Arcadia Discussion Zone

Jean Cocteau almost married a Jewish surrealist artist, Valentine Gross. He decided to come out to his family and admit he was gay. They remained friends, though.

http://research.hrc.utexas.edu:8080/hrc ... /00293.xml

Valentine later went on to marry Victor Hugo's great-grandson, Jean Hugo.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Hugo

Cocteau, Hugo, Valentine, Erik Satie, Pablo Picasso, and Apollinaire all collaborated on a famous Daghliev ballet/musical, Parade, in 1917.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parade_(ballet)

BTW, this performance may have been one of the first to use the term "surrealism" in its program notes.

Erik Satie, BTW, was the main link between Cocteau, "Les Six," and Claude Debussy. Also briefly associated with Josephin Peladan's group.

Picasso's designs for Parade use Hermetic symbolism.
http://web.org.uk/picasso/r7.html

The performance, mocked by critics at the time, may however have inspired some of the themes in T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land.
http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qs ... 5001336101

Victor Hugo, Gerard de Nerval, George Sand ... all Bousingots (Bouzingo) who would inspire the later Surrealists.
http://www.artandpopularculture.com/Bouzingo

Sorry to do no research. Carry on.

LOL.

I know. For some people, research is only slugging through the French landscape looking for tombs/treasure/whatever, or digging through dusty archives.

Or drawing lines on maps. (I don't mock that. I think there might be something to sacred geometry/geomancy research. I'm just not doing it at the moment.)

I do most of mine on the Internet and in my library (using interlibrary loan where necessary). If you find it valuable fine, hey if not, it's fine too. I didn't find the link between Cocteau and Jean Hugo ON the Internet, but the Internet is the easiest way to illustrate it.

To those finding stuff in dusty archives: I salute you, and I salute you more when you put it on the web so people who live outside of France have access to it.

To those digging and shuffling through the landscape: I'm not sure the "treasure" can be found under the ground, but as long as you're not blowing up other peoples' property with dynamite, carry on.

Is what I'm pointing out of any relevance? Maybe, maybe not. I think it is if one reads Michel Lamy's Chapter 12 (I'm finally getting around to his book, issued in 2007 in English, reading it at the same time as Patrice's) about the Angelic Society.

p. 238 (quoting Grasset d'Orcet's work in the 1881 Revue Britannique)

"There are literary names that never vanish from the great human signboard. These are the artists whose works combine a rather deep knowledge and a form that is moving enough to compel the interest ... of all social classes. In modern times this list would include Dante, Rabelais, Cervantes, and Goethe. My comparison of these four geniuses who are otherwise so different is not unintentional. Each surrendered only a part of his secret to the public, reserving for an infinitely more restrained circle of associates the complete understanding of his work.... A host of distinctive signs indicate that he belonged to the same mysterious society as his predecessors. [The Angelic Society]"

The last sentence in Chapter 12?
"This is the secret society that stands behind the mystery of Rennes-le-Chateau."

Le Serpent Rouge is definitely modeled on the Song of Poliphile (SP), which Lamy calls the "breviary" of the Angelic Society.

d'Orcet says the Angelic Society is a society of Goliards ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goliard

learned students who lampooned the ecclesiastical and political establishment

That's what "the Priory" looks like to me.

Some more tidbits from Lamy's ch. 12 -- the stuff is so interesting I'm overcoming my natural aversion to having to retype it:

p. 234 "Kretzulesco-Quaranta ... demonstrates that the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili was actually written to transmit a message on behalf of a group of Platonic scholars who had been persecuted around 1468 ... the ideas & theories of Leon Baptiste Alberti ... are recognizable throughout 'Poliphilo's Strife'. It is therefore Alberti we recognize beneath the pseudonym of Poliphilus ... it is to him we owe the resurrection of the art of Vitruvius and the spread of the ideas that guided the Renaissance humanists."

p. 247 (Bernard Gorceix says) "The writings attributed to the Swabian Johann Valentin Andreas are a valuable link that joins Colonna's Hypnerotomachia ... the Fifth Book of Rabelais in 1654 ... and the Voyage des Princes Fortunes by Beroald de Verville in 1610."
De Verville is thought to have written some of the texts attributed to Nicholas Flamel. Seen any of those names anywhere?

There's other stuff in this chapter that puts the works of Anatole France, Alexandre Dumas, George Sand, and Gerard de Nerval in a new light.

You have a lot to answer for Seeker1. I borrowed a Dumas book out of the library. I'm not going to read it. It's over 1000 pages. As we say in "Oz"- "stuff that for a joke." There is no way unless I come across any indication it has the secrets to the universe.

If you guys are interested in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili why don't you go find our discussion on Roger's original thread of the same name somewhere deep in the vaults of Arcadia...there you might find some interesting information.....but you'll need to brush up on the book first.

Thought it was a kool "thought for the day."

CARPE DIEM, Jeeves

Thank-you Sheila and Richard and in absentia, Roger.

http://mitpress.mit.edu/e-books/Hp/hyp000.htm

this gives you the whole glorious book.



http://www.rarebookroom.org/Control/colhyp/index.html

That's what "the Priory" looks like to me.

Agreed.

Also have a look at Richard Khaitzine's -

"La langue des oiseaux : Quand ésotérisme et littérature se rencontrent"

It's a beautiful manuscript, indeed. I find what you posted more helpful than Roger, though, sheila, both in that thread and this one.

Allowing people to look at the entire manuscript, and also its translation. I mean, not everybody can read Latin.

Roger often chides me for not surrounding what I post with any critical analysis or reflection; so why did he post just that one page and wait till later to suggest why (that it provides context for Boudet's writings).

For someone who hates esotericists, he seems to behave like one, which I find odd.

It was irmine who suggested people should study the groups associated with the text, which I think was indeed another productive suggestion. Lamy discusses that to some extent in his book.

the cromleck or labyrinth angle is the way to go..... to my mind.