The Mystique of Writing: Mysticism and the Poetic Theory of Paul Valéry

Abstract

In his famous Cahiers, the literary crusader Paul Valéry collected thoughts on literature, culture and himself, wrote in an aphoristic style and in an antago- nistic tone reminiscent of Nietzsche, disavowed philosophers and philosophical writing, mocked French literary tradition and extravagantly praised the poetry of Stéphane Mallarmé and the music of Richard Wagner. Dissatisfied with the course of his own poetry, he renounced it for twenty-one years, a period often referred to by his critical readers as the «Great Silence». He never stopped wri- ting, however, and although his ideas on poetry are far from transparent, he appa- rently never had doubts about what literary art should be. He ultimately became obsessed with what he called the essential musical components of poetry, and he thought of the poem as language reduced to perfection. In Analects he writes: «I have an innate horror of the vague; I cannot like what is not clear to me» (1970, ")2). Because he glorifies the poetic process and points to the rigor of writing, he narrates his own «conversion» to poetry and characterizes the task of the poet in a quasi-missionary tone, as if describing a spiritual calling: My intent was never to be a poet... But I have at times chosen to act as if I was one and as good a one as possible, bringing to bear all the attention and all the powers of combination and analysis at my command, so as to penetrate into a poetic state at its purest, without remaining there: as a proof, as a means, as an exercise, as a sacrifice to certain divinities. (qtd. in Grubbs 84; emphasis added)