[41 Brimmer St., Boston]
IHügel, Friedrich vonLetters from Baron Friedrich von Hügel to a Niece;a7 have just sent two books – one the von Hügel I spoke of1 – and remember that every mark I made in it was for myself and with no expectation of your seeing it – andCocteau, JeanOrphée;a7 a play by my friend Cocteau2 – ICocteau, JeanTSE on;a1 think Cocteau has a real talent for the theatre, though a sham talent for everything else – you probably can read a play and see how it would go on to the stage – I can’t but I saw the play when it was produced in Paris and liked it very much.3
1.Letters from Baron von Hügel to a Niece, ed. Gwendolen Greene (1928). See Donald Gallup, ‘T. S. Eliot, Emily Hale, and the Letters of Baron Friedrich von Hügel’, Book Collector 42 (Spr. 1993), 126–9.
2.JeanCocteau, Jean Cocteau (1889–1963), playwright, poet, librettist, novelist, film-maker, artist and designer, was born near Paris and established an early reputation with two volumes of verse, La Lampe d’Aladin (Aladdin’s Lamp) and Prince Frivole (The Frivolous Prince). Becoming associated with many of the foremost practitioners of experimental modernism, such as Gide, Picasso, Stravinsky, Satie and Modigliani, he turned his energies to modes of artistic activity ranging from ballet-scenarios to opera-scenarios, as well as fiction and drama. ‘Astonish me!’ urged Sergei Diaghilev. A quick collaborator in all fields, his works embrace stage productions such as Parade (1917, prod. by Diaghilev, with music by Satie and designs by Picasso); Oedipus Rex (1927, with music by Stravinsky); and La Machine Infernale (produced at the Comédie des Champs-Elysées, 1934); novels including Les Enfants terribles (1929); and the screenplay Le Sang d’un poète (1930; The Blood of a Poet, 1949).
3.TSE had seen the first production of Orphée, directed by the Armenian-born George Pitôeff (1884–1939), in Paris in 1926. Cocteau sent him an inscribed copy in 1927 – Letters 3, 444 – which must have been the one that TSE sent to EH: see his letter to EH, 6 Aug. 1931 below.
2.JeanCocteau, Jean Cocteau (1889–1963), playwright, poet, librettist, novelist, film-maker, artist and designer, was born near Paris and established an early reputation with two volumes of verse, La Lampe d’Aladin (Aladdin’s Lamp) and Prince Frivole (The Frivolous Prince). Becoming associated with many of the foremost practitioners of experimental modernism, such as Gide, Picasso, Stravinsky, Satie and Modigliani, he turned his energies to modes of artistic activity ranging from ballet-scenarios to opera-scenarios, as well as fiction and drama. ‘Astonish me!’ urged Sergei Diaghilev. A quick collaborator in all fields, his works embrace stage productions such as Parade (1917, prod. by Diaghilev, with music by Satie and designs by Picasso); Oedipus Rex (1927, with music by Stravinsky); and La Machine Infernale (produced at the Comédie des Champs-Elysées, 1934); novels including Les Enfants terribles (1929); and the screenplay Le Sang d’un poète (1930; The Blood of a Poet, 1949).