Cocteau, Jean (Writer)

 
(1889-1963) poet, novelist, dramatist

Jean Cocteau was born in Maisons-Lafitte, France. His father, a lawyer and amateur painter, committed suicide when Cocteau was nine. This experience left him with an intense awareness of human frailty and an almost uncanny ability to identify with the world of the dead, as is seen in his earlier poetry such as L’Ange Heurtebise (1925).

A mediocre student who failed several attempts to pass the secondary-school graduation examination, poetry was Cocteau’s first artistic outlet. He published his first volume of poems, Aladdin’s Lamp, at the age of 19. Influenced by surrealism, psychoanalysis, cubism, and Catholicism, coupled with a frequent use of opium, Cocteau promoted the avant-garde in his works. He counted among his closest friends prominent artists such as Pablo Picasso, composer Erik Satie, and Russian stage director Sergey Diaghilev.

Cocteau met Pablo Picasso and Sergey Di-aghilev in 1915. They challenged Cocteau to write a ballet, which is the collaborative work Parade (1917), produced by Diaghilev, with scenic design by Picasso and music by Erik Satie. Cocteau went on to firmly establish himself as a writer with the prose fantasy Le Potomak (1919) about a creature trapped in an aquarium.

Another close and influential friend was the poet and novelist Raymond Radiguet, whose death from typhoid fever caused Cocteau to experiment with opium. Under influence of the drug, he began to write psychological novels such as Thomas the Impostor (1923) and his masterpiece, Les Enfants terribles (The Incorrigible Children, 1929) about a group of children trapped in their own scary world.

In 1929, Cocteau was hospitalized for opium addiction, the experience of which he recounts in Opium (1930). On his release, he began to work on a series of films that often depicted mirrors as doors to alternate realities. He also befriended the young actor Jean Marais in 1937 and thereafter designed and wrote roles especially for him, producing such works as Orphee (Orpheus, 1950), a one-act tragedy about death’s connection to inspiration, and Le Testament d’Orphee (The Testament of Orpheus, 1961), whose theme was death.

Branded a decadent during World War II, Cocteau continued to lead an active literary life. Always seeking to shock, he had a facelift and began to wear leather trousers and matador’s capes in his declining years. He died on October 11, 1963.

Another Work by Jean Cocteau

Tempest of Stars: Selected Poems. Translated by Jeremy Reed. Chester Springs, Pa.: Dufour Editions, 1992.

Works about Jean Cocteau

Knapp, Bettina L. Jean Cocteau. Boston: Twayne, 1989.

Saul, Julie, ed. Jean Cocteau: The Mirror and the Mask: A Photo-Biography. Introduction by Francis Steeg-muller. Boston: David Godine, 1992.

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