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III
The Intellectual Comedy

1. TOWARDS A METHOD

Hostinato rigore 1

THE FIRST WORK in which Valéry discussed and developed his ideas on
method, in relation to language and thought, was his 'Introduction à
la méthode de Léonard de Vince.' It was first published in 1894 in La
Nouvelle Revue, and reprinted twenty-five years later by the N.R.F.,
along with the 'Note et Digression'--a lucid commentary on the early
attempt to formulate a system.

This essay is not a historical or biographical study--forms of which
Valéry disapproved--nor is it really an introduction to Leonardo's life
or work, except in so far as it lays down general principles applicable to
a creative mind. Valéry insisted that he did not wish to give a specific
portrait of the great artist whose name he used, but rather to discuss the
details of an intellectual life. In the 'Note et Digression' he said:

I saw in Leonardo da Vinci the principal personage of that Intellectual
Comedy which until now has never found its poet, and which in my
opinion would be even more precious than the Human Comedy or even
the Divine Comedy. For I felt that this master of his means, this adept in
drawing and calculations, had found that central attitude, starting from
which the enterprises of knowledge, and the operations of art, are both
equally possible.

He did not wish to tell Leonardo's story but 'to take from that brow
laden with crowns' only the Amande mystique, 2 the central jewel, and

____________________
1 'Steadfast rigour,' motto of Leonardo da Vinci.
2 Vesica piscis.

-76-

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Publication Information: Book Title: The Universal Self: A Study of Paul Valery. Contributors: Agnes Ethel Mackay - author. Publisher: University of Toronto Press. Place of Publication: Toronto. Publication Year: 1961. Page Number: 76.
    
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