VALERY, PAUL (1871– ), French poet, was born at Cette on Oct. 3o, 1871. He first became known as the author of several apocalyptic poems of remarkable beauty and form, which appeared in such reviews as L'Ermitage, Le Centaure, etc., and were issued later in a collection entitled Album de V ers anciens (1920). From 1900 to 1917 Valery lived in strict retirement and published nothing. During this period, however, his ideas matured, and he accumulated material later given to the public in Cahier B, Rhumbs and Analecta. It was not until 1917 that he published his first great poem La Jeune Parque, dedicated to Andre Gide. Then came Aurore (1917) , Le Cimitiere marin ( 92o) , Le Platane, L'Ebauche d'un Serpent, etc., which appeared in a collection entitled Les Charmes (1922). Valery has also written critical essays (on Stendhal, Poe, etc.) and philosophical treatises (Intro duction a la methode de Leonard de Vinci, Soirée avec M. Teste)
of which some have been collected under the title V arietes Eupalinos and Ame et la Danse (1923), two Platonic dialogues. Valery initiated a new movement in French poetry. Influenced by Mallarme, especially in his sense of verbal music, he believes with the symbolists that pure poetry must have value in itself apart from any reference to the accidents of being. Interested in philosophy and mathematics, he is a poet-mathematician trying to set his subtle analysis to music. Valery has been a member of the Academie francaise since 1926.
See H. A. L. Fisher, Paul Valery (1927) ; R. Fernandat, P. Valery (5927) ; P. Souday, P. Valery (1927); Hommage des ecrivains strangers ci Paul Valery (Maestricht, 1928), containing appreciations by R. M. Rilke, R. Kayser, T. Shuge Moon, P. Ziffer, E. Cecchi, and others.