View source for Raymond Radiguet

{{Short description|French novelist and poet}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2022}}
{{Infobox person
| name               = Raymond Radiguet
| image              = Raymond Radiguet.jpg
| caption            = 
| imagesize          = 
| birth_name         = 
| other_names        = 
| birth_date         = {{Birth date|1903|06|18|df=y}}
| birth_place        = [[Saint-Maur-des-Fossés|Saint-Maur]], France
| death_date         = {{Death date and age|1923|12|12|1903|06|18|df=y}}
| death_place        = [[Paris]], France
| occupation         = Novelist, poet
| known_for          = ''[[Le Diable au corps (novel)|Le Diable au corps]]''<br>''[[Le bal du Comte d'Orgel]]''
| spouse             = 
| partner            = 
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}}
{{French literature sidebar}}
'''Raymond Radiguet''' ({{IPA|fr|ʁɛmɔ̃ ʁadiɡɛ|lang}}; 18 June 1903 – 12 December 1923) was a [[French novelist]] and [[French poetry|poet]]. His two novels, noted for their explicit themes and unique style and tone, were praised by many of the greatest writers of the time.<ref name="Di Stefano">{{cite web|last1=Di Stefano|first1=Loïc|title=Raymond Radiguet : Biographie|url=http://salon-litteraire.linternaute.com/fr/raymond-radiguet/content/1806772-raymond-radiguet-biographie|website=salon-litteraire.linternaute.com/fr|accessdate=7 December 2016|date=6 November 2012|archive-date=30 May 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230530085332/http://salon-litteraire.linternaute.com/fr/raymond-radiguet/content/1806772-raymond-radiguet-biographie|url-status=dead}}</ref> He died unexpectedly at the age of twenty.

==Early life==
Raymond Maurice Radiguet was born in [[Saint-Maur-des-Fossés|Saint-Maur]], Val-de-Marne, close to Paris, the eldest of the seven children of Maurice Radiguet (1866-1941), a successful [[caricaturist]], and Marie Radiguet (''[[Birth name|née]]'' Tournier, 1884-1958), who taught at a [[boarding school]]. When asked for news of his mother, Raymond would reportedly say: "I don't know. I never see her face. It's always lowered, as she ties the shoes of one of my brothers or sisters."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Goesch |first=Keith |title=Radiguet |publisher=La Palatine |year=1955 |location=Paris-Genève |pages=24 |language=fr}}</ref> His father was a much more significant presence in his life, and Maurice Radiguet's mixture of permissiveness and near-rivalry with his eldest son heavily influenced the paternal dynamic in ''Le Diable au corps''.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Odouard |first=Nadia |title=Les Années folles de Raymond Radiguet |date=1973 |publisher=Seghers}}</ref>

On his mother's side, his family hailed from [[Martinique]]; his maternal grandfather had died in a shipwreck off the coast of [[Havana]]. The [[French West Indies]] were a lifelong fascination for Raymond (see the character of Mahaut in ''Le Bal du comte d'Orgel''), and it has been suggested that his mother's fear of water, stemming from her father's death, was at the origin of Radiguet's poetic preoccupation with the beach. [[Jean Cocteau|Cocteau]] claimed that Marie Radiguet's extraction explained the temperament of her son, who "sleeps during the day, smokes and loves sugar."<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Cocteau |first=Jean |title=Lettres à sa mère II: 1919-1938 |orig-date=1989 |publisher=Gallimard |year=2007 |isbn=2070730352 |publication-date=2007 |pages=157 |language=fr}}</ref>

Radiguet's earliest memory, as he recounted it later in ''Île de France, Île d'Amour'', was of precocious sexuality: "I see myself, two years old, led by my nurse each morning to the girls' boarding school where my mother had graduated four years earlier. This gentle warmth of knees and breasts, I have never been able to recover it since, as I experienced it at the moment when I felt these caresses, so different from those of my mother or my nurse."<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |date=2008-08-04 |title=«Île-de-France, île d&#039;Amour», par Raymond Radiguet |url=https://www.nouvelobs.com/actualites/20080804.BIB1652/ile-de-france-ile-d-039-amour-par-raymond-radiguet.html |access-date=2025-10-09 |website=Le Nouvel Obs |language=fr}}</ref>

