Ambroise Paul Toussaint Jules Valéry (; 30 October 1871 – 20 July 1945) was a French poet, essayist, and

philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

. In addition to his poetry and fiction (drama and dialogues), his interests included aphorisms on art, history, letters, music, and current events. Valéry was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 12 different years.

Biography

Valéry was born to a Corsican father and Genoese-

Istria Istria ( ; Croatian language, Croatian and Slovene language, Slovene: ; Italian language, Italian and Venetian language, Venetian: ; ; Istro-Romanian language, Istro-Romanian: ; ; ) is the largest peninsula within the Adriatic Sea. Located at th ...

n mother in Sète, a town on the Mediterranean coast of the Hérault, but he was raised in

Montpellier Montpellier (; ) is a city in southern France near the Mediterranean Sea. One of the largest urban centres in the region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania, Montpellier is the prefecture of the Departments of France, department of ...

, a larger urban center close by. After a traditional

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

education, he studied law at university and then resided in Paris for most of the remainder of his life, where he was, for a while, part of the circle of

Stéphane Mallarmé Stéphane Mallarmé ( , ; ; 18 March 1842 – 9 September 1898), pen name of Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French Symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools o ...

. In 1900, he married Jeannine Gobillard, a friend of

's family, who was also a niece of the painter Berthe Morisot. The wedding was a double ceremony in which the bride's cousin, Berthe Morisot's daughter, Julie Manet, married the painter Ernest Rouart. Valéry and Gobillard had three children: Claude, Agathe and François. Valéry served as a juror with Florence Meyer Blumenthal in awarding the Prix Blumenthal, a grant given between 1919 and 1954 to young French painters, sculptors, decorators, engravers, writers, and musicians. Though his earliest publications date from his mid-twenties, Valéry did not become a full-time writer until he was fifty. Valéry had briefly earned his living at the Ministry of War, before assuming a relatively flexible post as private secretary to the increasingly impaired Edouard Lebey, a former chief executive of the

Havas Havas NV () is a French multinational corporation, multinational advertising agency, advertising and public relations company, with its registered office and head office in Puteaux, France. Havas operates in more than 100 countries. The group ...

news agency (later renamed "Agence France-Presse"). He held this position for over twenty years, until Lebey's death in 1922. In 1920, he began a tumultuous affair with a fellow poet, Catherine Pozzi, which lasted for eight years. After his election to the in 1925, Valéry became a tireless public speaker and intellectual figure in French society, touring Europe and giving lectures on cultural and social issues as well as assuming a number of official positions eagerly offered to him by an admiring French nation. He represented France on cultural matters at the

League of Nations The League of Nations (LN or LoN; , SdN) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920), Paris Peace ...

, and he served on several of its committees, including the sub-committee on Arts and Letters of the Committee on Intellectual Cooperation. The English-language collection ''The Outlook for Intelligence'' (1989) contains translations of a dozen essays related to these activities. In 1931, he founded the Collège International de Cannes, a private institution teaching French language and civilization. The Collège is still operating today, offering professional courses for native speakers (for educational certification, law and business) as well as courses for foreign students. He gave the keynote address at the 1932 German national celebration of the 100th anniversary of the death of Johann Wolfgang Goethe. This was a fitting choice, as Valéry shared Goethe's fascination with science (specifically,

biology Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, History of life, origin, evolution, and ...

and

optics Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of optical instruments, instruments that use or Photodetector, detect it. Optics usually describes t ...

). In addition to his activities as a member of the , he was also a member of the Academy of Sciences of Lisbon, and of the ''Front national des Ecrivains''. In 1937, he was appointed chief executive of what later became the University of Nice. He was the inaugural holder of the Chair of Poetics at the . During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, the Vichy regime stripped him of some of these jobs and distinctions because of his quiet refusal to collaborate with Vichy and the German occupation, but Valéry continued, throughout these troubled years, to publish and to be active in French cultural life, especially as a member of the . From 1942 he became a member of the National Committee of Writers, an offshoot of the anti-Nazi resistance movement National Front. Valéry was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature twelve times. It is believed that the Swedish Academy intended to award Valéry the prize in 1945, had he not died that year. Valéry died in Paris in July 1945. He is buried in the cemetery of his native town, Sète, the same cemetery celebrated in his famous poem ''Le Cimetière marin''.

