From Imaginative Criticism To Thematic Criticism Jeorges Poulet’s Beliefs, Theories and Methodology

From 1950 onward the way was paved for a new kind of criticism to be born. The roots of this approach should be basically looked for in the works of the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard. The foundation of this new method of criticism was laid on the new meanings given to the theme of the works. Theme is no longer a subject which is consciously worked on by the author, but it refers to the central core of the absollutely private, imaginary and abstract world of the creator. The theme takes a concrete form while the work is being created, and the language structure and word network come to being. Georges Poulet is one of the critics who have been strongly influenced by Bachelard’s ideas. Poulet’s distinguishes criticism as an activiity in which the critic comes close to the emotional, imaginative and intellectual world of the writer and this happens to the extent that the work acts as a mirror held to the inner world of the critic. Therefore thematic criticism in Poulet’s view is a kind of criticism based on a close companionship between the author and the critic. This article, in addition to a brief introduction to this area of criticism, basically discusses Poulet’s ideas, beliefs and methodology. And finally it views the main tendency in Poulet’s criticism which studies the understanding of time and place in different writers’ works.