Original: Along with other avant-garde artists of his generation ( Jean Anouilh and René Char for example ) Cocteau grappled with the algebra of verbal codes old and new , mise en scène language and technologies of modernism to create a paradox : a classical avant-garde .
Simplified: Jean CocteauJean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau ( 5 July 1889 & ndash ; 11 October 1963 ) was a French artist , poet , novelist , dramatist , designer , boxing manager , playwright and filmmaker .