Paul Valery's ""Album des Vers Anciens"" : a Past Transfigured

340 Pages·2014·8.63 MB·English

by  Nash

PAUL VALERY'S
ALBUM DE VERS ANCIENS
A PAST TRANSFIGURED
"Je n'aime guere Ie mot influence, qui ne designe
qu'une ignorance ou une hypothese, et qui joue
un role si grand et si commode dans la critique."
(Inspirations Mediterraneennes, Oeuvres I, pp.
1091-92)
Paul Valery's
Album de vers anciens
A PAST TRANSFIGURED
Φ
By Suzanne Nash
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY
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To Franklin

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THERE have been three distinct phases in the development of
this study from its earliest draft to the present book, and I
am indebted to numerous people who have made special con­
tributions at each stage of its growth. I was able to write the
first draft during a year's leave which Princeton University
granted me as Jonathan Dickinson Bicentennial Preceptor.
The emphasis of the argument at that time was on Valery's
defensiveness regarding the question of influence and origi­
nality, with little attention paid to his insights into the nature
of language. It was because of the interest of several of my
colleagues at Princeton at this initial and sensitive stage in my
thinking that I went on to do more research, to refine my
argument and eventually to rewrite substantially the manu­
script. My debt to them is incalculable. I would like to thank
first James Irby for his painstaking reading and for the many
pages of questions and incisive comments which helped me
to sharpen the premises of my argument. I am grateful as well
to Sylvia Molloy, David Bromwich, Froma Zeitlin, and Karl
Uitti for their engagement with the subject and their valuable
critical and editorial advice on Part I.
I owe the next stage in the book's development to a con­
versation with James Lawler, whose characteristic generosity
to younger scholars and exhaustive knowledge of the unpub­
lished Valery material have contributed so much to the quality
and vitality of Valery studies in English. He placed me in
contact with Madame Agathe Rouart-Valery, who generously
provided me with access to the Valeryanum of the Biblio-
theque Jacques Doucet, and with Madame Florence de Lussy,
the curator of the Valery papers at the Bibliotheque nationale.
Both Mme. de Lussy and Mme. Rouart-Valery have been
tireless in their efforts to locate important unpublished notes,
commentaries, and drafts relevant to the genesis of the Album
de vers anciens, without which I would not have understood
the intensity of Valery's struggle with his work and the degree
viii • ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
of insight he had regarding both his own relationship to his
predecessors and to the problematics of language itself.
It was in the light of these discoveries that I rewrote much
of the argument of Part I and enlarged the analyses of many
of the individual poems in Part II. Again I am indebted to
Princeton colleagues for their reading of the final draft(cid:151)to
Ora Avni for her rigorous critical advice on Part I and to
Alban Forcione for his infallible eye for knotty moments in
my argument, his elegant stylistic advice, and his patiently
reiterated encouragement during the many periods of uncer›
tainty. His thoroughness, subtlety of thought, and kindness
make him an ideal reader and the one to whom I have most
often turned throughout the writing of this book.
These acknowledgments would not be complete without spe›
cial thanks to Ludmilla Forani-Wills for offering me the quiet
of her Vineyard house during the first period of research; to
Elaine Pratt for her abiding friendship; and to Franklin Nash
for his practical help and moral support at every step of the
way. I am obligated as well to my two anonymous reviewers
for the Princeton University Press, whose sympathetic and
searching criticisms of the manuscript led me to make signif›
icant revisions, and to my editors at the Press, Jerry Sherwood
and Miriam Brokaw, for their judicious and discriminating
advice throughout the production of this book.
S.N.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 3
PART ONE. REFLECTIONS ON WRITING
Reading and Influence 21
The Problem of Originality: The Example of
Baudelaire 51
Mallarme and Valery 63
Valery's Originality 83
Valery's Figurative Language 97
PART TWO. THE TRANSFORMATIVE DRAMA OF
THE "ALBUM DE VERS ANCIENS"
"La Fileuse" 115
"Helene" 141
"Naissance de Venus" 149
"Feerie" 157
"Meme Feerie" 160
"Au bois dormant" 163
"Baignee" 169
"Un Feu distinct ..." 175
"Narcisse parle" 180
"Episode" 197
"Vue" 205
"Valvins" 210
"Ete" 217
"Profusion du soir" 228
"Anne" 240
"Air de Semiramis" 254
"L'Amateur de poemes" 264