The Ambivalence of Suffering

This chapter addresses Cocteau’s treatment of suffering as a necessary symptom of creativity, which propels the poet to transfer sterility into beauty. The vivid image of Cocteau’s desperate battle to suppress an opium addiction, as well as a state of depression brought about by the death of Radiguet, is not an invitation for the reader to go away with a feeling of guilt or a sense of pity, but with the knowledge that even in our darkest moments, we can redeem the suffering inflicted upon us by elevating it into something that speaks to the depths of our predicament as a species and has the capacity to make us aware that life itself is suffering, and that one cannot overcome said suffering by living a life of resentment. For Cocteau, art and poetry can be a way for the artist to console themselves about the imperfect state of nature and the brutish reality of human experience. He, in some sense, consoles himself to the fact that inner suffering, and torment of one’s own conscience, is a price worth paying for the creative imagination. A life affirmed is ultimately one that accepts consolation as a way of addressing suffering.