In the same work, he sets down two childhood memories of death. In one, also drawn on at the beginning of ''Le diable au corps'', a neighbor's maid [[Suicide|commits suicide]] by throwing herself from a rooftop. In the other, a moment of erotic fascination gives way to horror as, watching a young couple on a swing, he sees the woman fall and break her neck: "Image worthy of a Greek tragedy."<ref name=":2" />

In 1917, he moved to the city. Soon he would drop out of the [[Lycée Charlemagne]], where he studied, in order to pursue his interests in journalism and literature.<ref name="britannica2">{{cite web |title=Raymond Radiguet {{!}} French author |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Raymond-Radiguet |accessdate=7 December 2016 |website=Encyclopædia Britannica}}</ref>

==Career==
Radiguet found his first literary connection in [[André Salmon]], editor of ''[[L'Intransigeant]]'', to whom he brought several caricatures signed "Rajky." Some of his biographers have concluded, from his poor grades in art and the crudeness of his surviving drawings, that these caricatures were his father's work.<ref name=":0" /> Salmon helped him find work at several newspapers; years later, recalling his impressions on first reading Radiguet's poetry, he wrote: "No question of a new [[Arthur Rimbaud|Rimbaud]]. All the same, standing before one, a boy of fifteen already endowed with an indisputable poetic conscience..."<ref>{{Cite web |last=OpenLibrary.org |title=Souvenirs sans fin. by André Salmon {{!}} Open Library |url=https://openlibrary.org/works/OL1458379W/Souvenirs_sans_fin?edition=key:/books/OL6187074M |access-date=2025-10-08 |website=Open Library |language=fr}}</ref>

His first published poem, again under the pseudonym of "Raimon Rajky," was "Aiguilles des secondes," which appeared in the September 1918 edition of ''L'Instant''; his first publication under his real name was "Ligne d'horizon," which appeared two months later; and in December, he published a short story, "Tohu,"<ref>{{Cite web |date=1918-12-01 |title=Sic : sons, idées, couleurs, formes / Pierre Albert-Birot, directeur |url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k10504762 |access-date=2025-10-08 |website=Gallica |language=EN}}</ref> in the [[avant-garde]] journal [[SIC (magazine)|''SIC''.]] In February 1919, he met [[Max Jacob]], with whom he became close at this time.

As one of the few writers in the [[Années folles|immediate postwar milieu]] who had been too young to fight, Radiguet found himself an outsider in the generational struggle between modernists who were firmly established prior to the war––Jacob and Salmon, along with ''SIC'' and its editor [[Pierre Albert-Birot]], were among these––and the younger generation, most of whom had fought in the war and many of whom were still mobilized. This younger generation found a voice in [[Pierre Reverdy]]'s magazine ''Nord-Sud'', and then in [[Dada]]. Radiguet made an attempt to ingratiate himself with this new avant-garde without alienating his older connections. This was partly successful (Radiguet is hailed as "a Parisian friend of Dada" in a poem by [[Tristan Tzara]]), but social miscalculations and a poor impression on [[Louis Aragon]] damaged these inroads.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Nemer |first=Monique |title=Raymond Radiguet |publisher=Fayard |year=2002 |isbn=9782213613192 |pages=108–117 |language=fr}}</ref>

Radiguet's relationship with [[Jean Cocteau]] began in 1919. Despite Cocteau's characteristically dramatic account of their first meeting,<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/raymondradiguetj0004unse |title=Raymond Radiguet-Jean Cocteau : [cahier |date=1973 |publisher=[Paris] : Gallimard |others=Internet Archive}}</ref> it is uncertain at which literary soirée they actually made first contact. On Radiguet's first being introduced at Cocteau's home, the butler announced him this way: "Sir, it's a child with a cane."<ref name=":0" /> The nature of their relationship has been the cause of much speculation. Cocteau was famously [[Homosexuality|homosexual]], and Radiguet was only the most significant in a series of eroticized mentor-mentee relationships in Cocteau's life. However, it is uncertain whether the two were ever romantically or sexually involved.

