Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie occidentale

Le cas du casuiste. Valéry préfacier

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Abstract

Valéry likes to think in terms of cases. His many critical texts are proof of this. It is preferably in the preface that Valéry chooses to explain himself. This contribution aims to examine several prefaces in order to see how Valéry isolates and turns into a ‘case’ what had previously seemed to be mere elements of literary history, seemingly unproblematic. For Valéry, the ‘case’ appears as a meta-notion within his system, in that it is never truly defined. It appears sporadically as a word he frequently uses – a sort of median term, operative in his efforts toward precision, refinement, and singularization.


open access | peer reviewed

Submitted: April 29, 2025 | Accepted: June 4, 2025 | Published Sept. 30, 2025 | Language: fr

Keywords Literary history • Paul Valéry • Monsieur Teste • Case • Baudelaire

Copyright © 2025 Julien Zanetta. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/AnnOc/2499-1562/2025/14/013