\pard \qj\nowidctlpar\adjustright {like words, which originate like something else (\ldblquote like flowers\rdblquote ), flowers originate l
ike themselves: they are literally what they are, definable without the assistance of metaphor. It would follow then, since the intent of the poetic word is to originate like the flower, that it strives to banish all metaphor, to become entirely literal.

\par }\pard \qj\fi720\nowidctlpar\adjustright {We can understand origin only in terms of difference: the source springs up because of the need to be somewhere or something else than what is now here. The word \ldblquote entstehn\rdblquote 
, with its distancing prefix, equates origin with negation and difference. But the na
tural object, safe in its immediate being, seems to have no beginning and no end. Its permanence is carried by the stability of its being, whereas a beginning implies a negation of permanence, the discon\-
tinuity of a death in which an entity relinquishes its specificity and leaves it behind, like an empty shell. Entities engendered by con\-
sciousness originate in this fashion, but for natural entities like the flower, the process is entirely different. They originate out of a being which does not differ from
 them in essence but contains the totality of their individual manifestations within itself. All particular flowers can at all times establish an immediate identity with an original Flower, of which they are as many particular emanations. The original ent
i
ty, which has to contain an infinity of manifestations of a common essence, in an infinity of places and at an infinity of moments, is necessarily transcendental. Trying to conceive of the natural object in terms of origin leads to a transcendental concep
t of the Idea: the quest for the Idea that takes the natural object for its starting-point begins with the incarnated \ldblquote minute particular\rdblquote 
 and works its way upwards to a transcendental essence. Beyond the Idea, it searches for Being as the category which con
tains essences in the same manner that the Idea contains particulars. Because they are natural objects, flowers originate as incarnations of a transcendental principle. \ldblquote Wie Blumen entstehn\rdblquote  is to become present as a nat\-
ural emanation of a transcendental principle, as an epiphany.
\par Strictly speaking, an epiphany cannot be a beginning, since it reveals and unveils what, by definition, could never have ceased to be there. Rather, it is the rediscovery of a permanent presence which has chosen to hide itself from us\emdash 
unless it is we who have the power to hide from it:
\par }\pard \nowidctlpar\adjustright {
\par So ist der Mensch; wenn da ist das Gut und es sorget mitgaben
\par Selber em Gott fur ihn, kennet und sieht er es nicht.
\par (\ldblquote Brot und Wein\rdblquote , stanza 5)
\par 
\par }\pard \qj\nowidctlpar\adjustright {Since the presence of a transcendental principle, in fact conceived as omnipresence (parousia), can be hidden from man by man\rquote 
s own volition, the epiphany appears in the guise of a beginning rather than a discovery. Holderlin\rquote s phrase: \ldblquote Wie Blumen entstehn\rdblquote  is
\par }\pard \nowidctlpar\adjustright {
\par 
\par }{\i Intentional Structure of the Romantic Image }{{\field{\*\fldinst SYMBOL 183 \\f "Symbol" \\s 12}{\fldrslt\f3\fs24}}}{ 69
\par }\pard \qj\nowidctlpar\adjustright {in fact a paradox, since origination is inconceivable on the ontological level; the ease with which we nevertheless accept it is indicative of our desire to forget. Our eagerness to accept the statement, the \ldblquote 
beauty\rdblquote  of the line, stems from the fact that it combines the poetic seduction of beginnings contained in the word \ldblquote entstehn\rdblquote  with the ontological stability of the natural object\emdash 
but this combination is made possible only by a deliberate forgetting of the transcendental nature of the source.
\par }\pard \qj\fi720\nowidctlpar\adjustright {That this forgetting, this ignorance, is also painful becomes ap\-parent from the strategic choice of the word \ldblquote flower,\rdblquote 
 an object that seems intrinsically desirable. The effect of the line would have been thoroughly modified if Holderlin had written, for instance, \ldblquote Steinen\rdblquote  instead of \ldblquote Blumen\rdblquote 
, although the relevance of the comparison would have remained intact as long as human language was being compared to a natural thing. The obviously desirable sensory aspects of the flower express the ambivalent aspiration to\-
wards a forgotten presence that gave rise to the image, for it is in experiencing the material presence of the particular flower that the desire arises to be reborn in the manner of a natural creation. The image is inspired 
by a nostalgia for the natural object, expanding to become nostalgia for the origin of this object. Such a nostalgia can only exist when the transcendental presence is forgotten, as in the \ldblquote diirftiger Zeit\rdblquote  of Holderlin\rquote 
s poem which we are all too eager to circumscribe as if it were a specific historical \ldblquote time\rdblquote 
 and not Time in general. The existence of the poetic image is itself a sign of divine absence, and the conscious use of poetic imagery an admis\-sion of this absence.
