Valéry, Paul Amboise (1871–1945)

French poet and mathematician. His poetry, which combines delicate lyricism with intellectual rigour, includes La Jeune Parque/The Young Fate 1917 and Charmes/Enchantments 1922, which contains ‘Le Cimetière marin/The Graveyard by the Sea’, one of the major poems of 20th-century French literature. He also wrote critical essays and many volumes of journals, which he regarded as among his most important work.

After publishing Symbolist-inspired verse in the 1890s, he abandoned poetry for nearly 20 years, devoting himself to the study of philosophy and mathematics before publishing La Jeune Parque.