Jehan Rictus

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Jehan Rictus (September 3, 1867 - November 6, 1933) was a French poet, born Gabriel Randon de Saint Amand 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 1896 with poems in popular language which it interpreted in Parisian cabarets. These Soliloques du Pauvre (Soliloquies of the Poor) were published the following year. 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 He is also the author of an autobiographical novel, Fil-de-fer, in regular french, and of a vast diary, still unpublished.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.