\par It is clear that, in Holderlin\rquote s own line, the words do not origi\-
nate like flowers. They need to find the mode of their beginning in another entity; they originate out of nothing, in an attempt to be the first words that will arise as if they were natural objects, and, as such, they rema
in essentially distinct from natural entities. Holderlin\rquote s statement is a perfect definition of what we call a nat\-
ural image: the word that designates a desire for an epiphany but necessarily fails to be an epiphany, because it is pure origination. For it
 is in the essence of language to be capable of origination, but of never achieving the absolute identity with itself that exists in the natural object. Poetic language can do nothing but originate. anew over and over again: it is always constitutive, abl
e to posit re\-
gardless of presence but, by the same token, unable to give a foundation to what it posits except as an intent of consciousness. The word is always a free presence to the mind, the means by which the permanence of natural entities can be put i
nto question and thus negated, time and again, in the endlessly widening spiral of the dialectic.
\par }\pard \nowidctlpar\adjustright {\b I
\par 
\par 
\par }{70 \lquote  }{\i Paul de Man
\par }\pard \qj\fi720\nowidctlpar\adjustright {An image of this type is indeed the simplest and most funda\-mental we can conceive of, the metaphorical 
expression most apt to gain our immediate acquiescence. During the long development that takes place in the nineteenth century, the poetic image remains pre\-dominantly of the same kind that in the Holderlin passage we took for our starting-point\emdash 
and which, be it said in passing, far from exhausts Holderlin\rquote 
s own conception of the poetic image. This type of imagery is grounded in the intrinsic ontological primacy of the natural object. Poetic language seems to originate in the desire to draw closer and close
r to the ontological status of the object, and its growth and development are determined by this inclination. We saw that this movement is essentially paradoxical and condemned in advance to failure. There can be flowers that \ldblquote are\rdblquote 
 and poetic words that \lquote \lquote originate,\rdblquote  but no poetic words that \ldblquote originate\rdblquote  as if they \ldblquote were.\rdblquote 
\par Nineteenth century poetry reexperiences and represents the ad\-venture of this failure in an infinite variety of forms and versions. It selects, for example, a variety of archetypal myths t
o serve as the dramatic pattern for the narration of this failure; a useful study could be made of the romantic and post-romantic versions of Hel\-
lenic myths such as the stories of Narcissus, of Prometheus, of the War of the Titans, of Adonis, Eros and Psy
che, Proserpine, and many others; in each case, the tension and duality inherent in the mythological situation would be found to reflect the inherent ten\-sion that resides in the metaphorical language itself. At times, ro\-
mantic thought and romantic poetry seem to come so close to giving in completely to the nostalgia for the object that it becomes difficult to distinguish between object and image, between imagina\-
tion and perception, between an expressive or constitutive and a mimetic or literal language. This may well be the case in some pas\-
sages of Wordsworth and Goethe, of Baudelaire and Rimbaud, where the vision almost seems to become a real landscape. Poetics of \ldblquote unmediated vision,\rdblquote  such as those implicit in Bergson and explicit in Bachelard, fuse mat
ter and imagination by amalgamating percep\-tion and reverie, sacrificing, in fact, the demands of consciousness to the realities of the object. Critics who speak of a \ldblquote happy rela\-tionship\rdblquote 
 between matter and consciousness fail to realize that the very fact that the relationship has to be established within the medium of language indicates that it does not exist in actuality.