Work

The great silence

Valéry is best known as a poet, and he is sometimes considered to be the last of the French symbolists. However, he published fewer than a hundred poems, and none of them drew much attention. On the night of 4 October 1892, during a heavy storm, Paul Valéry underwent an existential crisis, an event that made a huge impact on his writing career. Eventually, around 1898, he quit writing altogether, publishing not a word for nearly twenty years. This hiatus was in part due to the death of his mentor,

. When, in 1917, he finally broke his 'great silence' with the publication of ''La Jeune Parque'', he was forty-six years of age.

''La Jeune Parque''

This obscure, but sublimely musical, masterpiece, of 512 alexandrine lines in rhyming couplets, had taken him four years to complete, and it immediately secured his fame. With "Le Cimetière marin" and "L'Ébauche d'un serpent," it is often considered one of the greatest French poems of the twentieth century. The title was chosen late in the poem's gestation; it refers to the youngest of the three '' Parcae'' (the minor Roman deities also called ''The Fates''), though for some readers the connection with that mythological figure is tenuous and problematic. The poem is written in the first person, and is the soliloquy of a young woman contemplating life and death, engagement and withdrawal, love and estrangement, in a setting dominated by the sea, the sky, stars, rocky cliffs, and the rising sun. However, it is also possible to read the poem as an allegory on the way fate moves human affairs or as an attempt to comprehend the horrific violence in Europe at the time of the poem's composition. The poem is not about

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, but it does try to address the relationships between destruction and beauty, and, in this sense, it resonates with

ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

meditations on these matters, especially in the plays of

Sophocles Sophocles ( 497/496 – winter 406/405 BC)Sommerstein (2002), p. 41. was an ancient Greek tragedian known as one of three from whom at least two plays have survived in full. His first plays were written later than, or contemporary with, those ...

and

Aeschylus Aeschylus (, ; ; /524 – /455 BC) was an ancient Greece, ancient Greek Greek tragedy, tragedian often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek tragedy is large ...

. There are, therefore, evident links with ''le Cimetière marin'', which is also a seaside meditation on comparably large themes.

Other works

Before ''la Jeune Parque'', Valéry's only publications of note were dialogues, articles, some poems, and a study of

Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 1452 - 2 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested o ...

. In 1920 and 1922, he published two slim collections of verses. The first, ''Album des vers anciens'' (Album of old verses), was a revision of early but beautifully wrought smaller poems, some of which had been published individually before 1900. The second, ''Charmes'' (from the Latin ''carmina'', meaning "songs" and also "incantations"), further confirmed his reputation as a major French poet. The collection includes ''le Cimetière marin'', and many smaller poems with diverse structures.

Technique

Valéry's technique is quite orthodox in its essentials. His verse rhymes and scans in conventional ways, and it has much in common with the work of Mallarmé. His poem "Palme" inspired James Merrill's celebrated 1974 poem " Lost in Translation," and his cerebral lyricism also influenced American poet Edgar Bowers.

Prose works

Valéry described his “true oeuvre” to be prose, and he filled more than 28,000 notebook pages over his lifetime. His far more ample prose writings, peppered with many aphorisms and ''bons mots'', reveal a skeptical outlook on human nature, verging on the cynical. His view of state power was broadly liberal insofar as he believed that state power and infringements on the individual should be severely limited. Although he had flirted with nationalist ideas during the 1890s, he moved away from them by 1899, and believed that European culture owed its greatness to the ethnic diversity and universalism of the Roman Empire. He denounced the myth of "racial purity" and argued that such purity, if it existed, would only lead to stagnation—thus the mixing of races was necessary for progress and cultural development. In "America as a Projection of the European Mind", Valéry remarked that whenever he despaired about Europe's situation, he could "restore some degree of hope only by thinking of the New World" and mused on the "happy variations" which could result from European "aesthetic ideas filtering into the powerful character of native Mexican art." Raymond Poincaré, Louis de Broglie, André Gide, Henri Bergson, and

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...

C’est ainsi que ces interrogations sur le savoir se nourrirent chez le poète de la fréquentation de l’univers scientifique : lecteur de Bergson, d’Einstein, de Louis de Broglie et Langevin, Paul Valéry devait devenir en 1935 membre de l’Académie des Sciences de Lisbonne.

Académie française An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...

