French artist and writer, who made his name widely known in poetry, fiction, film, ballet, painting, and opera. Jean Cocteau's works reflect the influence of surrealism, psychoanalysis, cubism, Catholic Religion; occasionally they were opium influenced. In his time Cocteau was a promoter of avant-garde styles and fashions. His friends included such prominent figures as Pablo Picasso, the composer Erik Satie, the writer Marcel Proust, and the Russian director Serge Diaghilev.

"The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood." (from Le Rappel à l'Ordre, 1926)

Jean Cocteau was born in Maisons-Lafitte into a wealthy Parisian family, which also was politically prominent. His father was a lawyer and amateur painter, who committed suicide when Cocteau was nine. However, he had a lasting influence on his son. It is said that this tragic event also created Cocteau's awareness of human weakness, which he compensated by putting himself in the service of the performing arts and the mysterious forces in the universe. Poetry was for Cocteau the basis of all art, a "religion without hope".

At the age of fifteen, Cocteau left home. He was in the secondary school only a mediocre student, and unsuccessful after repeated attempts to pass the graduation examination. His first volume of poems, Aladdin's Lamp, Cocteau published at the age of 19. Soon Cocteau became known in the bohemian artistic circles as 'The Frivolous Prince' - the title of a volume of poems he had published at twenty-one. The American writer Edith Wharton described him as a man, "to whom every great line of poetry was a sunrise, every sunset the foundation of the Heavenly City..." I his early twenties Coctreau became associated with Proust, Gide, and Maurice Barrès. He was also a close friend of Victor Hugo's great-grandson, Jean.

In 1915 Cocteau met Picasso and fell under his spell. "I admired his intelligence, and clung to everything he said, for he spoke little; I kept still so as not to miss a word. There were long silences and Varèse could not understand why we stared wordlessly at each other. In talking, Picasso used a visual syntax, and you could immediately see what he was saying. He liked formulas and summoned himself up in his statements as he summoned himself up and sculptured himself in objects that he immediately made tangible." (from Pablo Picasso by Pierre Cabanne, 1977) Cocteau and the poet Apollinaire were witnesses at Picasso's wedding to Olga. They held gold crowns over the heads of the bride and groom as they circles three times round the altar at the Russian Orthodox church in the rue Daru. Cocteau's friendship with Picasso continued even after the artist remarked in an interview: "He is not a poet... Jean is only a journalist." Picasso also used to say, "Cocteau is the tail of my comet".

The Russian ballet-master Sergei Diaghilev challenged Cocteau to write for the ballet - "Surprise me," he urged. This resulted Parade (1917), produced by Diaghilev, designed by Pablo Picasso, and composed by Erik Satie. The ballet was performed in Rome. "Picasso has ideas that I like better than our Jean's," confessed Satie. "How awful!" The audience hissed at the symbolic beginning of modern art. "If it had not been for Apollinaire in uniform," wrote Cocteau, "with his skull shaved, the scar on his temple and the bandage around his head, women would have gouged our eyes out with hairpins." In 1919 appeared LE POTOMAK, a prose fantasy centering around a creature, who lives caged in an aquarium. The book established Cocteau's reputation as a writer. The theme of the poet's ability to see clearly into the world of the dead was a central theme is Cocteau's early poems, such as in 'L'ange Heurtebise' (1925). Cocteau's first major work of criticism, LE RAPPEL À L'ORDRE, was published in 1926. His adaptation of Sophocles' Antigone was performed in 1922 with scenery by Picasso and music by Paul Honegger. However, Coco Chanel stole many headlines with the costumes she made for the play.

During World War I Cocteau served as an ambulance driver on the Belgian front. His poems from this period, LE CAP DE BONNE-ESPÉRANCE (1919) established him among the first rank of young poets. Soon after the war he met the future poet and novelist Raymond Radiguet, whose early death led of typhoid fever him to an addiction to opium. In 1929 Cocteau was hospitalized for opium poison. OPIUM (1930) was an account of his addiction.

