{"product_id":"the-idea-of-perfection-the-poetry-and-prose-of-paul-valery-a-bilingual-edition-paperback","title":"The Idea of Perfection: The Poetry and Prose of Paul Valéry; A Bilingual Edition - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003ePaul Valéry\u003c\/b\u003e (Author), \u003cb\u003eNathaniel Rudavsky-Brody\u003c\/b\u003e (Translator)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA fresh look into the monumental work of Paul Val ry, one of the major French literary figures of the twentieth century.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eHeir to Mallarm  and the symbolists, godfather to the modernists, Paul Val ry was a poet with thousands of readers and few followers, great resonance and little echo. Along with Rilke and Eliot, he stands as a bridge between the tradition of the nineteenth century and the novelty of the twentieth. His reputation as a poet rests on three slim volumes published in a span of only ten years. Yet these poems, it turns out, are inseparable from another, much vaster intellectual and artistic enterprise: the \u003ci\u003eNotebooks\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBehind the published works, behind the uneventful life of the almost forgotten and then exceedingly famous poet, there hides another story, a private life of the mind, that has its record in 28,000 pages of notes revealed in their entirety only after his death. Their existence had been hinted at, evoked in rumors and literary asides; but once made public it took years for their significance to be fully appreciated. It turned out that the prose fragments published in Val ry's lifetime were not the after-the-fact musings of an accomplished poet, nor his occasional sketchbook, nor excerpts from his private journal. They were a disfigured glimpse of a vast and fragmentary \"exercise of thought,\" a restless intellectual quest as unguided and yet as persistent, as rigorous, and as uncontainable as the sea that is so often their subject. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Idea of Perfection \u003c\/i\u003eshows both sides of Val ry: the craftsman of sublimely refined verse, and the fervent investigator of the limits of human intellect and expression. It intersperses his three essential poetic works--\u003ci\u003eAlbum of Early Verse\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Young Fate\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eCharms\u003c\/i\u003e--with incisive selections from the \u003ci\u003eNotebooks\u003c\/i\u003e and finishes with the prose poem \"The Angel.\" Masterfully translated by Nathaniel Rudavsky-Brody, with careful attention to form and a natural yet metrical contemporary poetic voice, \u003ci\u003eThe Idea of Perfection\u003c\/i\u003e breathes new life into poems that are among the most beautiful in the French language and the most influential of the twentieth century.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOne of the major figures of twentieth-century French literature, \u003cb\u003ePaul Valéry \u003c\/b\u003ewas born in 1871. After a promising debut as a young symbolist in Mallarmé's circle, Valéry withdrew from public view for almost twenty years, and was almost forgotten by 1917 when the publication of the long poem \u003ci\u003eLa Jeune Parque\u003c\/i\u003e made him an instant celebrity. He was best known in his day for his small output of highly polished lyric poetry, and posthumously for the 28,000 pages of his \u003ci\u003eNotebooks\u003c\/i\u003e. He died in 1945. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eNathaniel Rudavsky-Brody\u003c\/b\u003e was born in Columbus, Ohio. He has translated the work of French and Belgian poets, including Benjamin Fondane, for which he was awarded the Susan Sontag Prize for Translation. He is the author of two volumes of poetry in French and one in English, and has worked as a typesetter, a programmer, and a private tutor.\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 400\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1.2 x 8.6 x 5.7 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e April 13, 2021\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51768802935072,"sku":"9780374539368","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0974\/9764\/5344\/files\/c6d0ae20f18baee24ce95ed1518aaf11.webp?v=1780337587","url":"https:\/\/ebocreations.com\/products\/the-idea-of-perfection-the-poetry-and-prose-of-paul-valery-a-bilingual-edition-paperback","provider":"The E-Book Oasis LLC","version":"1.0","type":"link"}