Jehan Rictus

Who was Jehan Rictus?

Jehan Rictus was a French poet, born Gabriel Randon in Boulogne-sur-Mer.

After an unhappy childhood and poor beginnings in the life, Gabriel Randon, having taken the pseudonym of Jehan-Rictus, found success in 1895 with poems in popular language which he interpreted in Parisian cabarets. These Soliloques du Pauvre were published in 1897. Some other volumes of verse followed, until le Coeur populaire in 1914. At the time of World War I, he stopped publishing. He also forsook its anarchism for royalist opinions. He is also the author of an autobiographical novel, Fil-de-fer, in regular French, and of a vast diary, still unpublished.

Céline's slang probably owes much to Jehan Rictus' language.