In the 1920s Cocteau turned to the psychological novel with Thomas the Impostor (1923). The masterpiece LES ENFANTS TERRIBLES (1929), written in three weeks, was about four children who are trapped in their own frightening world. In 1926 Coctau designated the set for the opera Pelléas et Mélisande by Claude Debussy. Cocteau also collaborated with Stravinsky on Oedipus-Rex, an opera-oratoria. ORPHÉE (1926), an original, one-act tragedy, was performed in Paris by Georges and Ludmilla Pitoëff. LA VOIX HUMAINE (1930) a one-character play consisting of a telephone conversation. The famous sketch LE BEL INDIFFÉENT (1940), about an older woman and her younger, indifferent lover, was originally written for Edith Piaf.

Cocteau's first feature film, The Blood of a Poet, was based on his own private mythology. Typical for his films is the use of a mirror as a door into another world. For Cocteau, reality was mystery. In The Blood of a Poet Enrique Rivero crashes through the surface of a large mirror. "Try, always try," his muse, Lee Miller, says. The hostility of the surrealists led Cocteau to abandon the avant-garde for something closer to classicism. His greatest play, The Infernal Machine, written before WW II, presented Oedipus as a marionette in the play of the gods. The work was based on Oedipus Rex by the ancient Greek playwright Sophocles.

As the result of a bet with the newspaper Paris-Soir, Cocteau completed the itinery imagined by Jules Verne in Around the World in Eighty Days, depicting his travels in My First Voyage (1936). His close friendship with young Jean Marais started in 1937, when Marais played the role in the play Knights of the Round Table. From this film, he designed leading roles especially for Marais.

In the 1940s Cocteau returned to filmmaking, producing Beauty and the Beast (1946), ORPHÉE (1950), and LE TESTAMENT D'ORPHÉE (1961), in which he played himself on the screeen. The film dealt with one of Cocteau's favorite theme, the death, which he called his 'mistress'. "As I grow shorter, she grows longer, she takes up more room, she worries about little details, she busies herself with unimportant, trivial tasks. She makes less and less of an effort to deceive me. But her hour of triumph will be that in which I cease to be. Then she can consider her troubles over and done with, and leave, shutting the door behind her."

In Orphée Cocteau connected the theme of death with the theme of inspiration. Jean Marais is a celebrated poet. He visits a café where receives the advice: "Astonish us." A Princess (Maria Casarès) tries to prevent a drunken young poet, Cégèste (Edouard Dhermite) from scattering his papers about. He is knocked over by two motor-cyclists. Orphée carries Cégèste to Princess's Rolls Royce. Her chauffeur, Heurtebise, phones the police. Cégèste dies. The Princess takes Orphée to a chalet, where she leads Cégèste through a mirror. At home Orphée's wife Eurydice discusses with the Commissioner of Police and Aglaonice (Juliette Gréco). During the nights the Princess appears in Orphée's room. The Princess leads Eurydice to the underworld. Heurtebise tells Orphée that there is a chance of reclaiming Eurydice. "Mirrors are the doors through which death comes and goes..." he says. Beyond the mirror - the Zone - he is allowed to reclaim Eurydice, but on the condition that he never looks at her again. The Princess and Orphée declare their undying love for each other. Aglaonice and her friends want to revenge the death of Cégèste and Orphée is killed. Again Heurtebise and Orphée return to The Zone. The Princess orders Cégèste and Heurtebise to 'kill' the poet who awakes beside Eurydice. The Princess and Heurtebise must face their own punishment. "One might see the Princess as a black angel, a guardian devil, trying to prevent Orphée from a healthy domestic life with Eurydice. Or, if the film is an allegory about the poet and the poetry, the Princess is a false muse, a black goddess, a 'negative' of the white variety worshipped by Robert Graves." (from Durgnat on Film by Raymond Durgnat, 1976)

During World War II the Vichy government branded Cocteau as "decadent". However, Cocteau himself wrote a salute in 1942 to a fascist artist, Arno Becker, a mistake which did not go unnoticed. Cocteau's colleague, the poet Paul Eluard was disappointed: "We used to see you among the forbidden. How wrong you were to expose yourself among the censors." The collaborationist press denounced him as a homosexual and German police closed performances of his plays after riots. Although Cocteau was never ostensibly interested in politics, he denounced the Vichy government, but took no active part in the Resistance. In 1949 he was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour.