In early 1923, Radiguet published his first and most famous novel, ''[[Le Diable au corps (novel)|Le Diable au corps]]'' (''The Devil in the Flesh''). Its scandalous content, along with its [[Autobiography|autobiographical]] rapports, set off a literary ''[[cause célèbre]]''. The novel tells the story of a young married woman who has an affair with an adolescent boy while her husband is away fighting at the front. Its plot, along with its cynical treatment of the war as "four years of summer vacation,"<ref name="Melville">{{cite web |title=THE DEVIL IN THE FLESH {{!}} A NOVEL RAYMOND RADIGUET {{!}} TRANSLATED BY CHRISTOPHER MONCRIEFF {{!}} PART OF THE NEVERSINK LIBRARY |url=http://www.mhpbooks.com/books/the-devil-in-the-flesh/ |accessdate=7 December 2016 |website=mhpbooks.com |publisher=[[Melville House Publishing]]}}</ref> tapped into an unacknowledged but profound national anxiety over the fidelity of soldiers' wives, some of whom had staved off loneliness through affairs with older men or adolescent boys.<ref name=":6">{{Cite web |date=2023-12-08 |title=Raymond Radiguet, trajectoire d'un météore : un podcast à écouter en ligne |url=https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/podcasts/serie-raymond-radiguet-trajectoire-d-un-meteore |access-date=2025-10-10 |website=France Culture |language=fr}}</ref> According to Radiguet family friend Yves Krier, it was Maurice Radiguet that Alice Serrier (''née'' Saunier), on whom the character of Marthe was based, initially intended to seduce.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Krier |first=Yves |date=12 July 1952 |title=Au lycée avec Raymond Radiguet |url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bd6t51175882h/f6.item |journal=Le Figaro littéraire |via=Gallica}}</ref> Alice Serrier's husband, Gaston Serrier, was a [[Poilu|soldier at the front]]. The scandal followed the couple for decades, and the paternity of their child was called into question by the press; Gaston always maintained his wife's innocence.<ref name=":6" />

During the last months of his life, Radiguet was engaged to model [[Bronia Clair|Bronia Perlmutter]] (1906-2004), who later married filmmaker [[René Clair]]. An anecdote told by [[Ernest Hemingway]] has an enraged Cocteau charging Radiguet (known in the Parisian literary circles as ''"Monsieur Bébé"'' – Mister Baby) with decadence for this behavior: ''"Bébé est vicieuse. Il aime les femmes."'' ("Baby is depraved. He likes women." [Note the use of the feminine adjective.]) Radiguet, Hemingway implied, employed his [[homosexuality|sexuality]] to advance his career: being a writer "who knew how to make his career not only with his pen but with his pencil."<ref>Thurston, Michael: "Genre, Gender, and Truth in Death in the Afternoon," ''The Hemingway Review,'' Spring 1998</ref><ref>[[Ernest Hemingway]], ''Death in the Afternoon'', p.71</ref>

Radiguet's second novel, ''[[Le bal du Comte d'Orgel]]'' (''Count d'Orgel's Ball''), also dealing with [[adultery]], was only published posthumously in 1924, and also proved controversial.

In addition to his two novels, Radiguet's works include a few poetry volumes and a play.<ref name="britannica2"/>

===Legacy===
In 1945, [[Christina Stead|Stead]] and [[William J. Blake|Blake]] wrote that admirers of his first novel "include the most discriminating of critics."<ref name=":3" /> [[Aldous Huxley]] is quoted as declaring that Radiguet had attained the literary control that others required a long career to reach. [[François Mauriac]] said that ''Le Diable au corps'' is "unretouched and seems shocking, but nothing so resembles [[cynicism (contemporary)|cynicism]] as clairvoyance. No adolescent before Radiguet has delivered to us the secret of that age: we have all falsified it."<ref name=":3">Steadman, Christina and Blake, William: ''Modern Women in Love'', Garden City Publishing Co., New York, 1947 (first ed. Dryden Press, New York City, 1945) p. 3</ref> In his commentary on the ''[[Hagakure]],'' Japanese writer [[Yukio Mishima]] writes that ''Le Bal du Comte d'Orgel'' was "the book that thrilled me most" as a child, and that Radiguet became a sort of adolescent rival for him, as he expected to die equally early in [[Japan during World War II|World War II]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mishima |first=Yukio |url=http://archive.org/details/samuraiethicmode0000mish |title=The samurai ethic and modern Japan : Mishima Yukio on Hagakure |date=1978 |publisher=C.E. Tuttle |location=Tokyo, Japan |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-8048-1875-9 |pages=3–4}}</ref> Radiguet is the last entry in [[André Gide]]'s ''Anthologie de la Poèsie Française''; Gide selects for inclusion [https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Am%C3%A9lie_(Radiguet) "Amélie"] from ''Devoirs de Vacances'' and [https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Avec_la_mort_tu_te_maries%E2%80%A6 "Avec la mort tu te maries..."] from ''Les Joues en feu''.<ref>{{Cite book |last=André Gide |url=http://archive.org/details/anthologiedelapo0000andr |title=Anthologie De La Poesie Francaise |date=1949-01-01 |publisher=Librairie Gallimard |others=Internet Archive |pages=822–825 |language=fr}}</ref>

