COCTEAU, JEAN 4

During the 1920s lesbians were and celebrities. His homosexuality kept stereotyped as affecting a severe version of him at a distance from Andre Breton's male formal dress, and indeed some promi- Surrealists, who championed heterosexu- nent figures such as Radclyffe Hall did ality. adopt this mode, while Marlene Dietrich Cocteau tended not to deal di- offered a subtle variant of it in the movies. rectly with homosexuality in his public Morerecently lesbians have been perceived work, generally choosing either indirect, as preferring somewhat shapeless garments displaced, or universal approaches to sexu- and no makeup. While this look does cor- ality. Yet one of his first dramatic works respond to the type sometimes known as was an adaptation of Oscar Wilde's The theUgranoladyke," othergay women prefer Picture of Dorian Gray. In his three earli- more elegant dress, of which there are est collections of poems Cocteau treated several versions. narcissism and the "love that dare not Nudism began in Europe in the speak its name." In 1928 he published early twentieth century, and is still more without signing his name to it The White widespread there than in theunited States. Paper, a story which begins with an open It is often thought of as being sexually declaration of homosexuality. His first provocative, but in practice nudism is film, (1930),has an ascetic. The removal of clothes, as in strip- overall homoerotic and autoerotic ambi- tease, suggests sexual activity to follow; ance.Throughout his career, he made many without clothes one lacks an important drawings, including some for Jean Genet's means of communication, enticement, and novel Querelle of Brest (1947). The fre- bodily enhancement. quent themes of doubling, monstrosity, See also Dandyism; Transves- and punishment for love in his work can be tism. linked to his experiences as a sexual out- Daniel Eisenberg sider, but more rigorous scholarship is needed to go beyond the old clichb. Cocteau created one of the most COCTEAU,JEAN extraordinary private mythologies of the (1889-1963) twentieth century. Of his voluminous French playwright, poet, novel- works, some of the best include the films ist, filmmaker, actor, and artist. Cocteau Beauty and the Beast (19461and was one of the most famous, controversial, (19501, the novel The Terrible Children and perplexing of twentieth-century cul- (19291, the plays The Infernal Machine tural figures. (1934)) me Knights of the Round Table By 1908 was corre- (19371, The Eagle with Two Heads (19471, sponding with Marcel Pmust and well on and Bacchus (19511, the poetry collections his way to self-promotion in the art world. Opera (1927) and Requiem (19621, and the He became an important contributor to essay "Opium" (1930). Publication of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Cocteau Cocteau's multivolume diary (1951-63) is lived openly with male companions at now in progress. In 1987 his letters to Jean many times in his life. Grief at the death of Marais were published, as earlier his po- the young novelist Raymond Radiguet in etry for him had been appended to Marais' 1923 was one cause of his famous turn to Stories of My Life. Marais continues to opium in the 1920s. During the period direct Cocteauls plays and preserve the 1937-50 his creativity was spurred by his legacy of his friend. relationship with the actor . Later he adopted the painter Edouard BIBLIOGRAPHY. L'Album Masques: Dermit. Throughout his life, Cocteau was lean Cocteau, Paris: Persona, 1983; Lydia Crowson, The Aesthetic of Jean surrounded by a coterie of gay male artists Cocteau, Hanover: University of New 4 COCTEAU, JEAN

Hampshire Press, 1978; Arthur King second marriage in 1912, this time to Henry Peters, d,lean Cocteau iJnd the Prench de Jouvenel, the editor-in-chief of the Scene, New York: Abbeville, 1984; newspaper LeMatin, to which she contrib- Fmcis Steegmuller, Cocteau: A BjOgraPhyIBoston: Little, Brown, 1970. utedanarticle aweek~was no than peter G. Christensen the first. For a time she abandoned both the stage and her writing career and gave birth to a daughter. World War I revived COLETTE(1873-1954) her journalistic bent, and she was sent as a French novelist. Born Sidonie- reporter to the Italian front. She also Gabrielle Colette in a small Burgundian composed a work entitled La Paix chez les village, she was the daughter of an army bdtes (1916],whichdepicts her withdrawal captain who had fought in the Crimea and from theworld of human relations into the lost a leg in the Italian campaign. Her intimate sphere of household pets. In 1920 whole literary career was to be marked by Colette published her masterpiece Cheri, memories of herrural childhood, in which whose male hero confronts LCa, a woman "Claudine's household" was a disorderly of fiftywho has not "abandoned her search but sensual ambiance, with a somewhat for happiness." eccentric mother, an assortment of pets, a In 1923 she divorced her second large garden, and all the sensations of the husband, and also published Le B16 en provincial countryside. But the lost para- herbe, whose serialization by Le Matin dise of her early years caused regrets later was halted so as not to offend the readers. on, when she said: "A happy childhood is By now a successful writer, in possession a bad preparation for contact with human of a villa at Saint-Tropez, "la Treille beings." In 1893 she mamed Henry Gau- muscatel" she issued one novel after an- thier-Villars, who under the name of Willy other on the theme of the eternal combat was a celebrity of the Paris boulevards, but between the sexes. In 1935 Colette mar- the marriage was ill-fated, as Willy soon ried Maurice Goudeket, her faithful ad- reverted to theways of a free-rovingbache- mirer, and settled permanently at the lor. This failure in her first marriage im- Palais-Royal in Paris. In her last years she pressed upon the young woman the dis- composed a few more important works, tance between love and happiness. among them Gigi (1945),while basking in Some notebooks that Colette had her reminiscences and her literary fame. filled with her childhood memories at Colette's work was more auto- Willy's behest were the starting point for biographical than anyone could have her first novel, Claudine 6 l'dcole (19001, admitted when it first appeared. The followed by a whole series with the same Claudine series features a tomboyish girl heroine which found its way to the stage. who at fifteen develops an intense crush The sequelwas Colette's slow conquest of on apretty assistant mistress, AimCe, who her marital and literary independence. In tutors her in English at home, but the affair 1906 she obtained a divorce and began to isintenvptedwhen thedomineeringhead- live alone in a modest apartment in Paris, mistress herself turns fond of the assis- soon "protected" by a strange creature, tant. AirnCe abandons Claudine to become Missy, the youngest daughter of the Due the pampered favorite of her superior. de Morny, who possessed money and a Claudine even eavesdrops one day upon an passion for the theatre. The two women intimate moment enjoyed by the two appeared on the stage in daring panto- women in their dormitory quarters while mimes, a period of her life in which Co- theirclassesarerunningwildintheschool- lette struggled to earn her livelihood and rooms. Later, the headmistress implies to whichsherecordedin La Vagabonde(l911) Claudine that she might have replaced the and L'Envers du music-hall (1913). Her junior mistress as her favorite. The second