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- Title
Paul Valéry and Geometry: Instrument, Writing Model, Practice.
- Authors
Krauthausen, Karin
- Abstract
In the course of the nineteenth century, the development of non-Eeclidean geometries and topology led to wide-ranging discussions on the foundations of mathematics. The new mathematical objects and the accompanying disputes also became a source of fascination for literature. A paradigmatic instance of this is the French writer and theorist Paul Valéry (1871-1945), whose Cahiers (1894-1945) show a constant preoccupation with mathematical problems. What is remarkable here is the fundamental significance Valéy ascribes to mathematics for his own work. Initially, he searched in topology for a tool to advance his reflection on psychology. Although this project ultimately failed, mathematics became for Valéry an ideal--since "operative"--mode of writing, one against which to measure his own literary writing and note-taking. However, the result of this formalization, which he pursued over decades, was neither mathematic literature nor, indeed, literary mathematics, but a form of writing that had a significant effect upon the twentieth-century understanding of literature: the aim of producing a finished work was shifted into the background to make room for writing as a "life-form."
- Subjects
STATISTICS; DATA; STATISTICAL research; STATISTICAL reliability; QUANTITATIVE research
- Publication
Configurations, 2010, Vol 18, Issue 3, p231
- ISSN
1063-1801
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1353/con.2010.0013