Paul Valéry and Anne Carson on what does not exist

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Published: Dec 30, 2023
DOI: https://doi.org/10.32334/oqnfp.2023n53a991
Keywords:
Paul Valéry, Anne Carson, Art, Illusion, Truth

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Helena Martins
Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio)

Abstract

This essay presents a reading of Paul Valéry’s “Short Letter on Myths” alongside Anne Carson’s “Visibles Invisibles” – an unusual juxtaposition that also tests a Carsonian critical method. Imagining Carson’s text as a response to Valéry’s letter, it aims to construe the dialog between the two authors as a form of misrouted correspondence, centered on the interplay between art, illusion and truth. More specifically, it shows how this imagined exchange displaces and intensifies a vital paradox addressed in Valéry’s letter, namely that of the presence of what does not exist. The essay starts from the perception that the dystopian life we lead today is marked by a rarefaction of this vital paradox, the relevance of reflecting on it lying therein.

Article Details

Issue
Vol. 31 No. 53 (2023): Philosophy of Technology Dossier
Section
Other Themes
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Author Biography

Helena Martins, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio)

She holds a BA and MA in Literature from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (1987) and a PhD in Linguistics from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (1999). She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Letters at PUC-Rio, where she works in the undergraduate and postgraduate programs. Her research has focused on the intersection between philosophy and the study of language and literature, with a special interest in perspectivist thinking, capable of recognizing language as a form of life (praxis) devoid of a telos and refractory to explanations presided over by the universal-relative dichotomy. Her publications and participation in national and international events reflect, from this point of view, on central themes in the study of meaning, such as translation; metaphor; the tension between saying, showing and doing; the becoming of languages/forms of life; the literary instance; the limits of language.

References

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