Abstract EN:

Jean Cocteau, poet with numerous types of writing, very early integrated choregraphic art into his poetic creation. That way sublimated daily reality, symbolic characters and many other recurrent themes and patterns can be found again and again both in his poems and ballets. This interaction between poetry and dance had definite repercussions in his works leading to a deep cohesion. Poetry became in Cocteau's works a strength that filled the whole world and that only the poet as a medium could fully grasp. Drawing from the various sources of mysticism, Cocteau develops a view of a 'pluridimensional' universe made of worlds that endlessly fit together, abolishing the concept of time, reflecting merely the interlocking of space. Vacillating between secrecy and explanations, Cocteau's paradoxical choices dismayed the critics and gave birth to many misunderstandings. And yet in his own way Cocteau, fascinated by the choregraphic creation, carried on the French traditions of 'ballet-theatre'. Following his example, other writers (Claudel, Cendrars, Picabia, Valery, Gide) tried the adventure and this movement which was most patent between the two wars reopens the debate on the relation between dance and poetry and on the purity in art