Orpheus, Oedipus Rex, The Infernal Machine

by Jean Cocteau

154 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1962

About the author

Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963) was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager, playwright and filmmaker. Along with other Surrealists of his generation (Jean Anouilh and René Char for example) Cocteau grappled with the "algebra" of verbal codes old and new, mise en scène language and technologies of modernism to create a paradox: a classical avant-garde. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Colette, Édith Piaf, whom he cast in one of his one act plays entitled Le Bel Indifferent in 1940, and Raymond Radiguet.

His work was played out in the theatrical world of the Grands Theatres, the Boulevards and beyond during the Parisian epoque he both lived through and helped define and create. His versatile, unconventional approach and enormous output brought him international acclaim.

Reviews

[E7boehm]

Orpheus was a little two experimental and too diminishing and flippant about death. (Anouilh makes similar case but much better) The Part about the horse and the weird jokes about the horses prophesy and poetry is a bit over done gimicky and silly. Still a good read all and all. There is a love of making death an escape in french literature which is tempting in a way sort of like Diogenes debasing currency, it is attractive but will not end well.