"La Trahison". Autograph poem.
N. p. o. d.
4to. French manuscript on paper. 1½ pp. on 2 ff.
€ 1.500,00
Interesting, unpublished poem of six quatrains from Cocteau's youth, with several corrections. The poem tells the story of a French adolescent: the speaker, as is to be expected for a 16-year-old, lacks "profound attachment" and imagines himself the "the axis of the world"; he therefore dreams of immersing himself in the culture of Cambridge or Oxford, of playing polo or bridge, of reading Walter Pater, Oscar Wilde, and Shakespeare. The reason for his "treason" finally becomes obvious to him when he reads the final scene of Racine's "Phèdre", wherein the dying queen admits to her husband Theseus her guilt and "incestuous desire".
Minimally stained.