Cocteau's romantic play L'AIGLE À DEUX TÊTES (1946), which took its theme from the murder of Empress Elizabeth of Austria, has been filmed twice. The first version from 1947 was directed by the author himself, starring Edwige Feuillére as the Queen, and Jean Marais as her lover and would-be assassin. A new version was made in 1980 by Michelangelo Antonioni under the title The Mystery of Oberwald. Antonioni was not especially fond of Cocteau's play, but he wanted to work with Monica Vitti, who played the Queen.

In 1949 Cocteau made a trip to the United States and a theatrical tour of the Middle East and continued leading an active life until 1953 when ill healt forced him into semiretirement. Cocteau still went on to astonish the public. He had his face lifted and he started to wear leather trousers and matador's capes. In 1955 he was elected to Belgian Academy and the Acadèmie Française - Picasso's design for the sword hilt of the Academician's traditional insignia was a drawing of a toilet seat, a flushing chain and a toilet-bowl brush. In his last decade Cocteau worked in a wide variety of graphic arts. At the age of 70 he painted frescos in the town hall of Menton and in the chapel of Saint-Pierre at Ville-franche-sur Mer. Cocteau's mural at Notre-Dame de France in London were finished in 1960. Unconventionally, we see the crucified figure in the middle only from knees down; the identity of the figure is open to speculations. At the foot of the cross is a rose, a Rose-Croix device. The artist himself is among characters in the foreground, but he has turned his back on the cross.

As his private life, Cocteau's Catholicism was highly unorthodox. In later part of his life, he redecorated churches. It has said that Cocteau was also the Grand Master of a secret brotherhood, the Priority of Sion, originally founded in Jerusalem in 1099. Cocteau appeared on the list of Sion's alleged Grand Masters as Jean XIII.

"To enclose the collected works of Cocteau one would need not a bookshelf, but a warehouse..." said W.H. Auden once. Cocteau died in Milly, outside Paris, on October 11, 1963. He was preparing a radio broadcast in memory of Edith Piaf and when he head she had expired, he exclaimed: "Ah, la Piaf est morte, je peux mourir", and sank into a coronary himself. Cocteaus's last film was his faithful adaptation of the novel from Madame de La Fayette, The Princess of Cleves. The American artist and film maker Andy Warhol, who perhaps felt a spiritual affinity with Cocteau, later developed the vision of him as an icon in a series of screenprints.

For further reading: Jean Cocteau, ou La vérité du mensonge by C. Mauric (1945); Dramaturgie de Jean Cocteau by P. Dubourg (1954); Scandal and Parade by N. Oxenhandler (1957); Jean Cocteau: The History of a Poet's Age by W. Fowlie (1966); An Impersonation of Angels by F. Brown (1968); Jean Cocteau by R. Gilson (1969); Cocteau: a Biography by F. Steegmuller (1970); Jean Cocteau by W. Fitfield (1976); Eléments tragiques dans le théâtre de Jean Cocteau by I. Filipowska (1976); Jean Cocteau and His Films of Orphic Identity by A.B. Evans (1977); The Easthetic of Jean Cocteau by L. Crowson (1978); The Dance Theatre of Jean Cocteau by Frank, W.D. Ries (1986); Jean Cocteau and His World: An Illustrated Biography by Arthur King Peters (1987); Cocteau: A Biography by Francis Steegmuller (1992); Jean Cocteau: Erotic Drawings, ed. by Annie Guedras (2000); Jean Cocteau: Testament of Orpheus by Lucien Clergue, David Lehardy Sweet (2001); The Cinema of Jean Cocteau: Essays on His Films and Their Coctelian Sources, ed. by C. D. E. Tolton (2003) - See also: Colette, Andre Bréton - Suom: Runosuomennoksia teoksessa Tulisen järjen aika, toim. Aale Tynni (1962). Jean Cocteau - runoilija elokuvantekijänä, toim. Peter von Bagh, ilmestyi 1993. Les enfants terribles - kauhukakarat ilmestyi 1985 Sirkka Suomen kääntämänä.

