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Valéry, Paul Ambroise (1871-1945). French poet and thinker. Born in Sète on the Mediterranean coast and educated at the Lycée and University in Montpellier. As a teenager he wrote hundreds of poems, had a wide range of interests, including painting, music and architecture, and also studied mathematics and physics while a law student at the University. In 1892, the year in which he gained his licence in law, Valéry settled in Paris where he continued to write poetry and to read widely in philosophy and the sciences. His early publications, Une Soirée avec Monsieur Teste (1894) and the Introduction à la méthode de Leonardo da Vinci (1895), showed his concerns to understand intelligence in action, and methods of thinking. Valéry was employed at the War Office, 1897-9, and between 1900 and 1922 was private secretary to Edouard Lebey, director of the Paris-based press association, Agence Havas. He was co-editor of the literary review, Commerce, 1924-32; administrator, Centre Universitaire Mediterranéen, Nice, from 1933; professor of Poetics, Collège de France, Paris, 1937-45. Valéry was appointed to the Lègion d’honneur, 1923, and to the Académie Française, 1925. Though Valéry was interested in the workings of his own mind, his poetry was not primarily intended to reflect his own emotions but rather to arouse those of his readers. La Jeune Parque (1917) a poem characterized by difficult symbolism, was followed by Album de vers anciens (1920) and Charmes (1922), collections which combined abstraction and sensuality. This latter contained the important poem, ‘Le Cimetiére Marin’, a meditation on the issues of life, death and immortality, which is essentially pagan in attitude. Valéry’s prose writings, on such subjects as architecture, dance, music and physics are a testament to the breadth of his interests and expertise. His widespread acclaim as a great Frenchman of letters was enhanced by his opposition to the Vichy régime, and on his death in 1945 he was awarded a National Funeral. See his many writings, available in English in The Collected Works of Paul Valéry, edited by Jackson Mathews (15 vols, 1956-75), and Sutcliffe, N., Paul Valéry and the Civilized Mind (1955); Ince, W., The Poetic Theory of Paul Valéry (1970); Crow, C., Paul Valéry: Consciousness and Nature (1972); Whiting, C., Paul Valéry (1979); Franklin, U., The Broken Angel: Myth and Method in Valéry (1984).