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Idée Fixe: The Collected Works of Paul Valéry, Volume 5
Not yet published
Expected 8 Sep 26An informal dialogue of ideas in which Valéry paints a witty portrait of himself
Offhand, personal, and amusing, Paul Valéry’s Idée Fixe is an informal imaginative dialogue of ideas in which two men vacationing at the sea seek refuge from boredom by engaging in intellectual banter about human nature, the mind, and the haphazard relationship between humans and the world. Since the first-person speaker is unmistakably Valéry, the dialogue is perhaps more than anything else a wry self-portrait of a spare, dapper, and nervous figure whose feverish mind seldom allows him to rest—or anyone else to talk.
The Collected Works of Paul Valéry, the first collected edition of the writer in English, features new translations, the original French on facing pages for poetic works, and editorial notes.
Offhand, personal, and amusing, Paul Valéry’s Idée Fixe is an informal imaginative dialogue of ideas in which two men vacationing at the sea seek refuge from boredom by engaging in intellectual banter about human nature, the mind, and the haphazard relationship between humans and the world. Since the first-person speaker is unmistakably Valéry, the dialogue is perhaps more than anything else a wry self-portrait of a spare, dapper, and nervous figure whose feverish mind seldom allows him to rest—or anyone else to talk.
The Collected Works of Paul Valéry, the first collected edition of the writer in English, features new translations, the original French on facing pages for poetic works, and editorial notes.
143 pages, Kindle Edition
Expected publication September 8, 2026
About the author
Paul Valéry
630 books487 followersAmbroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Valéry (October 30, 1871 - July 20, 1945 ) was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher.
His interests were sufficiently broad that he can be classified as a polymath. In addition to his fiction (poetry, drama and dialogues), he also wrote many essays and aphorisms on art, history, letters, music, and current events.
Valéry is best known as a poet, and is sometimes considered to be the last of the French Symbolists. But he published fewer than a hundred poems, and none that drew much attention. On the night of 4 October 1892, during a heavy storm, Paul Valéry entered an existential crisis, which made a big impact on his writing career. Around 1898, his writing activity even came to a near-standstill, due partly to the death of his mentor Stéphane Mallarmé and for nearly twenty years from that time on, Valery did not publish a single word until 1917, when he finally broke this 'Great Silence' with the publication of La Jeune Parque at forty-six years of age. This obscure but superbly musical masterpiece, of 512 alexandrine lines in rhyming pairs, had taken him four years to complete, and immediately secured his fame. It is esteemed by many in France as the greatest French poem of the 20th century.
His interests were sufficiently broad that he can be classified as a polymath. In addition to his fiction (poetry, drama and dialogues), he also wrote many essays and aphorisms on art, history, letters, music, and current events.
Valéry is best known as a poet, and is sometimes considered to be the last of the French Symbolists. But he published fewer than a hundred poems, and none that drew much attention. On the night of 4 October 1892, during a heavy storm, Paul Valéry entered an existential crisis, which made a big impact on his writing career. Around 1898, his writing activity even came to a near-standstill, due partly to the death of his mentor Stéphane Mallarmé and for nearly twenty years from that time on, Valery did not publish a single word until 1917, when he finally broke this 'Great Silence' with the publication of La Jeune Parque at forty-six years of age. This obscure but superbly musical masterpiece, of 512 alexandrine lines in rhyming pairs, had taken him four years to complete, and immediately secured his fame. It is esteemed by many in France as the greatest French poem of the 20th century.
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