Numerous portraits of Radiguet, by artists such as [[Pablo Picasso]],<ref>{{Cite web |title=Portrait de Raymond Radiguet, p. 17 in the book Picasso Lithographie. Vol. I 1919-1947 |url=https://www.famsf.org/artworks/portrait-de-raymond-radiguet-p-17-in-the-book-picasso-lithographie-vol-i-1919-1947 |access-date=2025-10-10 |website=FAMSF |language=en}}</ref> [[Amedeo Modigliani]], [[Man Ray]],<ref>{{Cite web |title=Raymond Radiguet |url=https://www.centrepompidou.fr/en/ressources/oeuvre/cGEba5K |access-date=2025-10-10 |website=Centre Pompidou |language=en-EN}}</ref> and [[Valentine Hugo]], as well as many drawings of him by Jean Cocteau,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Radiguet dessiné |url=https://cocteau.scdi-montpellier.fr/document/radiguet-dessine/ |access-date=2025-10-10 |website=Jean Cocteau unique et multiple |language=fr-FR}}</ref> were produced during his lifetime.

==Death==
On 12 December 1923, Radiguet died at age 20 in Paris of [[typhoid fever]], which he contracted after a trip he took with Cocteau. According to his friend [[Jean Hugo]], Radiguet "had fallen ill at the hôtel Foyot, rue de Tournon, where he had a room above the celebrated restaurant. A charlatan, Dr. C., in whom Cocteau placed a blind confidence, did not know how to spot the symptoms of typhoid fever. The state of the patient worsened and when they transported him at last to a clinic, rue Piccini, it was too late."<ref name=":4">{{Cite book |last=Hugo |first=Jean |title=Le Regard de la mémoire |publisher=Actes Sud |year=1983 |isbn=2903098700 |language=fr}}</ref> It has been suggested that Cocteau's jealousy over Radiguet's engagement caused him to neglect his care.

Cocteau, in an interview with ''[[The Paris Review]]'', stated that Radiguet had told him three days before his death that, "In three days, I am going to be shot by the soldiers of God."<ref name="Fifield">{{cite journal|last1=Fifield|first1=Interviewed by William|title=Jean Cocteau, The Art of Fiction No. 34|journal=[[The Paris Review]]|date=7 October 1964 |volume=Summer-Fall 1964 |issue= 32, SUMMER-FALL 1964|url=http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4485/jean-cocteau-the-art-of-fiction-no-34-jean-cocteau|accessdate=7 December 2016}}</ref> In reaction to this death [[Francis Poulenc]] wrote, "For two days I was unable to do anything, I was so stunned".<ref>(Ivry 1996)</ref> Several other friends of Radiguet's reported strange [[Precognition|premonitions]] prior to his death. Hugo writes that during a [[séance]], a spirit giving its name as "Beauharnais" (Radiguet traced his ancestry back to a relative of [[Joséphine de Beauharnais]]<ref name=":1" />) had Radiguet dismissed from the room, then told the others gathered: "I want his youth."<ref name=":4" /> [[Éditions Grasset|Bernard Grasset]] wrote that at their last meeting, Radiguet gave him his scarf as a keepsake.<ref name=":5">{{Cite book |last=McNab |first=James P. |url=http://archive.org/details/raymondradiguet00jame |title=Raymond Radiguet |date=1984 |publisher=Twayne Publishers |location=Boston |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-8057-6572-4}}</ref>

