SOURCE: Cujec, Carol A. “Modernizing Antiquity: Jean Cocteau's Early Greek Adaptations.” Classical and Modern Literature: A Quarterly 17, no. 1 (fall 1996): 45-56.

In the following essay, Cujec asserts that Cocteau's early classical adaptations—Antigone, Oedipus-Rex, Oedipe-Roi—are “bold avant-garde experiments reflecting the radical revision of the theater by modernist innovators of the era.”

Following his initial productions of avant-garde ballet, Jean Cocteau sought to confirm his capabilities as a serious dramatist by turning to classical subject matter. Cocteau's interest in the classics was encouraged by his companion Raymond Radiguet who declared: “Il faut éctire … comme tout le monde.”¹ By “tout le monde,” he was not referring to the popular boulevard authors nor to the overly-fashionable avant-garde, but rather to the celebrated authors of Western civilization. Cocteau agreed that only by seeming to conform to the traditional might one achieve the anarchy sought by the modernists. Paradoxically, he hoped to prove...