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Images by Jean Cocteau

Cocteau Sketch 2

Cocteau's "A Mes Des Ponts" (1958). Lithograph. From Modernism.com.

 

 

 

Sketch of Orphée

Sketch of OrphéeBing Images

Jean Cocteau, Head of the Minotaur (c. 1961)

Cocteau's Head of the Minotaur (1961). Pastel. From Artnet.com.

Merrill in Cocteau's Orphée 1945

Merrill in Title Role of Cocteau's Orphée (Amherst College, 1945). From James Merrill at Amherst College.

CocteauBB

Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast (1946). From La Belle et la Bête Gallery. 

Cocteau Testament

Cocteau, The Testament of Orpheus (1959). From Testament of Orpheus Images.

Merrill's allusion to an "ink sketch by Cocteau" in "Minotaur" may draw on these images. 

In Ms. 7 the Minotaur is  "haunting as / An ink sketch by Cocteau," and in 8 "beautiful as / An ink sketch by Cocteau."

His father's terrible head

laid aside uncovers

an ink sketch by Cocteau

The earlobe's cunning nugget

Colors of Crete     Sun washing

black locks blood-red

Merrill's fascination with Jean Cocteau dates at least from his acting in the title role in Cocteau’s play Orphée i(1925) in a student production at Amherst College in 1945. Earlier, in prep school, he published his poem "Orpheus" in the Lawrenceville Literary Magazine (Dec. 1942). In Life and Art, Hammer states that when Merrill left for Europe in 1950, he "pictured himself as Orpheus at the moment when— he’d just seen the film version of Cocteau’s Orphée (1949)— the poet 'penetrates the Mirror, fearfully, his feet dragging, to find the land where everything is clear'” (p. 117).  

Cocteau's allusions to the Minotaur appear in the Beast of his film Beauty and the Beast (1946), as well as the horse-headed figures in the play Orphée and the films Orpheus and The Testament of Orpheus. Labyrinth imagery pervades his work.