Biografie Paul Valry Paul Valry (1871-1945) - in full Ambroise-Paul-Touissaint-Jules Valry

French poet, essayist, and critic, who ceased writing verse for twenty years to pursue scientific experiments. Valry was a member of the 19th-century poetic school of Symbolism, and its last great representative. Throughout his life Valry filled his private notebooks with observations on creative process and his own methods of inquiry. He insisted that the mental process of creation was alone important - the poems were a by-product of the effort. "Enthusiasm is not an artist's state of mind", stated Valry. T.S. Eliot has compared Valry's analytical attitude to a scientist who works in a laboratory "weighing out or testing the drugs of which is compounded some medicine with an impressive name." "Poetry is simply literature reduced to the essence of its active principle. It is purged of idols of every kind, of realistic illusions, of any conceivable equivocation between the language of "truth" and the language of "creation." (from Littrature, 1929) Paul Valry was born in Cette (now Ste), the son of a Corsican customs officer, Barthelmy Valry, and Fanny Grassi, who was the daughter of the Genoese Italian consul and descended from Venetian nobility. Valry spent his childhood in the port town of his birth, and remained through his life close to his Mediterranean origins. He was educated in Sette and at the lyce in Montpellier. He studied law at the University of Montpellier, and obtained his licence in 1892. Mathematics fascinated Valry, but before his voluntary service in the infantry he had been prevented from becoming a candidate for the Naval School due to his weakness in this subject. After moving to Paris he became a regular attendant at Stphane Mallarm's literary 'Tuesday evenings' and the older poet's favorite disciple. Valry's other early idols were Edgar Allan Poe, whose poems he also translated, and J-K.Huysman. Mallarm's influence is seen in Valry's masterpiece LA JEUNE PARQUE (1917). Inspired by Leonardo da Vinci, Valry started to write in notebooks, which were published posthumously in 1957-60 in CAHIERS (Notebooks). After a passionate attraction for a young Spanish girl, Valry went through a personal crisis. During a violent thunderstorm, as he later reported, he decided to free himself "at no matter what cost, from those falsehoods: literature and sentiment." In 1896 Valry was employed in London by the press bureau of the British South Africa Company. He then worked for three years in the artillery munition bureau of the French Army. In 1900 he married Jeannie Gobillard, a niece of the Impressionist painter Berthe Morisot. In the same year he joined the Havas news agency to became the private secretary of Edouard Lebey, a key executive of the company, who was afflicted with paralysis agitans. Valry held this position until 1922. In 1892 Valry experienced the "revolution of the mind" during a stormy night in Genoa. He turned his back on writing poetry and dedicated himself to gaining "maximum knowledge and control of his intellect." The very act of writing, he decided, was one of vanity. During these silent years as a poet he

published two prose works. In INTRODUCTION DE LA MTHODE DE LONARD DA VINCI (1894) he stated that "all criticism is the cause of the work as in the eyes of the law the criminal is the cause of the crime. Far rather are they both the effects." LA SOIRE AVEC MONSIEUR TESTE (1896) was the first of. the numerous pieces of the Teste cycle. The painter Edgar Degas, who called him 'Monseur Angel', refused the dedication of the book. M. Teste (Mr. Head) is an intellectual monster, whose whole existence is given up to the examination of his own intellectual process. The work was published in Le Centaure, and reprinted by Paul Fort, in his periodical Vers et prose. Valry's mathematical and philosophical speculations were interrupted in 1912 by Andr Gide' and the publisher Gaston Gallimard, who persuaded Valry to collect and revise the poetry he had written in the 1890s. "A poem is never finished, only abandoned," had Valry himself once said. Valry's original plan was to produce a poem of some forty lines, but he finished with one of his major works, La Jeune Pataque, which brought him immediate fame. Une esclave aux longs yeux chargs de molles chaines Change l'eau de mes fleurs, plonge aux glaces prochaines, Au lit mystrieux prodigue ses doigts purs; Elle met une femme au milieu de ces murs Qui, dans ma rverie errante avec dcence, Passe entre mes regards sans briser leur absence, Comme passe le verre au travers du soleil, Et de la raison pure pargne l'appareil. (from 'Intrieur') With the CHARMES OU POMES (1922) Valry attained the status of most significant contemporary French poet. In his most famous poem, 'Le Cimetire marin', the poet meditates as he looks at the cemetery by the sea at Sette where his parents - and he himself ultimately - are buried. He initially feels that he loves and envies the stillness of death, but comes then to the famous lines: 'The wind rises!... We must try to live!' Lebeys s death left Valry without employment, and he had to earn his living by publishing his writings. He lectured, wrote prefaces to ancient and modern works, and contributed to periodicals. His 'mlodrames' Amphion and Smiramis, with music by Arthur Honegger, played at the Paris Opera in 1931 and 1934. Valry was elected to the Acadmie Franaise in 1925 and in 1933 he was made administrative head of the Centre Universitaire Mditerranen at Nice. On Anatole France's death Valry was admitted to the Academy, but instead of composing an 'loge' about France he broke the precedent by unconventionally criticizing the author. Whereas France had occupied himself with politics and finally declared himself a Communist, Valry was not a political thinker. Also France represented to many French literary people all that was outmoded. Valry was appointed in 1937 professor of poetry at the Collge de France. In 1939 he wrote the libretto for Germaine Taillefer's Cantate du Narcisse. He died in Paris on July 20, 1945. His last principal work was the Faust fragments on which he began to work in 1940. Between the years 1957 and 1961 the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