\par At other times, the poet\rquote s loyalty towards his language appears so strongly that the object nearly vanishes under the impact of his words, in what Mallarme called \ldblquote sa presque disparition vibra\-toire.\rdblquote 
 But even in as extreme a case as Mallarme's, it would be a mistake to assume that the ontological priority of the object is being challenged. Mallarme may well be the nineteenth century poet
\par }\pard \nowidctlpar\adjustright {
\par }{\i Intentional Structure of the Romantic Image }{{\field{\*\fldinst SYMBOL 183 \\f "Symbol" \\s 12}{\fldrslt\f3\fs24}}}{ 71
\par }\pard \qj\nowidctlpar\adjustright {who went further than any other in sacrificing the stability of the object to the demands of a lucid poetic awareness. Even some of his own disciples felt they had to react a
gainst him by reasserting the positivity of live and material substances against the annihilating power of his thought. Believing themselves to be in a situation where they had to begin their work at the point where Mallarme had finished his, they took, l
i
ke Claudel, the precise counterpart of his attitudes or, like Valery, reversed systematically the meaning of some of his key-images. Yet Mallarme himself had always remained convinced of the essential priority of the natural object. The final image of his
 work, in }{\i Un Coup de Des, }{is that of the poet drowned in the ubiquitous \ldblquote sea\rdblquote  of natural substances against which his mind can only wage a meaningless battle, \ldblquote tenter une chance oiseuse.\rdblquote 
 It is true that, in Mallarme\rquote s thought, the value-empha\-sis of this p
riority has been reversed and the triumph of nature is being presented as the downfall of poetic defiance. But this does not alter the fundamental situation. The alternating feeling of at\-
traction and repulsion that the romantic poet experiences, towards nature becomes in Mallarme the conscious dialectic of a reflective poetic consciousness. This dialectic, far from challenging the su\-
premacy of the order of nature, in fact reasserts it at all times. \ldblquote Nous savons, victimes d\rquote une formule absolue, que certes n\rquote est que ce qui est,\rdblquote 
 writes Mallarme, and this absolute identity is rooted, for him, in Ia premiere en date, Ia nature. Idee tangible pour intimer quelque realite aux sens frustes. . .
\par }\pard \qj\fi720\nowidctlpar\adjustright {Mallarme\rquote s conception and use of imagery is entirely in agree\-ment with this principle. His key-symbols\emdash \emdash sea, winged bird, night, the sun, constellations, and many others\emdash 
are not primarily literary emblems but are taken, as he says, \ldblquote an repertoire de Ia nature\rdblquote ; they receive their meaning and function from the fact that the
y belong initially to the natural world. In the poetry, they may seem disincarnate to the point of abstraction, generalized to the point of becoming pure ideas, yet they never entirely lose contact with the concrete reality from which they spring. The sea
, the bird, and the constellation act and seduce in Mallarme\rquote s poetry, like any earthly sea, bird, or star in nature; even the Platonic \ldblquote oiseau qu\rquote on n\rquote ouit jamais\rdblquote 
 still has about it some of the warmth of the nest in which it was born. Mallarme does not li
nger over the concrete and material details of his images, but he never ceases to interrogate; by means of a conscious poetic language, the natural world of which they are originally a part\emdash 
while knowing that he could never reduce any part of this world to
 his own, conscious mode of being. If this is true of Mallarme, the most self-conscious and anti-natural poet of the nineteenth century, it seems safe to assert that the priority of the natural object remains unchallenged among the inheritors of ro\-

\par }\pard \nowidctlpar\adjustright {
\par 
\par 72 }{{\field{\*\fldinst SYMBOL 183 \\f "Symbol" \\s 12}{\fldrslt\f3\fs24}}}{ }{\i Paul de Man
\par }\pard \qj\nowidctlpar\adjustright {manticism. The detailed study of Mallarme bears this out; the same is true, with various nuances and reservations, of most Victorian and post-Victorian poets. For most of them, as for Mallarme, the priority of nat
ure is experienced as a feeling of failure and sterility, hut nevertheless asserted. A similar feeling of threatening paralysis prevails among our own contemporaries and seems to grow with the depth of their poetic commitment. It may be that this threat c
ould only be overcome when the status of poetic language or, more restrictively, of the poetic image, is again brought into question.
\par }\pard \qj\fi720\nowidctlpar\adjustright {The direction that such a reconsideration might take can better be anticipated by a reading of the precursors of romanticis
m than by the study of its inheritors. Assumptions that are irrevocably taken for granted in the course of the nineteenth century still ap\-
pear, at an earlier date, as one among several alternative roads. This is why an effort to understand the present pre
dicament of the poetic imagination takes us back to writers that belong to the earlier phases of romanticism such as, for example, Rousseau. The affinity of later poets with Rousseau\emdash 
which can well be considered to be a valid definition of romanticism as a whole\emdash can, in turn, be best understood in terms of their use and underlying conception of im\-
agery. The juxtaposition of three famous passages can serve as an illustration of this point and suggest further developments.