Selected works:

• LAMPE D'ALADIN, 1908
• LE PRINCE FRIVOLE, 1910
• LA DANSE DE SOPHOCLE, 1912
• LE DIEU BLEU, 1912 (ballet scenario)
• PARADE, 1917 (ballet scenario)
• LE COQ ET L'ARLEQUIN, 1918 - Cock and Harlequin (tr. 1921)
• DANS LE CIEL DE LA PATRIE, 1918
• LE CAP DE BONNE-ESPÉRANCE, 1919
• ODE À PICASSO, 1919
• LE POTOMAK, 1919 (rev. ed. 1934)
• DISCOURS DU GRAND SOMMEIL, 1920
• CARTE BLANCHE, 1920
• ESCALES, 1920 (with André Lhote)
• LE BOEUF SUR LE TOIT, 1920 (ballet scenario)
• POÉSIES 1917-1920, 1920
• LA NOCE MASSACRÉE, 1921
• VOCABULAIRE, 1922
• LE SECRET PROFESSIONNEL, 1922 - Professional Secrets (tr. Richard Howard)
• LE GRAND ÉCART, 1923 - The Grand Écart (tr. Lewis Galantière, 1925) / The Miscreant (tr. Dorothy Williams, 1958)
• THOMAS L'IMPOSTEUR, 1923 - Thomas the Imposter (tr. Lewis Galantière) / Thomas the Impostor (tr. Dorothy Williams) - film 1965, sc., dir. by Georges Franju, starring Emmanuelle Riva, Fabrice Rouleau, Jean Servais
• DESSINS, 1923
• PICASSO, 1923
• LA ROSE DE FRANÇOIS, 1923
• PLAIN-CHANT, 1923
• POÉSIE 1916-23, 1924
• LES MARIÈS DE LA TOUR EIFFEL, 1924 (play) - The Eiffel Tower Wedding Party (tr. in The Infernal Machine and Other Plays, 1963) / The Wedding on the Eiffel Tower (tr. D. Fitts)
• LES BICHES, 1924
• LE TRAIN BLEU, 1924 (ballet scenario)
• FERAT, 1924
• LE MYSTÈRE DE L'OISELEUR, 1925
• CRI ÉCRIT, 1925
• PRIÈRE MUTILÉE, 1925
• L'ANGE HEURTEBISE, 1926
• LETTRE À JACQUES MARITAIN, 1926
• LE RAPPEL À L'ORDRE, 1926 - A Call to Order (tr. 1926)
• ORPHÉE (play, first performed in 1926) - Orpheus (tr. 1933) / Orphée: A Tragedy in One Act and an Interval (tr. C. Wildman) - Orfeus (suom. Kari Salosaari) - film 1950, sc. dir., starring Jean Marais, Maria Casarès, Marie Déa, Juliette Gréco
• MAISON DE SANTÉ: DESSSINS, 1926
• ROMÉO ET JULIETTE, 1926 (play)
• OPÉRA: OEUVRES POÉTIQUES 1925-27, 1927
• ANTIGONE, 1927 (play) - Antigone (tr. in Four Plays, 1962) - Antigone (suom. Vilho Kallioinen)
• LE PAUVRE MATELOT, 1927 (play, music by Milhaud)
• OEDIPUS REX, 1927 (play, prod. in 1927, music by Stravinsky)
• LE MYSTÈRE LAÏC, 1928
• ŒDIPE-ROI, 1928 (play, prod. 1937)
• LE LIVRE BLANC, 1928 - The White Paper (tr. 1957) / The White Book (tr. Margaret Crossland) - Valkoinen kirja (suom. Kari Lampinen)
• LES ENFANTS TERRIBLES, 1929 - Enfants Terribles (tr. Samuel Putnam, 1930) / The Incorrigible Children / Children of the Game (tr. 1955) / The Holy Terrors (tr. by Rosamond Lehmann, 1957) / - Kauhukakarat / Les enfants terribles (suom. Sirkka Suomi) - film 1950, dir. by Jean-Pierre Melville, starring Nicole Stéphane, Edouart Dermit, Renée Cosima
• UNE ENREVUE SUR LA CRITIQUE AVEC MAURICE ROUZAUD, 1929
• 25 DESSINS D'UN DORMEUR, 1929
