52 (1/2019), pp. 117–126 The Polish Journal of Aesthetics Jean Galard The Poetics of Conduct The aesthetic comprehension of existence is, after all, something we all share, as evidenced, for example, by the common use of the notions of “rou- tine, ” “monotony, ” and “dullness, ” by the frustration we feel when we have to lead a confined and impoverished way of life, which has been condemned to a platitude, and even as reflected in the metaphorical extension that is some- times attributed to the opposition formed by “poetry” and “prose. ” Since Romanticism, the notion of “poetic” has claimed a field of applica- tion that goes beyond the sphere of words, which includes, for Chateau- briand, certain ancient practices (festivals, pilgrimages,) which, with George Sand, extends to the rural lifestyle as a whole. In the following century, Sar- tre interpreted an African lifestyle, which Senghor praised under the name of Negritude, as an expression of a poetry of farmers opposed to a prose of engineers (Sartre 1949, 265). Although far from romantic themes, Valéry points out a fact of language (“We say that a landscape is poetic; we say it under a circumstance of life; we sometimes say it of a person”) and takes up the premise that this use implies (“I know that there is poetry in this sky- scraper”) (Valery 1957, 1362, 1386). In the Poetism Manifesto [Manifesto Poetismu], Karel Teige claims to prefer the vibrations that life offers to the five senses over the detached flowers of literature: “a poetry of Sunday af- ternoons, picnics, luminous cafes, intoxicating cocktails, lively boulevards, spa promenades, but also the poetry of silence, night, quiet, and peace” (Teige 1972, 111). 1 How can objects, places, living conditions, beings, and behaviors seem to be full of poetry? If there is only one set of received ideas, then how and by whom were they given? 1 English quote from: Teige 2010.