Abstract:

My dissertation explores properties of the lyric in Paul Val?ry's poetry and poetic theory in relation to the literary debates in La Nouvelle Revue Fran?aise (N.R.F.) , a literary review with which Val?ry was affiliated. Val?ry has been read either as a Symbolist or as a pure poet. The two dominant approaches emphasize Val?ry's exploration of language and reduce his poetry to formalist pursuits. My study traces Val?ry's exploration of poetic language in relation to poetic voice. In Val?ry's poem La Jeune Parque , poetic voice emerges through features of dialogue and address that Val?ry borrows from Racine's theater. Val?ry's turn to the classical theater influences La Jeune Parque 's dramatic qualities, while, on the other hand, his elaboration of poetic language aligns the poem with the Symbolist poetic tradition. Thus, in Val?ry's combination of classical and Symbolist traditions I identify dramato-poetic qualities of the voice that fuse poetic and dramatic features of the lyric. The role of the voice within lyricism was under debate within the N.R.F ., the review whose founder Andre ?Gide prompted Val?ry to write La Jeune Parque after a twenty-five year long hiatus. From its emergence in 1909, the N.R.F . emphasized a poem's spoken qualities as a way of extending lyricism into the 20th century. However, part of the aesthetic debate within the N.R.F . includes a political dimension, as the N.R.F . turns to lyricism and voice in response to Charles Maurras, a literary critic who subsequently founded the nationalist political movement L'Action Fran?aise . For the N.R.F ., the praise of lyric poetry was a means of assuring literature's detachment from politics. In the interwar period, however, literary debates within the N.R.F . become increasingly politicized. Since, after the immediate experience of WWI, the N.R.F .'s praise of pure art's separation from politics is no longer possible, the Review gathers a variety of approaches to the relationship between literature and political thought. While, during the interwar period, the N.R.F . experiences a gradual politicization of literary activity, Val?ry's "Premi?re le?on du cours de Po?tique" theorizes poetic voice within the creative process. By situating the poetic voice within the process of poetic production, Val?ry adds an affective element to lyricism, and, additionally, relates the poetic process to the reader. Val?ry expands his study of the poetic process in his Cahiers , where he explores the voice through a system of complex interactions between mind, body and the external world, or Corps-Esprit-Monde . My study of the Cahiers ultimately discovers a performative component within Val?ry's notion of lyricism, since, in the Cahiers , the voice engages a theatrical relationship between mind, body and world. My analysis of Val?ry's turn to lyricism reexamines the notion of pure poetry and explores the construction of this notion in relation to aesthetic and political debates of the interwar period.