• OPIUM: JOURNAL D'UNE DÉSINTOXICATION, 1930 - Opium: The Diary of an Addict (tr. Ernest Boyd) / Opium: The Diary of a Cure (tr. Margaret Crosland and Sinclair Road) - Oopiumi: päiväkirja viueroituskuurin ajalta (suom. Sirkka Suomi)
• LE SANG D'UN POÈTE, 1930 (screenplay) - The Blood of a Poet (tr. 1949) - Runoilijan veri - film 1932; sc., dir., starring Lee Miller, Enrique Rivero, Féral Benga
• LA VOIX HUMAINE, 1930 (play) - The Human Voice (tr. Anthony Wood, 1951) - Ihmisääni (suom. Raoul af Hällström) - film 1970, based on an opera by Francis Poulence, dir. by Dominique Delouche
• ESSAI DE CRITIQUE INDIRECTE, 1932
• MORCEAUX CHOISIS, 1932
• MYTHOLOGIE, 1934
• LA MACHINE INFERNALE, 1934 (play) - The Infernal Machine (tr. C. Wildman, 1936)
• PORTRAITS-SOUVENIR 1900-1914, 1935 - Paris Album 1900-1914 (tr. 1956) / Souvenir Portraits (tr. Jesse Browner)
• SOIXANTE DESSINS POUR "LES ENFANTS TERRIBLES", 1935
• LE FANTÔME DE MARSEILLE, 1936
• LES CHEVALIERS DE LA TABLE RONDE, 1937 (play) - The Knights of the Round Table (tr. 1963)
• MON PREMIER VOYAGE, 1937 - Round the World Again in Eighty Days (tr. Stuart Gilbert, 1937)
• LES PARENTS TERRIBLES, 1938 (play) - Parents Terribles (tr. Jeremy Sams) / Intimate Relations (tr. C. Frank, 1962) - Kurittoman vanhemmat / Kauheat vanhemmat (suom. Mauno Manninen)
• LE FIN DU POTOMAK, 1939
• ENIGME, 1939
• LE BEL INDIFFÉRENT, 1940 - The Sound of Silence (tr. Anthony Wood)
• LES MONSTRES SACRÉS, 1940 (play) - The Holy Terrors (tr. 1962)
• LA COMÉDIE DU BONHEUR, 1940 (screenplay) - film based on Nicholas Evreinoff's play, starring Michel Simon, Ramon Novarro, Jacqueline Delubac
• LA MACHINE À ÉCRIRE, 1941 (play) - The Typewriter (tr. 1947) - Kirjoituskone (suom. Raoul af Hällström)
• ALLÉGORIES, 1941
• DESSINS EN MARGE DES "CHEVALIERS DE LA TABLE RONDE", 1941
• LE BARON FANTÔME, 1942 (screenplay with Serge de Poligny) - film starring Odette Joyeux, Jany Holt, Alain Cuny
• RENAUD ET ARMIDE, 1943 (play)
• LE GRECO, 1943
• L'ETERNEL RETOUR, 1943 (screenplay) - L'eternel retour (tr. in Three Screenplays, 1972) - film starring Jean Marais, Madeleine Sologne, Jean Murat
• LA MALIBRAN, 1943 - film; actor (Alfred de Musset), starring Sacha Guitry, Géori Boué, Suzy Prim
• LES POÈMES ALLEMANDS, 1944
• LE LIFAR À L'OPÉRA, 1944
• PORTRAIT DE MOUNET-SULLY, 1945
• LÉONE, 1945 - Leoun (tr. 1960)
• LES DAMES DU BOIS DE BOULOGNE, 1945 (sc. with Robert Bresson) - film; based on Denis Diderot's novel Jacques le Fataliste, dir. by Robert Bresson, starring Maria Cesares and Elina Labourdette
• L'AIGLE À DEUX TÊTES, 1946 (play) - The Eagle Has Two Heads (adapted by Ronald Duncan) - Kaksoiskotka (suom. Ritva Arvelo)
• LE JEUNE HOMME ET LA MORT, 1946 (ballet scenario)
• LA BELLE ET LA BÊTE, 1946 (screenplay) - Beauty and the Beast (tr. Ronald Duncan) / La Belle et la bête (tr. in Three Screenplays, 1972) - Kaunotar ja hirviö - film; dir., sc., based on a fairy tale by Mme. Leprince de Beaumont, starring Jean Marais, Josette Day, Mila Parely
