"Introduction aux images de la France". Autograph manuscript and typed manuscript with autograph annotations.

Valéry, Paul, French poet and philosopher (1871-1945).

Verlag: N. p. o. d., [1927].

Beschreibung

4to. French manuscript on paper. (3) pp. on 6 ff. Typescript: (18) pp. on 18 ff. Several drafts for Valéry's introduction to Martin Hürlimann's photo book "La France, architecture et paysages" (Zurich/Paris 1927), which was later published as part of Valéry's essay-collection "Regards sur le monde actuel" (Paris 1931). One of the typed pages re-uses a letter from 17 January 1927. - This beautiful ensemble of a manuscript and typescript with annotations and numerous corrections offers a rare insight into Paul Valéry's writing process. The text is an attempt at a profound characterization of France as a nation and its people. Both the manuscript and the typescript comprise several versions of only a few paragraphs of the long introduction. The recurring first phrase of the manuscript is: "La France est le pays du monde où les considérations de la forme, le souci singulier de la forme en soi ait persisté, et même se soit imposé dans les temps modernes" ("France is the one country in the world where questions of form, the singular concern for form in itself, have persisted and even imposed themselves in modern times"). The unsystematically numbered typescript represents passages that are more descriptive of France as a country, trying to establish links between the people and their historical and natural environment. The different versions of the poetic first phrases depict France as harmonious in its geographical diversity: "La terre de France est remarquable par la netteté de sa figure, par les différences de ses parties, par l équilibre général de cette diversité de régions qui se conviennent et se complètent. Une sorte de proportion assez heureuse existe dans ce pays entre la plaine et la hauteur, entre la montagne et la mer, entre l'étendue intérieure et le développement des côtes, et sur les côtes mêmes, entre les plages, les roches, les falaises [.]." - A beautiful condensation of Valéry's patriotic sentiments is a sentence added by hand to one of the typed pages: "La France tombe, se reléve, se restreint, reprend sa grandeur, redéchire soi-même se reconcentre" ("France falls, rises again, restrains herself, regains her greatness, tears herself apart again, refocuses"). Valéry revised and extended this phrase for the final version. - Stronger browning of the typescript and occasional tears. The first page of the manuscript is dust-stained, showing several minor tears. With editing marks in crayon. - Regards sur le monde actuel (Paris, Stock, Delamain et Boutelleau, 1931), pp. 103-144. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 60974

Bibliografische Details

Titel: "Introduction aux images de la France". ...

Verlag: N. p. o. d., [1927].