Text, Image and Music: Paul Valéry’s Melodrama Sémiramis and the Influence of the Ballets Russes

Abstract

Paul Valéry, famous as a poet, essayist and political figure, certainly occupies a special place in French and European culture. He was remarkable as a literary phenomenon linking the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with their disparate artistic movements, such as Parnassianism, Symbolism and Surrealism, among others. He was also exceptional as a polymath who was equally interested in the arts and the sciences. Not surprisingly, one of his intellectual role models was Leonardo da Vinci; painting itself was among his pastimes. Given the extraordinary range of Valéry’s interests and impact both within and beyond the arts, it is particularly revealing to examine the influence of different art forms and media on his literary work. In this context, influence will be considered as a constructive force that stands at the very core of artistic originality, yielding a distinctive creative gain through the imaginative transformation of elements that may have been inspired by an artist’s predecessors. As Harold Bloom has famously remarked in The Anxiety of Influence, ‘Weaker talents idealize; figures of capable imagination appropriate for themselves.’1 It is especially rewarding to focus on the creative impulses that Valéry found in Symbolist poetry and painting in France, in the music dramas of Richard Wagner, and in the performances of Sergei Diaghilev’s famous ballet company, the Ballets Russes (active in Paris from 1909 to 1929).KeywordsMusic DramaDance MovementCapable ImaginationFemme FataleLiterary PhenomenonThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.