• LA BELLE ET LA BÊTE: JOURNAL D'UN FILM, 1946 - Diary of a Film (tr. 1946)
• POÉSIE CRITIQUE, 1946
• LA CRUCIFIXION, 1947 - Crucifixion (tr. Jack Hirschman)
• LA DIFFICULTÉ D'ÊTRE, 1947 - Difficulty of Being (tr. Elizabeth Sprigge)
• LE FOYER DES ARTISTES, 1947
• DEUX TRAVESTIS, 1947
• OEUVRES COMPLÈTES, 1947-50 (10 vols.)
• RUY BLAS, 1947 (screenplay) - film; based on Victor Hugo's play, starring Jean Marais, Danielle Darrieux, Gabrielle Dorziat
• POÈMES, 1948
• L'AIGLE A DEUX TÊTES, 1948 (screenplay) - films: 1947, dir. by Jean Cocteau, starring Edwige Feuillère, Jean Marais, Silvia Montfort; 1980, The Mystery of Oberwald, dir. by Michelangelo Antonioni, starring Monica Vitti, Franco Branciaroli, Paolo Bonacelli
• LE SANG D'UN POÈTE, 1948 (screenplay) - The Blood of a Poet (tr. 1949)
• UNA VOCA UMANA, 1948 - film; episode in L'Amore
• REINES DE FRANCE, 1948
• Art and Faith: Letters Between Jacques Maritain and Cocteau, 1948
• DRÔLE DE MÉNAGE, 1948
• LES PARENTS TERRIBLES, 1948 (screenplay) - film 1948, dir., starring Jean Marais, Yvonne de Bray, Gabrielle Dorziat
• LETTRE AUX AMÉRICAINS, 1949
• NOCES DE SABLE, 1949 (screenplay)
• MAALESH, 1949 - Maalesh: A Theatrical Tour in the Middle-East (tr. Mary C. Hoeck)
• THÉÂTRE DE POCHE, 1949 (scenarios, sketches, radio works)
• editor: ALMANACH DU THÉÂTRE ET DU CINÉMA, 1949
• editor: CHOIX DE LETTRES DE MAX JACOB À JEAN COCTEAU 1919-1944, 1949
• UN TRAMWAY NOMMÉ DÉSIR, 1949 (play, based on Paule de Beaumont's translation of the play by Tennessee Williams)
• DUFY, 1949
• ORSON WELLES, 1950 (with André Bazin)
• MODIGLIANI, 1950
• L'ÉPOUSE INJUSTEMENT SOUPCONNÉE, 1950 - The Unjustly Suspected Wife
• LES ENFANTS TERRIBLES, 1950 (screenplay) - Enfants Terribles (tr. Samuel Putnam) / The Incorrigible Children / The Holy Terrors (tr. by Rosamond Lehmann) / - Kauhukakarat / Les enfants terribles (suom. Sirkka Suomi) - film 1950, dir. by Jean-Pierre Melville, starring Nicole Stéphane, Edouart Dermit, Renée Cosima
• PHÈDRE, 1950 - Phaedra
• JEAN MARAIS, 1951
• ORPHÉE, 1951 (screenplay) - Orphée (tr. in Three Screenplays, 1972)
• ENTRETIENS AUTOUR DU CINÉMATOGRAPHE, 1951 (rev. ed. by André Bernard and Claude Gauteur, 1973) - Cocteau on the Film (tr. Vera Traill)
• LE JOURNAL D'UN INCONNU, 1952 - Diary of an Unknown (tr. Jesse Browner) / The Hand of a Stranger (tr. Alec Brown, 1956)
• LE CHIFFRE SEPT, 1952
• LA VILLA SANTO-SOSPIR, 1952 (screenplay) - film; director
• LA NAPPE DU CATALAN, 1952
• LA CORONA NEGRA, 1952 (screenplay)
• BACCHUS, 1952 (play) - Bacchus (tr. in The Infernal Machine and Other Plays, 1963)
• GIDE VIVANT, 1952 (with Julien Green)
• APPOGIATURES, 1953
• DENTELLE D'ÉTERNITÉ, 1953
