The Young Fate is a long and obscure but highly evocative poem of over 500 lines in alexandrine verse by French poet Paul Valéry. This poem, frequently cited by critics as his masterpiece, presents the thoughts of a young woman sitting on a riverbank, torn between her desire for pleasure and her wish to maintain her innocence, which it seems only death can preserve.
The poem’s broader theme touches on the interaction of conscious and unconscious desire—a theme that, from a psychological perspective, fascinated Valéry. The young woman’s thoughts represent the tensions produced by conscious intelligence in conflict with instinctual nature, but the theme is principally conveyed through the poem’s philosophical tone. Valéry’s habit of copying down thoughts and observations into his notebooks after his morning meditations helped him capture that intensity of the dynamic interchange between the conscious, controlled mind and the uninhibited instincts that threaten to overwhelm it.
The use of the classical reference to Fate—personified in the poem as the young woman—connects the poem’s modern psychological themes to an emblem of the ancient world. The powerlessness of the speaker to control her desires also coincides with and underscores the existential predicament that many 20th-century philosophers have described as an inescapable aspect of human existence—including Valéry, who well remembered his 1892 renunciation of poetry and human passion that kept him from writing poems for 20 years. The poem indicates that human passion is unavoidable, as Valéry realized, and may even be foreordained.
The poem’s power is further supported by the rich musicality that Valéry captured in his versification. As with many of his works, the poem’s rhythm and timbre are said to echo the sounds of the sea that had inspired Valéry as a youth.
Categories: French Literature, Literature, World Literature
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