's website in French

/ref> all respected Valéry's thinking and became friendly correspondents. Valéry was often asked to write articles on topics not of his choosing; the resulting intellectual journalism was collected in five volumes titled ''Variétés''.

The notebooks

Valéry's most striking achievement is perhaps his monumental intellectual diary, called the ''Cahiers'' (Notebooks). Early every morning of his adult life, he contributed something to the ''Cahiers'', prompting him to write: "Having dedicated those hours to the life of the mind, I thereby earn the right to be stupid for the rest of the day." The subjects of his ''Cahiers'' entries often were, surprisingly, reflections on science and mathematics. In fact, arcane topics in these domains appear to have commanded far more of his considered attention than his celebrated poetry. The ''Cahiers'' also contain the first drafts of many aphorisms he later included in his books. To date, the ''Cahiers'' have been published in their entirety only as photostatic reproductions, and only since 1980 have they begun to receive scholarly scrutiny. The ''Cahiers'' have been translated into English in five volumes published by Peter Lang with the title ''Cahiers/Notebooks''. In recent decades Valéry's thought has been considered a touchstone in the field of constructivist epistemology, as noted, for instance, by Jean-Louis Le Moigne in his description of constructivist history.

In other literature

One of three epigraphs in Cormac McCarthy's novel '' Blood Meridian'' is from Valéry's "Writing at the Yalu River" (1895): "Your ideas are terrifying and your hearts are faint. Your acts of pity and cruelty are absurd, committed with no calm, as if they were irresistible. Finally, you fear blood more and more. Blood and time". In the book ''El laberinto de la soleda'' by Octavio Paz there are three lines from Valéry's poem "La jeune parque":

Je pense, sur le bord doré de l’univers A ce gout de périr qui prend la Pythonisse En qui mugit l’espoir que le monde finisse.

("I think, at the golden brink of the universe, / Of that longing for death which possessed the Sibyl / And which feeds on the hope that the last days are near.") In Ray Bradbury’s ''Fahrenheit 451'', the book-burning fire chief Beatty quotes Valery:

The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself for an oracle, is inborn in us.

From ''Introduction à la méthode de Léonard de Vinci''.

In popular culture

Oscar-winning Japanese director

Hayao Miyazaki is a Japanese animator, filmmaker, and manga artist. He co-founded Studio Ghibli and serves as honorary chairman. Throughout his career, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a masterful storyteller and creator of Anime, Japanese ani ...

's 2013 film '' The Wind Rises'' and the Japanese novel of the same name (on which the film was partially based) take their title from Valéry's verse "Le vent se lève... il faut tenter de vivre !" ("The wind rises… We must try to live!") in the poem "Le Cimetière marin" (''The Graveyard by the Sea''). The same quote is used in the closing sentences of Anthony Burgess's 1962 novel '' The Wanting Seed''. "Le Cimetière marin" is also quoted in the French comic "Le concombre masqué: Comment devenir maître du monde?", authored by Mandryka and published in 1980.

Selected works

* ''Conte de nuits'' (1888) * ''Paradoxe sur l’architecte'' (1891) * ''Introduction à la méthode de Léonard de Vinci'' (1895) * ''La soirée avec monsieur Teste'' (1896) * ''La Jeune Parque'' (1917) * ''Album des vers anciens'' (1920) * ''Le cimetière marin'' (1920) * ''Charmes'' (1922) * ''Eupalinos ou l’Architecte'' (1923) * ''Variétés I'' (1924) * ''La Crise de l'Esprit'' (1924) * ''L'Âme et la Danse'' (1925) * ''Variétés II'' (1930) * ''Regards sur le monde actuel''. (1931) * ''L'idée fixe'' (1932) * ''Moralités'' (1932) * ''Variétés III'' (1936) * ''Degas, danse, dessin'' (1936) * ''Variétes IV'' (1938) * ''Mauvaises pensées et autres'' (1942) * ''Tel quel'' (1943) * ''Variétes V'' (1944) * ''Vues'' (1948) * ''Œuvres'' I (1957), édition établie et annotée par Jean Hytier, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade / nrf Gallimard * ''Œuvres'' II (1960), édition établie et annotée par Jean Hytier, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade / nrf Gallimard * ''Prose et Vers'' (1968) * ''Cahiers'' I (1973), édition établie, présentée et annotée par Judith Robinson-Valéry, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade / nrf Gallimard * ''Cahiers'' II (1974), édition établie, présentée et annotée par Judith Robinson-Valéry, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade / nrf Gallimard * ''Cahiers (1894–1914)'' (1987), édition publiée sous la direction de Nicole Celeyrette-Pietri et Judith Robinson-Valéry avec la collaboration de Jean Celeyrette, Maria Teresa Giaveri, Paul Gifford, Jeannine Jallat, Bernard Lacorre, Huguette Laurenti, Florence de Lussy, Robert Pickering, Régine Pietra et Jürgen Schmidt-Radefeldt, tomes I-IX, Collection blanche, Gallimard

