Serio ludere. Les <(en) jeux de maux > de Jean Cocteau [The stakes of wordplay in Jean Cocteau's works]

In 1910, following the publication of Jean Cocteau s first poetry collection, The Frivolous Prince, Marcel Proust, with whom the poet had a relationship marked by admiration for the writer and irritation at the snob, described its author as a Banville aged 20, on the verge of high successes. The reference to Theodore de Banvile (1823-1891), a precursor of the Parnassian movement and the person to whom Arthur Rimbaud would dedicate his poem What the poet is told about flowers (in which he parodied his style), is heavy with implications.