The French writer Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) explored nostalgia for childhood and adolescence, frustration in love, and fear of solitude and death.

Jean Cocteau was born in a suburb of Paris and brought up in a well-to-do home frequented by the artistic notables of the day. As a schoolboy at the Lycée Condorcet, he was anything but a model pupil, but he charmed his teachers by his verve and brilliance. His official debut was at the age of 18, when the renowned actor Édouard de Max gave a lecture on Cocteau's poetry. Cocteau soon visited Edmond de Rostand, Anna de Noailles, and Marcel Proust; everybody and everything fashionable attracted him.

When the Russian ballet performed in Paris, Jean Cocteau was there. Soon he proposed to its director, Sergei Diaghilev, a ballet of his own. The resulting Blue God, which was not presented until 1912, was not a success...