Cocteau

A Biography

by Francis Steegmuller

The contradictions and paradoxes of Jean Cocteau, poet, novelist, playwright, and film-maker, can be called a deliberate scandal. The generosity and the egomania, the poise and the anguish of an opium-addicted homosexual, a man who knew everyone that mattered in the arts, and who climaxed an avant-garde life by entering, without seeming contradiction, the formidable conservative precincts of the Academie Francaise--all this is elegantly woven by Mr. Steegmuller into the tapestry of this award-winning and riveting biography.

Editions of Cocteau

ISBN

9780879236069

Binding/Format

Paperback

Publisher

David R Godine Pub

Date

1992

Price

$7.20

Good

Publisher Notes

Examines the life, work, thought, and preoccupations, of the multitalented artist against the age in which he flourished.

Media Reviews

"[Mr. Steegmuller] had the problem of obtaining documentary materials and confidences not previously available, and these he...uses skillfully and tactfully....[For the] ambiguous relationships with men like Gide, Stravinsky, Diaghilev, Apollinaire, as with certain powerful figures in the salons...Cocteau's own memoirs are of little use. Mr. Steegmuller straightens out the record with precision and clarity in this book that is surely a model of the biographer's art....He takes us with ease and grace through the complex, often tortured world of modern French literary and artistic culture...[and] the personal and darker world of homosexual love and intrigue....And if he never glosses over [Cocteau's] limitations either as a man or artist, he yet communicates sharply his irrepressible wit and charm."

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