Toute une existence de poète construite sur une
même thème. ( L. GILLET ON DANTE)

DURING THE YEARS of poetic silence, Valéry patiently constructed his
intellectual universe. He reached a state of detachment in which con-
sciousness of Self, liberated from all ordinary preoccupations and
events, learned to refuse to be 'anything whatsoever.' This state might
be described as a condition of intellectual beatitude, a potential con-
dition of awareness, a clarity that excludes any mystical revelation.
The Self, so deliberately cultivated, had in 1910 reached its maturity. ¹
Thought, conscious of itself, now represented a potential force capable
of calling up a state of readiness and comprehension: a moment of
intellectual enlightenment. But now a new problem arose: to what
clear end was this acquired power to serve, through what medium
could it find adequate expression?

Valéry had come to the limit of his elaborations and classifications,
to the end of self-analysis, in the effort of organising and directing
mental forms so as to establish fixed points in the chaos of his mind. ²

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