\par }\pard \nowidctlpar\adjustright {
\par }\pard \qj\fi720\nowidctlpar\adjustright {The three passages we have selected each represent a moment of spiritual revelation; the use of semi-religious, \ldblquote sacred,\rdblquote  or out\-
spokenly sublime language in all three makes this unquestionably clear. Rousseau is probably the only one to have some awareness of the literary tradition that stands behind the topos: his reference to Petrarch }{\i (La Nouvelle Heloise, }{
Part I, XXIII) suggests the all-im\-portant link with the Augustinian lesson contained in Petrarch\rquote s letter narrating his ascent of Mont Ventoux. A similar experience, in a more Norther
n Alpine setting, is related in the three passages. The Rousseau text is taken from the letter in La }{\i Nouvelle Heloise }{in which Saint-Preux reports on his sojourn in the Valais:
\par }\pard \nowidctlpar\adjustright {
\par Ge n\rquote etait pas seulement le travail des hommes qui rendait ces pays etranges si bizarrement contrastes; Ia nature semblait encore prendre plaisir s\rquote 
y mettre en opposition avec elle-meme, tant on Ia trouvait differente en un meme lieu sous divers aspects. Au levant les fleurs du printemps, an midi les fruits de l\rquote automne, au nord les glaces de l\rquote 
hiver: elle reunissait toutes les saisons dans le meme instant, tous les climats dans le meme lieu, des terrains contraires sur le meme sol, et formait l\rquote accord inconnu partout ailleurs des productions des plaines et de celles des Alpes. . .
\par    j\rquote arrivai ce jour la sur des montagnes les moms elevees, et, par.
\par     courant ensuite leurs inegalites, sur celles des plus hautes qui etaient A ma portee. Apres m\rquote etre promene dans les nuages,
\par }{\b I
\par 
\par 
\par }{\i Intentional Structure of the Romantic Image }{{\field{\*\fldinst SYMBOL 183 \\f "Symbol" \\s 12}{\fldrslt\f3\fs24}}}{ }{\i 73
\par }{j\rquote atteignis un sejour plus serein, d\rquote ou l\rquote on voit dans Ia saison le tonerre et l\rquote orage se former au-dessous de soi; image trop vaine de l\rquote ame du sage, dont l\rquote exemple n\rquote exista jamais, ou n\rquote 
existe qu \lquote aux memes lieux d\rquote ou l\rquote on en a tire l\rquote embleme.
\par Ce fut IA que je demelai sensiblement dans Ia purete de l\rquote air ou je me trouvais Ia veritable cause du changement de mon humeur, et du retour de cette paix interieure que j\rquote avais perdue depuis si longtemps. En effet, c\rquote 
est une impression generale qu eprouvent tons les hommes, quoiqu\rquote ils ne l\rquote observent pas tous, que sur les hautes montagnes, ou l\rquote 
air est pur et subtil, on se sent plus de facilite dans Ia respiration, plus de legerete dans le corps, plus de serenite dans l\rquote esprit; les plaisirs y s
ont moms ardents, les passions plus moderees. Les meditations y p rennent je ne sais quel caractere grand et sublime, proportionne aux objets qui nous frappent, je ne sais quelle volupte tranquille qui n\rquote a rien d\rquote 
Acre et de sensuel. Il semble qu\rquote en s\rquote elevant au-dessus du sejour des hommes on y laisse des sentiments bas et terrestres, et qu\rquote a mesure qu \lquote on approche des regions etherees, l\rquote ame contracte quelque\-
chose de leur inalterable purete. On y est grave sans melancolie, paisible sans indolence, content d\rquote 
etre et de penser. . .. Imaginez Ia variete Ia grandeur, Ia beaute de mille etonnants spectacles; le plaisir de ne voir autour de soi que des objets tout nouveau; des oiseaux etranges, des plantes bizarres et inconnues, d\rquote 
observer en quelque sorte une autre nature, et de se trouver dans un nouveau monde. Tout cela fait aux yeux un melange inexprimable, dont le charme augmente encore par Ia subtilite de l\rquote 
