Jean COCTEAU – Signed autograph poem – The model of sleepers.

Jean Cocteau (1889.1963)

Signed autograph poem – The model of sleepers.

A page in-8° in brown ink, signed in the left margin.

Slight loss in the lower corner and restoration on the back.

Slnd. [1926]

Magnificent study of verse – first draft – for his collection of Opera poems. Cocteau here lays the versified foundations of his poem The Model of Sleepers.

The manuscript, largely crossed out, bears several corrections and references offering numerous variations with the text of the collection finally published by Stock in 1927.

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Sleep is a fountain

Petrifying – The Sleeper

Lying on his distant hand

Is made of colored stone

Blue blood, still blood

The blood of still agate

Flew around the arm

Most skillful revolt

….

This awkward look

Copy of the antique

This sleeper only has dreams

The curtain of the unknown

That his heavy hand lifts

….

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In the upper right corner, Cocteau notes an address in his manuscript: “near the grocery store rue de la grande chaumière…”