Valery Presentation Notes

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Valéry

What images/oppositions do you find most (and least) persuasive in these texts, and why?

Music - Sound/Noise

What does he say?
• 'Nous vivons par l'oreille dans le monde des bruits'
• 'Le bruit' = incoherent, irregular, chaotic
• 'Le son' = intelligible, clean cut
• sound/noise = pure/impure = order/disorder
• It is being able to distinguish between this that has allowed for the composition of music - 'le monde de l'art musical, monde des sons, est bien séparé du monde des bruits'
• Due to physics, it is measured, calculated, controlled - thus creating 'un système parfait de moyens bien définis'
• The 'univers musical' is produced within us when we hear a particular sound/instrument that we can pick out/does not mix in with the other noises  and this works the other way round too, if during a concert a chair falls or someone coughs, the atmosphere is broken

Is this persuasive?

• Yes, like he says at the beginning of the analogy, he uses the example 'de fortifier cette notion d'univers poétique', and it is 'une notion semblable, mais plus facile encore à expliquer étant beaucoup plus simple'  he shows, through the musical analogy and opposition of sound/noise, how one enters into a poetic state  i.e. take words out of context and they become magical/have many meanings, just like when you break noise down into sounds, and these can form 'des combinaisons claires, des implications successives ou simultanées…des possibilities abstraites.' • Note that he says the 'univers musical' is within us/affects us  this is like the poet creating the 'état poétique' within us, not necessarily for himself • It is persuasive in showing us how the poetic state is created, but must not be confused with him saying music and poetry is the same thing  'mais le poète est privé des immenses avantages que possède le musician. Il n'a pas devant soi…un ensemble de moyens fait exprès pour son art. Il doit emprunter le langage'  whilst sounds in music have specific sensations attached to them, every word has a sound and a meaning, and there is no connection between the two  this is what makes

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