De quelques possibles résonances gnostiques chez Paul Valéry

The essay reveals several traces relating Paul Valéry’s thought to gnostic elements around the figure of Narcissus, the notion of a fall in what is identified (a rejection in the circumscribed), the exile on earth (as a foreign country) and finally the role of the angel. This last image, central to Valéry’s poetics, is closely linked to the visual dimension, highlighted by the well-known anagram on the nature of gaze: “Un ange nage”.