Sveća: uvodno poglavlje u ontologiju nestajanja

Abstract

More an intimate meditation then a contemplative scientific paper, relying on Bachelard’s poetics and psychoanalysis of fire, the text on the ontological status and semantic potential of a candle and its light will attempt to analyze this object as a psychic, or psychoanalytical phenomenon, a potent symbol preserved in dreams, imagination, art, although almost vanished from our everyday lives. Such perspective, legitimated by the Bachelardian obscuring of the borderline between objective and subjective experience, will raise the following questions: on which ontological/temporal/spatial plane does a candle exist; is the flame’s verticality the locus of its transformative and regenerative potential; where is the place of the eternal in the ephemeral; what is the chiaroscuro of psyche; how does Christianity interpret candles; what about Jung; is “the humanized flame” of a candle, as the fusion of imagination and memory, the birthplace of poetry – verbal, visual, and cinematographic. And, finally: does a candle exist because it disappears.