air qui rend les couleurs pl us vives, les traits plus marques, rapproche tous les points de vue; les distances paraissent moindres que dans les plaines, ou l\rquote epaisseur de l\rquote air couvre Ia terre d\rquote un voile, l\rquote 
horizon presente aux yeux plus d\rquote objets qu\rquote il semble n\rquote en pouvoir con-ten ir: enfin le spectacle a je ne sais quoi de magique, de sur\-naturel, qui ravit l\rquote esprit et les sens; on oublie tout, on s\rquote 
oublie soi-meme, on ne sait plus ou l\rquote on est
\par 
\par }\pard \qj\nowidctlpar\adjustright {Wordsworth\rquote s text is taken from Book VI of }{\i The Prelude }{and describes the poet\rquote s impressions in crossing the Alps, after having taken part in one of the celebrations
 that mark the triumph of the French Revolution. Wordsworth begins by praying for the safe\-guard of the Convent of the Grande Chartreuse, threatened with destruction at the hands of the insurrection; his prayer is first aimed at God, then \ldblquote 
for humbler claim\rdblquote  at nature:
\par }\pard \nowidctlpar\adjustright {
\par -\tab . and for humbler claim
\par Of that imaginative impulse sent
\par From these majestic floods, yon shining cliffs,
\par The untransmuted shapes of many worlds,
\par Cerulian ether\rquote s pure inhabitants,
\par These forests unapproachable by death,
\par That shall endure as long as man endures,
\par To think, to hope, to worship, and to feel,
\par 
\par 
\par }{\i 74 }{{\field{\*\fldinst SYMBOL 183 \\f "Symbol" \\s 12}{\fldrslt\f3\fs24}}}{ }{\i Paul de Man
\par }{To struggle, to be lost within himself
\par In trepidation, from the blank abyss
\par  To look with bodily eyes, and be consoled. (The Prelude, VI, }{\b 11, }{477\emdash 487)
\par 
\par Somewhat later in the same section, Wordsworth describes the de\-scent of the Simplon pass:
\par 
\par The immeasurable height
\par Of woods decaying, never to be decayed,
\par The stationary blasts of waterfalls,
\par And in the narrow rent at every turn
\par Winds thwarting winds, bewildered and forlorn,
\par The torrents shooting from the clear blue sky,
\par The rocks that muttered close upon our ears,
\par Black drizzling crags that spake by the way-side
\par As if a voice were in them, the sick sight
\par And giddy prospect of the raving stream,
\par The unfettered clouds and region of the Heavens,
\par Tumult and peace, the darkness and the light\emdash  Were all like workings of one mind, the features
\par Of the same face, blossoms upon one tree;
\par Characters of the great Apocalypse,
\par The types and symbols of Eternity,
\par Of first, and last,\tab and midst, and without end. }{\i (The Prelude, }{VI, 624\emdash 640)
\par 
\par }\pard \qj\nowidctlpar\adjustright {Holderlin\rquote s poem \ldblquote Heimkunft\rdblquote  begins by the description of a sunrise in the mountains, observed by the poet on his return from Switzerland to his native Swabia:
\par }\pard \nowidctlpar\adjustright {
\par Drin in den Alpen ists noch belle Nacht und die Wolke,
\par Freudiges dichtend, sie deckt drinnen das gahnende Tal.
\par Dahin, dorthin toset und sturzt die scherzende Bergluft,
\par Schroff durch Tannen herab glanzet und schwindet em Strahl.
\par Langsam eilt und kampft das freudigschauernde Chaos,
\par Jung an Gestalt, doch stark, feiert es liebenden Streit
\par Unter den Felsen, es gart und wankt in den ewigen Schranken,
\par Denn bacchantischer zieht drinnen der Morgen herauf.
\par Denn es wachst unendlicher dort das Jahr und die heilgen
\par Stunden, die Tage, sie sind kiihner geordenet, gemischt.
\par Dennoch merket die Zeit der Gewittervogel und zwischen
\par Bergen, hoch in der Luft weilt er und rufet den Tag.
\par 
\par Ruhig glanzen indes die silbernen Hbhen drauber,
\par Voll mit Rosen ist schon droben der leuchtende Schnee.
