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  • Paul Valéry: l'écriture en devenir
  • Paul Ryan
Paul Valéry: l'écriture en devenir. Par Brian Stimpson. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2009. 432 pp.

This ample study on the intimate dynamics of Valéry's creative process proposes a double approach from the outset, exploring on the one hand the genetic impetus in his poetic writings, with the poems La Jeune Parque and 'La Pythie' as exemplary paradigms, and, on the other, compositional practice and its attendant genetic vicissitudes. [End Page 573] Adopting a novel direction from the considerable body of research undertaken in this domain since the 1970s, Stimpson examines the diversity of scriptural operations, sometimes indiscernible, at play in the search for form and poetic direction. The book develops around a natural yet highly significant symmetry in which the opening three chapters investigate the self-reflective nature of the practice of writing during the period 1892-1912, notably in works such as Léonard de Vinci and in the prose poems of youth, and the following three chapters examine the genesis of La Jeune Parque and 'La Pythie' from 1912 to 1918. Importantly, the former section analyses the evolution of the writer's sensibility in the twenty years preceding 1912 — considered a landmark moment that saw the progressive re-emergence of the writing during the period of the so-called twenty-year literary 'silence' — and focuses in particular on the gaze ('regard') and the intimate correlation between writing and music. The significance of the latter for Valéry, who from the early 1900s enjoyed close relations with the great composers, cannot be overstated, given that an eight- and a ten-syllable musical phrase lay at the origin of 'La Pythie' and the Parque respectively. The choice of these two poems is all the more judicious and coherent in that these kindred works derive from an identical crisis of self and are thus anchored in self-writing. Moreover, both underwent a similar number of drafts, with the five-year genesis of La Jeune Parque being later described as 'un "vice" comme tabac' (p. 325). The publication of 'La Pythie' in Charmes, which coincided with the signing of the Armistice at the end of the Great War, brought to an end not just the work in progress in the privacy of the manuscripts to which Valéry gave ultimate precedence, but also what he viewed as the work of his best years, during which he firmly established himself as the great poet of the age. Far from being restricted to these specific poems that share a natural intertextual affinity and whose evolution is assiduously charted, this study, informed throughout by Valéry's reflections on the 'poétique du faire' that are drawn from the vast reservoir of the Cahiers, offers a comprehensive picture of the characteristic compositional principles that underpin his writing, and of its relationship to self. In addition to numerous appendices, the book is supported throughout by extensive manuscript transcriptions from the works mentioned and from the pocket notebooks relating to the dossier 'Léonard de Vinci'. Intended first and foremost for the Valéry scholar, but equally the genetic criticism specialist, this illuminating and meticulous study on the writer's compositional method is a welcome and valuable addition to the canon of Valéryan criticism.

Paul Ryan
Waterford Institute of Technology
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