See also: Valéry

Paul Valéry , born with Sète the October 30th 1871, died with Paris the July 20th 1945, is a writer, poet, philosopher and epistemologist French.

Course

Born from a Corsican father of origin and a mother génoise, Paul Valéry makes his primary studies with Sète (then spelled This ) at the Dominicains, then his secondary studies with the college of Montpellier. He begins in 1889 studies of Droit. This same year, it publishes its first towards in the maritime Revue of Marseilles . Its poetry of this time falls under mobility Symbolist.

Harms of Genoa

In the night of the from October 4th to 5th 1892, it knows with Genoa what it describes like an existential serious attack. It leaves solved to to repudiate the idols literature, love, inaccuracy, to devote the essence of its existence so that it names the life of the spirit. In the Cahiers testify in which it is compelled to note all its reflections in the small hour. After which , adds it of manner of joke, having devoted these hours to the life of the spirit, I feel the right to be stupid the remainder of the day .

Is poetry excludes for all that of its life? Not, because precisely, according to Valéry, any poem not having the exact precision of prose is not worth anything . At most it with respect to it has the same distance as Malherbe, affirming seriously which a good poet is not more useful to its country than a good player of balls .

At all events, Paul Valéry on several occasions indicates to regard this night as his true origin, the beginning of his mental life.

In 1894, it settles with Paris, where it starts to work as writer with the ministry for the War, and where it binds with Paul Léautaud. There remains distant poetic writing to be devoted to the self-knowledge and world. Private secretary of Edouard Lebey, administrator of the Agency Havas, it business each morning at the early hours with the drafting of its Books , intellectual and psychological newspaper of which essence is published only after its death. In 1900, it marries Jeannie Gobillard, of which it has three children.

Poetry

In 1917, under the influence of Gide in particular, it returns to poetry with the Young person Parks , published at Gallimard. Another great poem follows a few years later: the marine Cemetery (1920), then a collection, Charms (1922).

Influenced by Stephan Mallarmé, Paul Valéry always privileged in his poetry the formal control on the direction and the inspiration: My worms have the direction that is lent to them. In particular in the distich of page 96:

This hand, on my features which she dreams effleurer
Abstractedly flexible at some major end ,
Awaits from my weakness a tear which founds

exist a controversy that the fact that the verb used is to melt or to found .

After the First World War, Paul Valéry becomes a kind of “official poet”, immensely celebrates - little deceives, he has fun some - and filled honors. In 1924, he becomes president of the PEN French Club, then he is elected member of the French Academy the following year. In the speech of reception which he pronounces on June 23rd, 1927, Paul Valéry speaks in praise of Anatole France, his predecessor, without pronouncing his name only once.

In 1932, it enters to the council of the national museums; in 1933, it is named administrator of the Mediterranean University center of Nice; in 1936, it is named president of the Commission of synthesis of the cultural co-operation for the World Fair; in 1937, one creates for him the pulpit of poetic with the Collège de France; in 1939, finally, he becomes honorary president of SACEM.

Its true work, during this time, always continues in the shade. Depth of the reflections which it emitted in demanding works ( Introduction to the method of Léonard de Vinci , the evening with Mr Teste ), its reflections on becoming to it civilization ( Regards on the current world ) and its sharp intellectual curiosity made of it an interlocutor of Raymond Poincaré, Louis de Broglie, Henri Bergson and Albert Einstein.

German occupation

Under the Occupation, Paul Valéry, refusing to collaborate, loses his post of administrator of the University center of Nice. He dies the July 20th 1945, a few weeks after the end of the Second world war. After national funeral at the request of Charles de Gaulle, it is buried with Sète, the marine cemetery which it had celebrated in its poem:
This roof quiet, where go of the doves,
Between the pines palpitates, between the tombs…

Work

The tests of Valéry testify to its concerns on the perenniality of civilization (“Us others, civilizations, we know now that we are mortals”), the future of the “rights of the spirit”, the role of the literature in the formation, and the feedback of progress on the man. Its series “Variety” (I, II, III, IV, V) is composed of another type of writings: those which were ordered to him and which it, of its consent, ever had undoubtedly written itself. They do not testify to it less than one depth to analysis often dazzling (in particular “Our destiny and letters”, in “Glances on the current world”). Its correspondence with André Gide was published in NRF.

One finds in his Cahiers passages of Such as it is as well as indications probably intended to facilitate their regrouping in only one work or later works: more subtle Numbers, Robinson , etc

It also published the obsession

Philosophy

The philosophical and epistemological dimension of Valéry is less known because of late publication of its books. However Valéry is currently recognized like one of the eminent thinkers of the epistemology constructivist.

However, the report/ratio that Valéry maintains with philosophy is rather singular. In its Books he writes: " I read badly and with trouble the philosophers, who are too long and whose language is antipathetic for me. " (T1 p197) Indeed, if it is inspired freely by Descartes with regard to a certain method of the " penser" , it is on the other hand very critical on the philosophical speech itself. For Valéry, the philosopher is more one skilful sophist, manager of concepts, that a craftsman with the service of the Knowledge like the east the scientist. In this respect, Valéry is close to Wittgenstein and the Members of the Circle of Vienna, having them also a critical distrust towards philosophy and its metaphysical language.

On the other hand, its desire to include/understand the world in its general information and until the process of the thought itself - characteristic of the philosopher - strongly directs its work, which appears in particular in:

  • the crisis of the spirit (Variety I) (“Us others, civilizations, we now know that we are mortals”)
  • Petite letter about the myths (Variety II)
  • the policy of the spirit, the assessment of the intelligence (Variety III)
  • Discours of reception to the French Academy
  • Discours of the history (Variety IV)
  • Discours with the surgeons , the man and the shell (Variety V)

and throughout its Books .

Posterity

  • “It depends on that which passes That I would be tomb or treasure Which I speak or conceals This to me is due only to you Ami does not enter without desire”: inscription on the pediment of the Palate of Chaillot in Paris.
  • “the war is the massacre of people who do not know each other with the profit of people who, them, know each other but do not massacre themselves”: one finds this quotation on some War memorials pacifist.
  • “I call Europe a ground which was romanisée, christianized and subjected to the spirit of discipline of the Greeks”.

Works

  • Introduction to the method of Léonard de Vinci (1895)
  • the evening with Mr Teste (1896)
  • Essai of a methodical conquest (1897)
  • the young person parks (1918)
  • the crisis of the spirit (1919)
  • the marine Cemetery (1920)
  • Album of old worms (1920)
  • Charmes (1922)
  • Eupalinos or the architect (1923)
  • the heart and the dance (1923)
  • Dialog oftree (1923)
  • Variety I (1924)
  • Matter on the intelligence (1925)
  • Mr Teste (1926)
  • Variété II (1929)
  • Regards on the current world (1931)
  • Amphion (1931)
  • Pièces on art (1931)
  • the obsession or two men with the sea (1932)
  • Discours in the honor of Goethe (1932)
  • Sémiramis (1934)
  • Variété III (1936)
  • Degas, dance, drawing (1938)
  • Speech with the surgeons (1938)
  • Variety IV (1938)
  • impure thoughts and others (1942)
  • Such as it is (1941, then 1943) ( Book B 1910; Moralities; Literature and Choses kill )
  • Variété V (1944)
  • My Faust (1946)
  • the angel (1947)
  • broken Histoires (1950)
  • Vues (1948, posthumous)
  • Œuvres I (1957, posthumous)
  • the Principles of anarchy pure and applied (1984, posthumous)
  • the totality of the Cahiers is consultable in facsimile with the library of the Center Georges-Pompidou of Paris.
  • Orphée

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