PAUL VALÉRY AND MUSIC

December 15, 2010

👤Author

Name: Magda Dragu

📄Article

Citation Recommendation: DRAGU, Magda. ‟Paul Valéry and music”. Synthesis, no. XXXVII, 2010, pp. 59-69.
Title: PAUL VALÉRY AND MUSIC
Pages: 59-69
Language: English
URL: https://synthesis.ro/pdf/2010/XXXVII/7_M_Dragu.pdf

Excerpt:

In this paper I will discuss the connections between Paul Valéry’s poetry and music and will analyze two of his writings, La Jeune Parque (1917) and L’Ame et la Danse (1921). I will highlight how both texts are affected by references to music. Though they are not particularly cases of musicalizations of fictions (see infra) in the proper meaning of the word, the understanding of these poems is dependent on two musical works mentioned by the poet. Valéry repeatedly indicated that one of the sources of the poem La Jeune Parque was Gluck’s opera Orpheo ed Euridice (1762) and the source for L’Ame et la Danse was Stravinsky’s ballet The Rite of Spring. In my interpretation I will try to show how the two musical works help us better understand the texts.

Bibliography

“Paul Valery et les arts”, in: Actes Sud, Paris: Hubert Hyssen Editeur, 1995.

Gifford, Paul and Brian Stimpson (eds.): Paul Valéry. Musique, Mystique, Mathématique, Lille: Presses Universitaires de Lille, 1993.

Orpheus. Revue Internationale de Poésie. Special number “Paul Valéry. 1871-1945”, 2005.

Roth-Mascagni, Pauline: Musique et géométrie de trois poèmes Valéryens, Paris: Andre de Rache Editeur, 1979.

Scarfe, Francis: The Art of Paul Valéry. A Study in Dramatic Monologue, Glasgow: William Heinemann, 1954.

Stimpson, Brian: Paul Valéry and Music, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984.

Idem: “Langage musical/Langage poétique: Valéry à la recherche de son chinois poétique”, in: Valéry: La philosophie, les arts, le langage, Grenoble: Université des Sciences Sociales de Grenoble, 1989.

Suhami, Evelyne: Paul Valéry et la Musique, Dakar: Université de Dakar, 1966.

Valéry, Paul: An Anthology, selected with an introduction by James R. Lawler, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977.

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