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L'Europe et l'Esprit: Écrits politiques
Ce recueil inédit de Paul Valéry réunit des discours et des rapports centrés autour de la question de l'Europe, indissociable de celle de l'Esprit nécessaire à sa réalisation politique. Célébré après-guerre comme le poète de La Jeune Parque tout autant que pour les deux lettres de la Crise de l'Esprit (1919), puis pour les essais de Regards sur le monde actuel (1931 ), Paul Valéry apparaît ici dans une dimension politique active largement méconnue. Au cours des années vingt et trente, Valéry s'est en effet investi dans de nombreuses initiatives publiques, et dans des cercles intellectuels. Il voyage alors dans toute l'Europe pour faire advenir une "Société de l'Esprit" et contribuer à l'amélioration de l'homme et de la Cité, alors que les espoirs du pacifisme s'effondrent devant la guerre imminente. Des divers travaux de Paul Valéry naît une réflexion originale sur le rôle de l'homme de lettres dans le monde. Et son influence continue de grandir dans le domaine de la critique jusqu'à nos jours, de Marc Bloch à Jacques Derrida, en passant par Edward Saïd.
320 pages, Paperback
Published December 3, 2020
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About the author
Paul Valéry
616 books476 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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