Jean Cocteau

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Lore & Background

Cocteau was born in Maisons-Laffitte, Yvelines, to Georges Cocteau and Eugénie Lecomte, a socially prominent Parisian family. His father, a lawyer and amateur painter, died by suicide when Cocteau was nine. From 1900 to 1904, Cocteau attended the Lycée Condorcet where he met and began a relationship with schoolmate Pierre Dargelos, who reappeared throughout Cocteau's work. He left home at fifteen. He published his first volume of poems, Aladdin's Lamp, at nineteen. Cocteau soon became known in Bohemian artistic circles as The Frivolous Prince, the title of a volume he published at twenty-two. Edith Wharton described him as a man "to whom every great line of poetry was a sunrise, every sunset the foundation of the Heavenly City..."

In his early twenties, Cocteau became associated with the writers Marcel Proust, André Gide, and Maurice Barrès. In 1912, he collaborated with Léon Bakst on Le Dieu bleu for the Ballets Russes; the principal dancers being Tamara Karsavina and Vaslav Nijinsky. During World War I, Cocteau served in the Red Cross as an ambulance driver. This was the period in which he met the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, artists Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani and Bernard Buffet. Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev persuaded Cocteau to write a scenario for a ballet, which resulted in Parade in 1917. It was produced by Diaghilev, with sets by Picasso, the libretto by Apollinaire and the music by Erik Satie. "If it had not been for Apollinaire in uniform," wrote Cocteau, "with his skull shaved, the scar on his temple and the bandage around his head, women would have gouged our eyes out with hairpins."

In 1918, he met the French poet Raymond Radiguet. They collaborated on literary projects, socialized, and traveled together. Cocteau also assisted in obtaining Radiguet's exemption from military service. Admiring of Radiguet's great literary talent, Cocteau promoted his friend's works in his artistic circle and arranged for the publication by Grasset of Le Diable au corps, exerting his influence to have the novel awarded the "Nouveau Monde" literary prize. Some contemporaries and later commentators thought there might have been a romantic component to their friendship. Cocteau himself was aware of this perception, and worked earnestly to dispel the notion that their relationship was sexual in nature. There is disagreement over Cocteau's reaction to Radiguet's sudden death in 1923, with some claiming that it left him stunned, despondent and prey to opium addiction. Opponents of that interpretation point out that he did not attend the funeral and immediately left Paris with Diaghilev for a performance of Les noces by the Ballets Russes at Monte Carlo. His opium addiction at the time, Cocteau said, was only coincidental, due to a chance meeting with Louis Laloy, the administrator of the Monte Carlo Opera. Cocteau's most notable book, Les Enfants Terribles, was written in a week during a strenuous opium weaning. In Opium: Diary of a Cure, he recounts the experience of his recovery from opium addiction in 1929. Cocteau was supported throughout his recovery by his friend and correspondent, Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain. Under Maritain's influence, Cocteau made a temporary return to the sacraments of the Catholic Church. With Maritain, he founded the literary magazine Le Roseau d'Or.

Reader's Guide

Cocteau insisted on calling himself a poet, classifying the great variety of his works — poems, novels, plays, essays, drawings, films — as poésie, poésie de roman, poésie de thêatre, poésie critique, poésie graphique and poésie cinématographique. He was described by AllMovie as "one of [the] avant-garde's most successful and influential filmmakers." His films The Blood of a Poet (1930), Orpheus (1950), and Testament of Orpheus (1960), alongside Blood of a Poet and Orpheus, constitute the so-called Orphic Trilogy. Annette Insdorf noted he "left behind a body of work unequalled for its variety of artistic expression." Cocteau had great influence on the work of others, including a group of composers known as Les Six. In the early twenties, he and other members of Les Six frequented a bar named Le Boeuf sur le Toit, a name that Cocteau himself had a hand in picking. During the Nazi occupation of France, he was in a "round-table" of French and German intellectuals who met at the Georges V Hotel in Paris. Cocteau effusively praised sculptor Arno Breker's sculptures in an article entitled Salut à Breker published in 1942. This piece caused him to be arraigned on charges of collaboration after the war, though he was cleared of any wrongdoing and had used his contacts for his failed attempt to save friends such as Max Jacob. Later, after growing closer with communists such as Louis Aragon, Cocteau would name Joseph Stalin as "the only great politician of the era." His legacy rests on his cross-disciplinary output and his role in shaping 20th-century avant-garde art.

Did You Know?

• Cocteau's father, a lawyer and amateur painter, died by suicide when Cocteau was nine.
• Cocteau wrote his most notable book, Les Enfants Terribles, in a week during a strenuous opium weaning.
• He served in the Red Cross as an ambulance driver during World War I, meeting Guillaume Apollinaire, Pablo Picasso, and others.
• Cocteau's 1934 play La Machine infernale is considered his greatest work for the theatre.
• He was cleared of collaboration charges after the war despite praising Arno Breker's sculptures in a 1942 article.