English translations

* ''Selected Writings of Paul Valéry'' (New Directions, 1964) * "Sketch of a Serpent", trans. R. A. Christmas in ''Dialogue'' (Spring 1968). Second version printed in Christmas's collection of his own work, ''Leaves of Sass'' (2019). * ''Collected Works of Paul Valéry'', series ed. Jackson Mathews (

Princeton University Press Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large. The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financial ...

, 1956–75) ** ''Volume 1. Poems'', translated by D. Paul. ''On Poets and Poetry'', selected and translated from the ''Notebooks'', by J.R. Lawler ** ''Volume 2. Poems in the Rough'', translated by H. Corke ** ''Volume 3. Plays'', translated by D. Paul and R. Fitzgerald ** ''Volume 4. Dialogues'', translated by W.M. Stewart ** ''Volume 5. Idée fixe'', translated by D. Paul ** ''Volume 6. Monsieur Teste'', translated by J. Mathews ** ''Volume 7. The Art of Poetry'', translated by Denise Folliot. With an Introduction by T. S. Eliot. ** ''Volume 8. Leonardo. Poe. Mallarmé'', translated by M. Cowley and J.R. Lawler ** ''Volume 9. Masters and Friends'', translated by M. Turnell ** ''Volume 10. History and Politics'', translated by D. Folliot and J. Mathews ** ''Volume 11. Occasions'', translated by R. Shattuck and F. Brown ** ''Volume 12. Degas. Manet. Morisot'', translated by D. Paul ** ''Volume 13. Aesthetics'', translated by R. Manheim ** ''Volume 14. Analects'', translated by S. Gilbert ** ''Volume 15. Moi'', translated by M. and J. Mathews. * ''Paul Valery: An Anthology'', ed. James R. Lawler (Princeton, 1977) * ''The Outlook for Intelligence'', trans. Denise Folliot and Jackson Mathews (Princeton, 1989) * ''Cahiers''/''Notebooks'', series ed. Brian Stimpson (Peter Lang, 2000–10) ** ''Volume 1'', translated by Paul Gifford, Siân Miles, Robert Pickering and Brian Stimpson (2000) ** ''Volume 2'', translated by Rachel Killick, Robert Pickering, Norma Rinsler, Stephen Romer and Brian Stimpson (2000) ** ''Volume 3'', translated by Norma Rinsler, Paul Ryan and Brian Stimpson (2007) ** ''Volume 4'', translated and edited by Brian Stimpson, Paul Gifford, Robert Pickering, Norma Rinsler and Rima Joseph (2010) ** ''Volume 5'', translated and edited by Brian Stimpson, Paul Gifford, Robert Pickering and Norma Rinsler (2010) *''The Idea of Perfection: The Poetry and Prose of Paul Valéry''; A Bilingual Edition. Trans. Nathaniel Rudavsky-Brody ( Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020). *''Collected Verse'', trans. Paul Ryan (Oxford University Press, 2024). *''Monsieur Teste'', trans. Charlotte Mandell (New York Review Books, 2024)

References

External links

Ressources sur Paul Valéry.

essay
Essay on Paul Valery's Aesthetics

Research Guide on Intellectual Cooperation – Notable Members
by UN Archives Geneva. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Valery, Paul 1871 births 1945 deaths People from Sète French people of Italian descent French people of Corsican descent Lycée Condorcet alumni Academic staff of the Collège de France French journalists French poets Symbolist poets Aphorists French epistemologists 20th-century French philosophers Members of the Académie Française Prix Blumenthal French male essayists French male poets 20th-century French essayists 20th-century French male writers French agnostics