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Dialogues / The Collected Works of Paul Valery, Vol. 4
Valéry's dialogues are considered his most important works of imagination in prose. The volume brings together for the first time all the formal dialogues, including Eupalinos and six other pieces.
197 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1956
About the author
Paul Valéry
618 books477 followersAmbroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Valéry (October 30, 1871 - July 20, 1945 ) was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher.
His interests were sufficiently broad that he can be classified as a polymath. In addition to his fiction (poetry, drama and dialogues), he also wrote many essays and aphorisms on art, history, letters, music, and current events.
Valéry is best known as a poet, and is sometimes considered to be the last of the French Symbolists. But he published fewer than a hundred poems, and none that drew much attention. On the night of 4 October 1892, during a heavy storm, Paul Valéry entered an existential crisis, which made a big impact on his writing career. Around 1898, his writing activity even came to a near-standstill, due partly to the death of his mentor Stéphane Mallarmé and for nearly twenty years from that time on, Valery did not publish a single word until 1917, when he finally broke this 'Great Silence' with the publication of La Jeune Parque at forty-six years of age. This obscure but superbly musical masterpiece, of 512 alexandrine lines in rhyming pairs, had taken him four years to complete, and immediately secured his fame. It is esteemed by many in France as the greatest French poem of the 20th century.
His interests were sufficiently broad that he can be classified as a polymath. In addition to his fiction (poetry, drama and dialogues), he also wrote many essays and aphorisms on art, history, letters, music, and current events.
Valéry is best known as a poet, and is sometimes considered to be the last of the French Symbolists. But he published fewer than a hundred poems, and none that drew much attention. On the night of 4 October 1892, during a heavy storm, Paul Valéry entered an existential crisis, which made a big impact on his writing career. Around 1898, his writing activity even came to a near-standstill, due partly to the death of his mentor Stéphane Mallarmé and for nearly twenty years from that time on, Valery did not publish a single word until 1917, when he finally broke this 'Great Silence' with the publication of La Jeune Parque at forty-six years of age. This obscure but superbly musical masterpiece, of 512 alexandrine lines in rhyming pairs, had taken him four years to complete, and immediately secured his fame. It is esteemed by many in France as the greatest French poem of the 20th century.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 8, 2014
One of my favorite books, which a second reading several years after my first now confirms. I appreciate Paul Valery in general and have read several of his other pieces, but this collection beats them all. “The Dialogue of the Tree” is terrific, and “Eupalinos, or The Architect” is one of most rewarding bits of speculative fiction/philosophy I’ve ever read. Though I can’t read it in the original French, the translation here seems wonderful; modern English prose doesn’t get much better.
From "Socrates and His Physician" -
“The purpose of a life seems to me to be to use its time and strength to make, or create, or perceive, something which should render quite useless, and even inconceivable and absurd, the rebeginning of an existence.”
From "Socrates and His Physician" -
“The purpose of a life seems to me to be to use its time and strength to make, or create, or perceive, something which should render quite useless, and even inconceivable and absurd, the rebeginning of an existence.”
July 24, 2020
The major dialogue included in this volume, "Eupalinos, or the Architecht," is a masterpiece of speculative fiction rendered in a pearly and opulent English prose translation.
August 19, 2019
I've only read half of this book, but I'm going to claim full credit anyway. I suspect that some of the subtlety in Valery's thought is lost in translation.
December 25, 2022
A masterpiece revealing the ideas of Paul Valery. Valery discusses wide range of issues with brilliant, philosophic insight
June 10, 2026
Mind-alteringly good
August 21, 2008
It is beautiful
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews