Chiara Nifosi

In his book Disarming Intelligence. Proust, Valéry, and Modern French Criticism, Zakir Paul circumscribes very clearly and since the very beginning of the volume the object of his investigation: the concept of intelligence and its malleability in the works of such writers as Marcel Proust, Paul Valéry, and the critics of the Nouvelle Revue Française, namely Jacques Rivière. In a detour that also puts the essay in conversation with German thinkers, Paul contends that intelligence is so malleable that it gradually vanishes “from critical theory and literary criticism” (p. 1), in its displacement from center to margin especially due to its difficult linguistic formulation. The questioning of the unity and primacy of intelligence coincides with its analytical reassessment in a variety of contexts that Paul explores in his essay. The title chosen for the book opens the path to this compelling critical project and is drawn from Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve’s comparison of two aspects of intelligence, reflection and action, to a shield (or mirror) and a sword, standing for a “more or less armed” attitude: one that is more defensive, or reflexive, and one that entails the use of intelligence on the battlefield to change its surroundings. Sainte-Beuve’s remark, then, introduces the idea that intelligence is not a stable nor a neutral notion, whose determination is primarily ideological and cultural.