The Idea of Perfection

Discover the poetic mastery and intellectual depth of Paul Valéry, the symbolist heir and modernist godfather who bridged the 19th and 20th centuries.

In this fresh look at the monumental work of one of the major French literary figures of the twentieth century, The Idea of Perfection presents both sides of Paul Valéry: the craftsman of sublimely refined verse, and the fervent investigator of the limits of human intellect and expression. This collection intersperses his three essential poetic works—Album of Early Verse, The Young Fate, and Charms—with incisive selections from the Notebooks, the 28,000 pages of prose fragments that reveal Valéry's restless intellectual quest, as unguided yet as persistent, rigorous, and uncontainable as the sea that is so often their subject.

Masterfully translated by Nathaniel Rudavsky-Brody, with careful attention to form and a natural yet metrical contemporary poetic voice, The Idea of Perfection breathes new life into poems that are among the most beautiful in the French language and the most influential of the twentieth century. It finishes with the prose poem "The Angel," offering a disfigured glimpse of a vast and fragmentary "exercise of thought."

A resounding voice in European literature, Paul Valéry stands as a bridge between the tradition of the nineteenth century and the novelty of the twentieth, a poet with thousands of readers and few followers, great resonance and little echo. Discover the symbolist and lyric poetry, insightful essays, and illuminating notebooks of one of France's most celebrated poets and thinkers in this landmark literary collection.