\par Und noch hoher hinauf wohnt uber dem Lichte der reine
\par Selige Gott vom Speil heiliger Strahlen erfreut.
\par Stille wohnt er allein, und hell\rquote  erseheinet sein Antlitz,
\par \tab Der atherische scheint Leben zu geben geneigt.\tab i and II)
\par st.
\par 
\par 
\par }{\i \tab Intentional Structure of the Romantic Image\tab 75
\par }\pard \qj\nowidctlpar\adjustright {l\rquote ach of these texts describes the passage from a certain type of nature, earthly and material, to another nature which could be called mental and celestial, although the \ldblquote Heaven\rdblquote 
 referred to is devoid of specific theological connotations. The common characteristic that concerns us most becomes apparent in the mixed, transitional type of landscape from which the three poets start out. The setting of each scene is located somewhere
 between the inaccessible moun\-tain peaks and the humanized world of the plains; it is a deeply di\-vided and paradoxical nature that, in Rousseau\rquote s terms, \ldblquote seems to take pleasure in self-opposition.\rdblquote 
 Radical contradictions abound in each of the passages. Rousseau deliberately mixes and blurs the order of the seasons and the laws of geography. The more con\-densed, less narrative diction of Wordsworth transposes similar con\-
tradictions into the complexity of a language that unites irreconcil\-able opposites; he creates a disorder so far-reaching that the respec\-tive position of heaven and earth are reversed: \ldblquote . . . woods de\-
caying, never to be decayed            torrents shooting from the sky . . ,\ldblquote  \ldblquote . . . the stationary blast of waterfalls     Holderlin\rquote s text 
also is particularly rich in oxymorons; every word-combination, every motion expresses a contradiction: \ldblquote helle Nacht,\rdblquote  \ldblquote langsam eilt,\rdblquote  \ldblquote liebenden Streit,\rdblquote  \ldblquote toset und stunt,\rdblquote  
\ldblquote geordnet, gemischt,\rdblquote  \ldblquote freudigschauernde,\rdblquote  etc. One feels everywhere the pres\-sure of an inner tension at the core of all earthly objects, powerful enough to bring them to explosion.
\par }\pard \qj\fi720\nowidctlpar\adjustright {The violence of this turmoil is finally appeased by the ascending movement recorded in each of the texts, the movement by means of which the poetic imagina
tion tears itself away, as it were, from a terrestrial nature and moves towards this \ldblquote other nature\rdblquote  mentioned by Rousseau, associated with the diaphanous, limpid and imma\-
terial quality of a light that dwells nearer to the skies. Gaston Bachelard has descr
ibed similar images of levitation very well, but he may not have stressed sufficiently that these reveries of flight not only express a desire to escape from earth-bound matter, to be relieved for a moment from the weight of gravity, but that they un\-
cover a fundamentally new kind of relationship between nature and consciousness; it is significant, in this respect, that Bachelard classi\-
fies images of repose with earth and not with air, contrary to what happens in the three selected texts. The transparency of air repre\-
sents the perfect fluidity of a mode of being that has moved beyond the power of earthly things and now dwells, like the God in Holderlin\rquote s \ldblquote Heimkunft,\rdblquote  higher even than light (\ldblquote Uber dem Lichte\rdblquote 
). Like the clouds described by Wordsworth, the poets be\-come \ldblquote Cerulian ether\rquote s pure inhabitants.\rdblquote  Unlike Mallarme\rquote s \ldblquote azur or even the constellation at the end of }{\i Un }{Coup }{\i de Des }{
which are always seen from the point of view of the earth by a man about to sink away, their language has itself become a celestial en-
\par }\pard \nowidctlpar\adjustright {
\par 
\par }{\i 76 }{{\field{\*\fldinst SYMBOL 183 \\f "Symbol" \\s 12}{\fldrslt\f3\fs24}}}{ }{\i Paul de Man
\par }\pard \qj\nowidctlpar\adjustright {tity, an inhabitant of the sky. Instead of being, like the \ldblquote flower\rdblquote  in Holderlin\rquote s \ldblquote Brot und Wein,\rdblquote 
 the fruit of the earth, the poetic word has become an offspring of the sky. The ontological priority, housed at first in the earthly and pastoral \ldblquote flower,\rdblquote  has been trans\-
posed into an entity that could still, if one wishes, be called \ldblquote na\-ture,\rdblquote  but could no longer be equated with matter, objects, earth, stones, or flowers. The nostalgia for the object has become a nostal\-
gia for an entity that could never, by its verv nature, become a particularized presence.
