Monsieur Teste

(Paperback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

A defining work of twentieth-century modernism, now newly translateda philosophical novel about the nature of consciousness, all centered around a character who is composed of absolute brain and intellect, a character of pure mind.

When, after the Second World War, the American literary world began to become aware of the intensely musical, intensely intellectual, poeticwork of Paul Valry, their attention fixated on the early translations of Monsieur Teste. It was as if American poets, novelists, and philosophers had been waiting for something like this for a long time, and they leapt with joy when it came: a poet who can write intelligibly, tersely, brilliantly about the mind, its work, its needs.

Teste, of course, is old French for head, and this celebration of the cerebral power of poetry, at a time when the emotional dimension of poetry seemed so dominant in our society, this manifestation of poetry as thinking, and thinking as poetry, came as a shock to many poets and writers of the day, and that shock continues. Generation after generation, young writers discover the acuity, the humor, the vivid scrutiny of language and human thought that Monsieur Teste represents.

This new, definitive translation of the Monsieur Teste materials (both the original Evening with Monsieur Teste and Valrys later additions) brings to readers a voice that has lost none of its clarity, comedy, or intensity.

Author Bio

Paul Valry (18711945) was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. Nominated twelve times for the Nobel Prize in Literature, he did not begin writing full-time until he was nearly 50 years old, having worked secretarial and administrative jobs for the majority of his life. A hugely popular public speaker and intellectual figure during his day, Valry is now best known for his intellectual diary, the Cahiers, and his poetry, which influenced contemporaries and later luminaries such as T. S. Eliot, John Ashbery, and James Merrill.

Charlotte Mandell is a French literary translator of more than 40 books, including Jean Genets The Criminal Child (NYRB Classics; co-translated with Jeffrey Zuckerman) and Andr Breton and Philippe Soupaults The Magnetic Fields (NYRB Poets). In April 2021 she received the honor of Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the French government. She lives in the Hudson Valley with her husband, the poet Robert Kelly.

Ryan Ruby is the author of The Zero and the One: A Novel and a book-length poem, Context Collapse. His essays and reviews have appeared in Harpers, The New York Times, The Nation, Poetry, and New Left Review, among other publications. He lives in Berlin.