Charms

And Other Pieces

Valery Paul

Paul Valery's most celebrated collection Charmes was first published in 1922. It contains several of his most famous poems, including "ebauche d'un serpent" and "Le cimetiere marin" – in Yvor Winters' view "the two greatest short poems ever written". The collection as a whole has achieved classic status as the finest work by the finest modern French poet. Here it is helpfully introduced and discussed by Peter Dale who has also appended some early poems, and one much later piece, of related interest.

Peter Dale has been working on his translations of Valery for some thirty years. As ever, he takes the hardest – and for the reader, most rewarding – route in making versions with corresponding rhyme and metre. The result is a fresh view of an intriguing poet, somewhat neglected but now revived in English.

About the Author

Paul Valery, poet, essayist and leading figure in French intellectual life, was born in 1871. He was elected to the Academie Francaise in 1925. During the Second World War he refused to collaborate with the Vichy regime. He died in Paris in July 1945 and was buried with national mourning in the cemetery at Sete, location of his most famous poem "Le Cimetiere marin" (The Graveyard by the Sea).

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