The Infernal Machine: & Other Plays. Este artículo no está disponible.The Infernal Machine: & Other Plays

Among the great figures who pioneered the modern movement in world literature, none showed himself more versatile than France's Jean Cocteau. Poet, novelist, critic, artist, actor, film-maker, Cocteau was also one of the greatest dramatists Europe has produced, with over a dozen plays which are frequently revived, not only in France, but in translation in many other countries. For this collection, fine translations of four full-length plays, one short play, and the "Speaker's Text" for the Cocteau-Stravinsky opera Oedipus Rex have been selected. The longer plays (The Infernal Machine, Orpheus, Bacchus, Knights of the Round Table) are re-creations of classic myth and legend--poetic and highly original interpretations of certain timeless themes which have inspired great drama through the ages. The Eiffel Tower Wedding Party is, by contrast, merely a "curtain-raiser," but remarkable as un jeu d'esprit, revealing the wit and psychological penetration for which Cocteau is famous.

Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) was a French writer, poet, designer, draftsman, sculptor, filmmaker, and boxing manager. His list of friends--including New Directions' founder James Laughlin--would read like a catalog of the stars of the twentieth-century avant-garde. He died of a heart attack after being informed of the death of his friend, the singer Edith Piaf.