House and Universe Summary and Analysis

Bachelard reiterates the idea that rooms and houses are psychological diagrams that writers and poets use to analyze intimacy. Baudelaire notes that the more severe the outside weather, the warmer and cozier it seems inside, reminding one how valuable a house is. Bachelin writes that winter is the oldest season and reminds us of remote past, old houses and ancestral legends of centuries ago, which recall dramatic times when deep snow and blizzards surround the homestead in snow-drifts.

Rilke writes of city-dwellings, where storms and hurricanes seem more aggressive and hostile than in the countryside. Bachelard imputes Rilke with trust in the storm since lightning shows where to spare the dwellings of men like the negative of a photo-image. City-dwellings on streets are more transient like Rilke than the old country home, where he is born in...