In her 1932 memoir, ''Laughing Torso'', British artist [[Nina Hamnett]] describes Radiguet's funeral: "The church was crowded with people. In the pew in front of us was the negro band from [[Le Boeuf sur le Toit (cabaret)|Le Boeuf sur le Toit]]. [[Pablo Picasso|Picasso]] was there, [[Constantin Brâncuși|Brâncuși]] and so many celebrated people that I cannot remember their names. Radiguet's death was a terrible shock to everyone. [[Coco Chanel]], the celebrated dressmaker, arranged the funeral. It was most wonderfully done."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hamnett |first=Nina |url=http://archive.org/details/laughingtorsorem0000hamn |title=Laughing torso : reminiscences of Nina Hamnett |date=1984 |publisher=Virago |location=London |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-86068-650-7 |pages=332}}</ref>

Radiguet [[Nachlass|left behind plans]] for a novel based on the life of the poet [[Charles, Duke of Orléans|Charles d'Orléans]].<ref name=":5" /> A volume of [[Erotic literature|erotic verse]], ''Vers libres'', was published posthumously; the fact of Radiguet's authorship was not acknowledged by his family for many years.

==Bibliography==
* ''Les Joues en feu'' (1920) – poetry, translated by Alan Stone as ''Cheeks on Fire: Collected Poems''
* ''Devoirs de vacances'' (1921) – poetry (English translation ''Holiday Homework'')
* ''Les Pelican'' (1921) – drama, translated by [[Michael Benedikt (poet)|Michael Benedikt]] and George Wellworth as ''The Pelicans''
* ''Le Diable au corps'' (1923) – novel, translated by [[Kay Boyle]] as ''The Devil in the Flesh''
* ''Le Bal du comte d'Orgel'' (1924) – novel, translated by [[Malcolm Cowley]] as ''The Count's Ball''
* ''Oeuvres completes'' (1952) – translated as Complete Works
* ''Regle du jeu'' (1957) – translated as ''Game Rule''
* ''Vers Libres & Jeux Innocents, Le Livre a Venir'' (1988)

==Film adaptations==
In 1947, [[Claude Autant-Lara]] released his film ''[[Devil in the Flesh (1947 film)|Le diable au corps]]'', based on Radiguet's novel, and starring [[Gérard Philipe]]. Coming just after [[World War II]], the movie caused controversy in its turn. Among the other cinematic versions of Radiguet's story, the heavily adapted version by [[Marco Bellocchio]], ''[[Il diavolo in corpo]]'' ([[1986 in film|1986]]), was notable as being among the first mainstream films to show [[unsimulated sex]].<ref>{{cite web|last=Canby |first=Vincent |url=https://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9B0DE3DA143FF93AA15756C0A961948260 |title=Movie Review – ''Devil in the Flesh'' |publisher=Movies.NYTimes.com |date=1987-05-29 |accessdate=2011-03-01}}</ref>

In 1970, ''Le Bal du comte d'Orgel'' was adapted into a film, starring [[Jean-Claude Brialy]] as Le comte Anne d'Orgel. It was the last movie directed by [[Marc Allégret]], who, like Radiguet, had once fallen under the spell of Cocteau.

In 2000, Radiguet's life and work were examined by [[Jean-Christophe Averty]] in ''Les deux vies du chat Radiguet'', for the TV series ''[[Un siècle d'écrivains]].''<ref>{{Citation |title=Raymond Radiguet 1903-1923: Les deux vies du chat Radiguet |date=2000-06-17 |work=Un siècle d'écrivains |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4554446/ |access-date=2025-10-09}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
* [[Benjamin Ivry|Ivry, Benjamin]] (1996). ''Francis Poulenc''. Phaidon Press Limited. {{ISBN|0-7148-3503-X}}
* Steadman, Christina and Blake, William: ''Modern Women in Love'', Garden City Publishing Co., New York, 1947 (first ed. Dryden Press, New York City, 1945) p.&nbsp;3

==External links==
*{{wikiquote-inline}}

{{Le Diable au corps}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Radiguet, Raymond}}
[[Category:1903 births]]
[[Category:1923 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Saint-Maur-des-Fossés]]
[[Category:Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery]]
[[Category:20th-century French novelists]]
[[Category:French male novelists]]
[[Category:20th-century French male writers]]