Paul Valery: Parmi la mathematique

Based on Paul Valery's interest in the sciences as documented in his Notebooks and by retracing his readings in these disciplines, this dissertation identifies specific examples of mathematical theories and constructs, tracing their influence on the development of Valery's poetics through conceptual and formal modeling. Rather than viewing investigation in scientific domains as separate from the poet's literary works, this dissertation defines the place of mathematics and the philosophy of mathematics in the emergence of a system which ultimately theorizes the creative process in general, and in doing so sheds new light on Valery's poetics and literary oeuvre. The recourse to mathematical models is contextualized within the cultural history of the period. The elucidation of such models used in metaphors by Valery reveal mathematics as an aesthetic object ultimately forming his poetics and thus provides an argument for a revised depiction of valeryan poetics, both in the sense of the poet's own writing processes and in terms of the study of literary influence, lineage and posterity. An account of the theoretical and philosophical debates of the period on the subject of the philosophy of mathematics is given in relation to the theorisation of aesthetics, in a comparative perspective on the psychology of creativity and in a context largely surpassing the case of Paul Valery, while their inclusion pushes farther the boundaries of cultural and intellectual history in literary studies.