author
Paul Valéry
1871–1945
A master of French letters, this poet and essayist brought precision, music, and restless curiosity to everything he wrote. Best known for poems like The Graveyard by the Sea and for his vast notebooks, he turned thought itself into an art form.
2 Audiobooks
Introduction à la méthode de Léonard de Vinci
by Paul Valéry
Variété II
by Paul Valéry
About the author
Born in Sète, France, on October 30, 1871, Paul Valéry became one of the most admired French writers of the 20th century. He first moved in Symbolist circles and knew writers such as Stéphane Mallarmé, but his career took an unusual path: after an early burst of poetry, he stepped back for years and devoted himself to intense private study and daily note-taking in the notebooks later known as the Cahiers.
When he returned to publishing, he did so with remarkable force. Works such as La Jeune Parque and the collection Charmes, which includes the famous poem Le Cimetière marin, established his reputation as a poet of exact language, formal control, and deep intellectual energy. Alongside poetry, he wrote essays, dialogues, and reflections on art, literature, science, politics, and the workings of the mind.
Valéry was elected to the Académie française in 1925, a sign of his standing in French cultural life. He died in Paris on July 20, 1945, but his mix of lyric beauty and sharp thought still makes him feel strikingly modern.