The Voice of written speech in the English translation of Valéry's Cahiers/Notebooks

Valéry’s early morning reflections in his Cahiers/Notebooks are stimulated by the movement and inventiveness of the writing: for the translation into English, we had to find a level of tone, register and syntax that would reflect the way in which Valéry’s thinking proceeds in a dialogue with himself, pen in hand. The translation has therefore opted for a more oral form of discourse, a lighter tone, a vocabulary at once direct and abstract, total respect for the punctuation, contractions and incomplete sentences, in order to capture the paratactic unfolding of the phrases and the rhythm of thought expressing itself.