Jean Cocteau : la morale du poète

The work of Jean Cocteau (1889-1963), the poet, while extremely diverse, presents nonetheless a coherence and a unity of tone which transmit his artistic vision and at the same time reveal his creative process.Three works in particular, Opium--Journal d'une desintoxication, La difficulte d'etre et le Journal d'un inconnu, permit us to retrace his poetic course.Cocteau's art rests on the notion he has of poetry. With the help of the example set by Erik Satie, Raymond Radiguet and Pablo Picasso, he understood at an early age that poetry resided within him and that only by exploring himself and by following a set of morals--in this instance, morals signifies behaviour which conforms to the demands of poetry--would he attain a level of pure poetry.All of this is evident as much in the ideas the poet conveys as in his style. The personality of the poet, his "ligne" to use Cocteau's words, becomes apparent the more the idea is accurate and the word chosen significant. As a result of this "ligne", of its presence in the work, the poet approaches immortality.According to Cocteau, the work of a poet cannot flourish within human limits. The poet must transcend such limits to embody universal activity. It is for this reason that the poet must redefine religion and create for himself a personal mythology, that he must reconstruct the world starting from a play of spatial and temporal perspectives. His role thus proves essential to human survival. In effect, the poet fills the cosmic void in which man is evolving