In 1937, when he delivered his inaugural address (Discours au Collège de France) as the chair of poetics to the Collège de France, Paul Valéry (1871-1945) broke away from prescriptive poetics by creating the word poietics (poïétique in French) from the Greek poiein (poïein). This essential ï focuses on production by separating it from action (prattein) but also from phusis. What can be seen in all Valéry’s writings is the point of view of the creator in all his anthropological dimensions. In the 28,000 pages of his Notebooks (Cahiers) written from 1894 to his death, he patiently underlined its implementation each day. In opposition to philosophical aesthetics, he created aesthesics by distinguishing creation from perceptible reception. As the living example of literary ...
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