Collected Works of Paul Valery, Volume 7: The Art of Poetry. Introduction by T.S. EliotAll of Valery's major meditations on the theory and practice of poetry are included in this volume. T. S. Eliot writes in his introduction that Valery "invented, and was to impose on his age . . . a new conception of the poet." In Valery's own words, the poet is characterized as a "cool scientist, almost an algebraist, in the service of a subtle dreamer." Valery focuses his attention on the deliberate formal work that transforms the dream into the