Sky and stars

Use in the book

The desired succession of thoughts resembles stars ordered in the sky, separated enough to retain independence while remaining harmonious. Another fragment calls the stars aerial or ethereal islands. A nested sequence places earth in air, air in ether, ether in the heavens, the heavens in light, and light in God. The last moves from surrounding media toward a divine containing source; it should not be mistaken for a modern diagram of atmospheric layers.

Places to read

1. I, p. 263, entry 9, ¶1The sky supplies an image of ordered but independent thoughts.
2. I, p. 407, entry 5, ¶1Celestial bodies are imagined as islands in air or ether.
3. I, p. 239, entry 4, ¶1The heavens occupy a place in a nested series.

Translation in this edition

The English translation uses “sky” for the literary constellation and “heavens” for the nested series. It retains “stars” where the comparison pictures isolated lights, without making the source a modern astronomical classification.

Use in the book

The sky is an active half of the landscape. It admits or withholds light, sets the moving clouds against a field, and determines how open a whole region feels. June 1833 makes the contrast geographical: Breton summer seems veiled and confined beside the broad, generously lit arch remembered from Languedoc. This is the experience of a particular observer, not a neutral climatic survey.

Sky can also define freedom. Birds living near farms retain an immense field behind them, and their relation to the sky becomes a model for remaining near society without complete enclosure. The comparison depends upon the difference between a dwelling’s limited place and a creature’s available range.

Its threatening counterpart is the imagined pale, motionless sky without seasons in April 1835. The problem is not outright darkness but arrested variation: enough warmth for fermentation, never enough change for fulfilment. Across these passages, breadth and change matter more than a simple opposition between blue happiness and grey sadness.

Places to read

1. 20 March 1833 · ¶1The departing winter gives a clear sky the smoothness of a Venetian mirror
2. 13 June 1833 · ¶1Contrasting regional skies become an assessment of felt openness and light
3. 20 August 1834 · ¶1The immense sky supplies the bird’s continuing field of freedom
4. 3 April 1835 · ¶1A seasonless sky models development held indefinitely in suspension

Translation in this edition

The English chooses sky for the observable atmosphere and heaven for religious destinations, distinctions carried by one French word, ciel. When the May seeds hang entre le ciel et la terre, heaven and earth retains the elevated pairing while the scene remains materially suspended in open air.