La Marie Rose et le poux de Maldoror
— Lacoste, AlainLes ‘Marie Rose and the lice of Maldoror’
It is an allusion to Les Chants de Maldoror (The Songs of Maldoror), a French poetic novel, published in 1868 by the Comte de Lautréamont, the nom de plume of the Uruguayan-born French writer Isidore Lucien Ducasse. The work concerns the misanthropic, misotheistic character of Maldoror, a figure of evil who has renounced conventional morality. Although obscure at the time of its initial publication, Maldoror was rediscovered and championed by the Surrealist artists during the early twentieth century. The work’s violent, and absurd themes are shared in common with much of Surrealism’s output.