\par }\pard \qj\fi720\nowidctlpar\adjustright {The passages describe the ascent of a consciousness trapped with\-in the contradictions of a half-earthly, half-heavenly nature \ldblquote qui semblait prendre plaisir a (se) mettre en opposition avec elle\-meme,
\rdblquote  towards another level of consciousness, that has recovered \ldblquote cette paix interieure . . . perdue depuis si lontemps.\rdblquote  (It goes without saying that the sequel of the three works from which the passages 
have been taken indicates that this tranquillity is far from having been definitively reconquered. Yet the existence of this moment of peace in La }{\i Nouvelle Heloise, }{in }{\i The Prelude, }{and in the poem }{\i \lquote Heimkunft\rdblquote \emdash 
\rdblquote Ruhig }{glanzen indes die silbernen Hohen daruber . . .\ldblquote \emdash determines the fate of the respective au\-
thors and marks it as being an essentially poetic destiny.) In the course of this movement, in a passage that comes between the two descriptions we have cited, Wordsworth praises the faculty that gives him 
access to this new insight, and he calls this faculty \ldblquote Im\-agination\rdblquote :
\par }\pard \nowidctlpar\adjustright {
\par Imagination! lifting up itself
\par Before the eye and progress of my Song
\par Like an unfather\rquote d vapour;
\par . . in such strength
\par }{Of}{ usurpation, in such visitings
\par Of awful promise, when the light of sense Goes out in flashes that have shewn to us
\par The invisible world, doth Greatness make abode,
\par 
\par The mind beneath such banners militant
\par Thinks not of spoils or trophies, nor of aught
\par That may attest its prowess, blest in thoughts
\par That are their own perfection and reward,
\par Strong in itself, and in the access of joy
\par Which hides it like the overflowing Nile.
\par }{\i (The Prelude, }{VI, }{\b 591\emdash 614)
\par 
\par }\pard \qj\nowidctlpar\adjustright {But this \ldblquote imagination\rdblquote  has little in common with the faculty that produces natural images born \ldblquote as flowers originate.\rdblquote  It mar
ks instead a possibility for consciousness to exist entirely by and for itself, independently of all relationship with the outside world,
\par }\pard \nowidctlpar\adjustright {
\par }{\i \tab The Structure of Romantic Nature Imagery\tab }{77
\par }\pard \qj\nowidctlpar\adjustright {without being moved by an intent aimed at a part of this world. Rousseau stressed that there was nothing sensuous (\ldblquote rien d\rquote acre et de sensuel\rdblquote ) in Saint-Preux\rquote 
s moment of illumination; Words\-worth, who goes so far as to designate the earth by the astonishing periphrase of \ldblquote blank abyss,\rdblquote  insists that the imagination can only come into full play when \ldblquote the light of sense goes out
\rdblquote  and when thought reaches a point at which it is \ldblquote its own perfection and re\-ward\rdblquote \emdash as when Rousseau, in the Fifth }{\i Reverie, }{declares himself \ldblquote content d\rquote etre\rdblquote  and \ldblquote 
ne jouissant de rien d\rquote exterieur a soi, de rien sinon de soi-meme et de sa propre existence.
\par }\pard \qj\fi720\nowidctlpar\adjustright {We know very little about the kind of images that such an im\-agination would produce, except that they would have little in common with what we have come to expect from familiar metaphor\-
ical figures. The works of the early romantics give us no actual examples, for they are, at most, }{\i underway }{towards renewed insights and inhabit the mixed and self-contradictory regions that we en\-
countered in the three passages. Nor has their attempt been rightly interpreted by those who came after them, for literary history has generally labeled \ldblquote primitivist,\rdblquote  \ldblquote naturalistic,\rdblquote 
 or even pantheistic the first modern writers to have put into question, in the language of poetry, the ontological priority of the s
ensory object. We are only beginning to understand how this oscillation in the status of the image is linked to the crisis that leaves the poetry of today un\-der a steady threat of extinction, although, on the other hand, it re\-
mains the depositary of hopes that no other activity of the mind seems able to offer.
\par }}