published a facsimile reprint of his Cahiers. Selections from the Cahiers appeared in 1973 in two large volumes. For further reading: Paul Valry: tudes by E. Noulet (1938, 1951); The Art of Poetry, Collected Works, vol VII by T.S. Eliot (1958); The Poem Itself, ed. by S. Burnshaw (1960); Paul Valry by A. Berne-Joffroi (1960); The Poetic Theory of Valry by W.N. Ince (1961); Paul Valry by E. Sewell (1961); Paul Valry: Consciousness of Nature by C. Crow (1972); Paul Valry et le thtre by H. Laurenti (1973); The Poet as Analyst: Essays on Paul Valry by J.R. Lawler (1974); Paul Valry by C.G. Whiting (1978); Margins of Philosophy by J. Derrida (1982); Paul Valery Revisited by Walter Putman (1995); Paul Valery: Illusions of Civilization by Paul Kluback (1996); Paul Valery: A Philosopher for Philosopgers, the Sage by William Kluback (1999); Reading Paul Valery, ed. by Paul Gifford (1999) - For further information: Little Blue Light - Suom.: Valryn runoja on julkaistu teoksissa Helikonin lhde ja Tuhat laulujen vuotta, toim. Aale Tynni (1974). 'Kalmisto meren rannalla' lytyy Lauri Viljasen suomentamana teoksesta Ranskan kirjallisuuden kultainen kirja (1934). - See also: Saint-John Perse, Colette Selected bibliography: * INTRODUCTION LA MTHODE DE LONARDO DE VINCI, 1895 - Introduction to the Method of Leonardo da Vinci) * LA SOIRE AVEC MONSIEUR TESTE, 1896 - An Evening with Monsieur Teste * LA JEUNE PARQUE, 1917 - The Young Fate * ALBUM DE VERS ANCIENS 1890-1900, 1920 * CHARMES LE CIMETIRE MARIN, 1920 - The Garveyard by the Sea - suomennettu runo Kalmisto meren rannalla * EBAUCHE D'UN SERPENT, 1922 - The Serpent * CHARMES OU POMES, 1922 * EUPALINOS OU L'ARCHITECTE, 1923 - Eupalinos: or, The Architect * UNE CONQUTE MTHODIQUE, 1925 * PROPOS SUR L'INTELLIGENCE, 1926 * RHUMBS, 1926 * AUTRES RHUMBS, 1927 * DISCOURS DE RCEPTION, 1927 * ESSAI SUR STENDAHL, 1927 * POSIES, 1929 * LITTRATURE, 1929 * CHOSES TUES, 1930 * REGARDS SUR LE MONDE ACTUEL, 1931 * DISCOURS EN L'HONNEUR DE GOETHE, 1932 * MORALITS, 1932 * LA POLITIQUE DE L'ESPRIT, 1932 * DE LA DICTION DES VERS, 1933 * L'IDEE FIXE OU DEUX HOMMES LA MER, 1933

* PIECES SUR L'ART PROSA, 1934 * ANALECTA, 1935 * DEGAS, DANSE, DESSIN, 1938 * INTRODUCTION LA POTIQUE, 1938 * MELANGE, 1941 * TEL QUEL,1941-43 * MAIVAISES PENSES AT AUTRES ESSAIS, 1945 * SOUVENIRS POTIQUES, 1946 * ESSAIS ET TMOIGNAGES, 1946 * MON FAUST, 1946 * VUES, 1948 * Selected Writings, 1950 * HISTOIRES BRISES, 1950 * CAHIERS, 1957-60 (29 vols.) * Self Portraits: The Gide/Valry Letters 1890-1942, 1966 * The Collected Works of Paul Valry, 1956-1975 (15 vols.) * Paul Valry: An Anthology, 1977