Valéry

Summary

Dominique Pagani treats Valéry as the figure of neoclassicism in poetry, a reaction against which surrealism later erupts1. He takes up the idea that "classicism is a tamed romanticism"2, while noting that Valéry, who means to be anti-romantic, remains romantic3. He also mentions Valéry's phrase "divine constraint". Le Cimetière marin is the work he quotes most. He reads its line "Il faut tenter de vivre" ("We must try to live") as a breath of fresh air: rising against annihilation, leaving behind a "reclining" romanticism and the decadent, symbolist atmosphere of the fin de siècle. He also draws on its lines about Zeno, the arrow and "Achilles motionless in giant strides", which illustrate arrested motion, and he links them to Kafka and Debussy. He quotes other images from the poem: the world where "everything flees", the sun's reflection on the sea, "the shrill laughter of tickled girls". He counts Valéry among those who recognized Poe. On the war in Ukraine, he quotes, by way of Makine, a remark about war attributed to Valéry4.

1. 1#3.3 From Ulysses to Daedalus1 Aug 2017 · 25:25
2. 2#3 What is called modern music?3 Dec 2020 · 1:07:28
3. 3#3 What is called modern music?3 Dec 2020 · 1:13:05
4. 4#11 Ukraine: mathematics unites men, politics divides them (Aristotle)24 Mar 2022 · 35:32

Summary produced automatically from 25 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.