as a "precursor." But does M. Valery, in spirit, form or content, "belong"? That is another question. It might appear that he stands apart from the younger men; but does he? As will be seen from the general introduction to this work, his art has been viewed, by at least a faction of les jeunes, as an "escape." He, therefore, from this point of view, comes within the picture.
There are, no doubt, those who would assert that, in his Les Faux-Monnayeurs, published in 1926, M. Gide has made his outstanding contribution, one toward a conceivable rehabilitation of the novel. This raises yet another point. Les Faux-Monnayeurs falls within the period, but, like M. Gide's succeeding books, has been translated into English, while of the other works that are of interest for the influence which they have had upon the young. Les Caves du Vatican was published the year before the War, in 1913, and Les Nourritures terrestres (most important of all, possibly) as far back as 1897. And Les Caves du Vatican has also been done into English. The question of competing with the popular rendering is, then, to be taken into consideration in connection with chronology. M. Valéry's La Soiree avec M. Teste dates back to 1896; the first Variété was published in 1924, but it has been translated, and it seems not unlikely that the second Variété, 1930, will be done in due time. This leaves the Eupalinos, 1923, to draw upon for the prose Valéry, and it has already been translated, one hears. It has seemed best, accordingly, for the purpose of the present collection, to lean to Valéry the poet, who, outside the Vers anciens, 1890-1900, may be said to have made his advent since 1917. As for Proust, he overlaps the period; but here again, the question of popular translation enters.
The truth is, it may be, that Proust, Gide and Valéry are all to be looked upon as forerunners rather than as figures of that generation which is our concern. Any attitude adopted in such a case must have in it no little of the arbitrary. From the point of view here taken, Gide and Proust have been assigned to the precursors, while Valery (the poet) has been made to stand for a certain reaction against the current; although it is to be regretted that the extreme difficulty of translating the poems, a poet of high order being required for the task, has tendered it impossible to give M. Valéry the representation that is his due.
This question of "precursors" is an annoying and mildly baffling one. In Italy, there is Signor Marinetti. His Les Mots en liberté futuristes appeared in 1919, which would seem to bring him within