• LA DAME À LA LICORNE, 1953 (ballet scenario)
• CLAIR-OBSCUR, 1954
• COLETTE, 1955
• AUX CONFINS DE LA CHINE, 1955
• LETTRE SUR LA POÉSIE, 1955
• LE DRAGON DES METS, 1955
• DISCOURS DE RÉCEPTION DE M. JEAN COCTEAU À L'ACADÉMIE FRANÇAISE, 1955
• LE DISCOURS DE STRASBOURG, 1956
• LE DISCOURS D'OXFORD, 1956
• POÈMES 1916-1955, 1956
• The Journals, 1956 (ed. and tr. Wallace Fowlie)
• ADIEU À MISTINGUETT, 1956
• L'ART EST UN SPORT, 1956
• IMPRESSIONS: ARTS DE LA RUE, 1956
• COCTEAU CHEZ LES SIRÈNES, 1956 (ed. by Jean Dauven)
• TÉMOIGNAGE, 1956
• LA CORRIDA DU PREMIER MAI, 1957
• ENTRETIENS SUR LE MUSÉE DE DRESDE, 1957 (with Louis Aragon) - Conversations in the Dresden Gallery (tr. Francis Scarfe)
• ERIK SATIE, 1957
• LA CHAPELLE SAINT-PIERRE, VILLEFRANCE-SUR-MER, 1957
• LA CORRIDA DU PREMIER MAI, 1957
• COMME UN MIEL NOIR, 1958 (in French and English)
• PARAPROSODIES, 1958
• LA SALLE DES MARIAGES, HÔTEL DE VILLE MENTON, 1958
• GONDOLE DES MORTS, 1959
• LE POÈTE ET SA MUSE, 1959 (ballet scenario)
• LA CANNE BLANCHE, 1959
• LE TESTAMENT D'ORPHEE, 1960 (screenplay) - The Testament of Orpheus (tr. in Two Screenplays, 1968) - film 1960; sc., dir, starring Jean Cocteau, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Nicole Courcel
• CHER MENTEUR, 1960 (from the play by Jerome Kilty)
• POÉSIE CRITIQUE: MONOLOGUES, 1960
• editor: AMADEO MODIGLIANI: QUINZE DESSINS, 1960
• NOTES SUR "TESTAMENT D'ORPHÉE", 1960
• Five Plays, 1961
• CÈRÉMONIAL ESPAGNOL DU PHÉNIX; LA PARTIE D'ÉCHECS, 1961
• LA PRINCESSE DE CLÈVES, 1961 (screenplay) - film; adapt., dial., based on the novel by Mme. de La Fayette, starring Jean Marais, Marina Vlady, Jean François Poron
• LE CORDON OMBILICAL, 1962
• LE REQUIEM, 1962
• HOMMAGE, 1962
• L'IMPROMPTU DU PALAIS-ROYAL, 1962 (play)
• ANNA DE NOAILLES OUI ET NON, 1963
• ADIEUX D'ANTONIO ARDONEZ, 1963
• LA MESANGÈRE, 1963
• ENTRETIEN AVEC ROGER STÉPHANE, 1964
• ENTRETIEN AVEC ANDRÉ FRAIGNEAU, 1965
• THOMAS L'IMPOSTEUR, 1965 (screenplay)
• ENTRETIEN AVEC ANDRÉ FRAIGNEAU, 1965
• PÉGASE, 1965
• My Contemporaries, 1967 (ed. Margaret Crosland)
• ENTRE RADIQUET ET PICASSO, 1967
• FAIRE-PART, 1968
• Two Screenplays: The blood of a Poet, The Testament of Orpheus, 1968 (tr. Carol Martin-Sperry)
• Professional Secrets: An Autobiography, 1970 (ed. by Robert Phelps)
• LETTRES À ANDRÉ GIDE, 1970 (ed. Jean-Jacques Kihm)
• Cocteau's World, 1972 (ed. and transl. Margaret Crosland)
• Three Screenplays, 1973
• DU CINÉMATOGRAPHE, 1973 - The Art of Cinema (tr. Robin Buss)
• POÉSIE DE JOURNALISME, 1973
• PAUL ET VIRGINIE, 1973
• COCTEAU, POÈTE GRAPHIQUE, 1975 (es. Pierre Chanel)
• LETTRES À MILORAD, 1975 (ed. by Milorad)
• Past Tense: Diaries, 1987 (tr. Richard Howard)
• JOURNAL 1942-45, 1989
• Tempest of Stars: Selected Poems, 1992 (tr. Jeremy Reed)