Virgil’s Bucolics (Eclogues) translated by Paul Valéry A total experience

While at the height of his career towards the end of his life, Paul Valéry took up the challenge of translating Virgil’s Bucolics (Eclogues). He sees translation as a transmutation in the sense of physics. Transformation and change require a new organisation, a “doing” in itself, similar to the “doing” of the source text. This experience can be described as total insofar as he offers us, as a great avant-garde translator, his reflections on language, poetry and the problems associated with translation.