Louis Aragon
Louis Aragon | |
---|---|
Born | Paris, France | 3 October 1897
Died | 24 December 1982 Paris, France | (aged 85)
Nationality | French |
Notable works | Les Lettres françaises, Pour un réalisme socialiste |
Louis Aragon (French:
Early life (1897–1939)
Louis Aragon was born in Paris. He was raised by his mother and maternal grandmother, believing them to be his sister and foster mother, respectively. His biological father,
Having been involved in Dadaism from 1919 to 1924, he became a founding member of Surrealism in 1924,[7] with André Breton and Philippe Soupault, under the pen-name "Aragon".[8] In 1923, during the trial of Germaine Berton, Aragon released a 29 portrait piece in La Révolution surréaliste in support of her stating Berton "“use terrorist means, in particular murder, to safeguard, at the risk of losing everything, what seems to her— rightly or wrongly — precious beyond anything in the world”.[9]
In the 1920s, Aragon became a fellow traveller of the French Communist Party (PCF) along with several other surrealists, and joined the Party in January 1927.[10]
In 1933, he began to write for the party's newspaper, L'Humanité, in the "news in brief" section. He would remain a member for the rest of his life, writing several political poems including one to Maurice Thorez, the general secretary of the PCF. During the First International Congress of Writers for the Defence of Culture (1935), Aragon opposed his former friend André Breton, who wanted to use the opportunity as a tribune to defend the writer Victor Serge, associated with Leon Trotsky's Left Opposition.[6]
Aragon was also critical of the
The French surrealists had long claimed Lewis Carroll as one of their own, and Aragon published his translation of The Hunting of the Snark[11] in 1929, "shortly before he completed his transition from Snarxism to Marxism", as Martin Gardner puts it.[12] Witness the key stanza of the poem in Aragon's translation:
Ils le traquèrent avec des gobelets ils le traquèrent avec soin
Ils le poursuivirent avec des fourches et de l'espoir
Ils menacèrent sa vie avec une action de chemin de fer
Ils le charmèrent avec des sourires et du savon
Gardner, who calls the translation "pedestrian" and deems the rest of Aragon's writings on Carroll's nonsense poetry full of factual errors, says that there is no evidence that Aragon intended any of it as a joke.[citation needed]
The Commune (1933–1939)
Apart from working as a journalist for L'Humanité, Louis Aragon also became, along with
Director of Ce soir (1937–1953)
In March 1937, Aragon was called on by the PCF to head the new evening daily
World War II (1939–1945)
In 1939, he married Russian-born author
Aragon was mobilized in 1939, and awarded the
Otto Abetz was the German governor, and produced a series of "black lists" of authors forbidden to be read, circulated or sold in Nazi Occupied France. These included anything written by a Jew, a communist, an Anglo-Saxon or anyone else who was anti-Germanic or anti-fascist. Aragon and André Malraux were both on these "Otto Lists" of forbidden authors.[15]
During the war, Aragon wrote for the underground press
He participated with his wife in the setting up of the National Front of Writers in the Southern Zone. This activism led him to break his friendly relationship with
Along with Paul Éluard,
The theme of the poem was the Red Poster affair, mainly the last letter that Missak Manouchian, an Armenian-French poet and Resistant, wrote to his wife Mélinée before his execution on 21 February 1944.[17] This poem was then set to music by Léo Ferré.
After the war
At the Liberation, Aragon became one of the leading Communist intellectuals, assuming political responsibilities in the
Sponsored by Thorez, Aragon was elected, in 1950, to the central committee of the PCF. His post, however, did not protect him from all forms of criticism. Thus, when his journal Les Lettres françaises published a drawing by
Les Lettres françaises (1953–1972)
In the days following the disappearance of Ce soir, in March 1953, Aragon became the director of L'Humanité's literary supplement,
The publisher
Beside his journalistic activities, Louis Aragon was also CEO of the
Back to surrealism
Free from both his marital and editorial responsibilities (having ended publication of Les Lettres Françaises — L'Humanité's literary supplement – in 1972), Aragon was free to return to his surrealist roots. During the last ten years of his life, he published at least two further novels: Henri Matisse Roman and Les Adieux.
Louis Aragon died on 24 December 1982, his friend Jean Ristat sitting up with him. He was buried in the parc of Moulin de Villeneuve, in his property of Saint-Arnoult-en-Yvelines, alongside his wife Elsa Triolet.[24]
He was and still is a popular poet in France because many of his poems have been set to music and sung by various composers and singers: Lino Léonardi, Hélène Martin, Léo Ferré (the first one to dedicate an entire LP to Aragon, with his 1961 breakthrough Les Chansons d'Aragon album), Jean Ferrat, Georges Brassens, Alain Barrière, Isabelle Aubret, Nicole Rieu, Monique Morelli, Marc Ogeret, Marjo Tal, et al. Many of his poems put into music by Jean Ferrat have been translated into German by Didier Caesar (alias Dieter Kaiser) and are sung by his Duo.
Bibliography
Novels and short stories
- Anicet ou le Panorama, roman (1921)
- Les Aventures de Télémaque (1922)
- Le Libertinage (1924)
- Le Paysan de Paris (1926)
- Le Con d'Irène(1927, published under the pseudonym Albert de Routisie)
- Les Cloches de Bâle ("Le Monde réel", 1934)
- Les Beaux Quartiers ("Le Monde réel", 1936, Renaudot Prize winner)
- Les Voyageurs de l'Impériale ("Le Monde réel", 1942)
- Aurélien ("Le Monde réel", 1944)
- Servitude et Grandeur des Français. Scènes des années terribles (1945)
- Les Communistes (6 volumes, 1949–1951 et 1966–1967 – "Le Monde réel")
- La Semaine Sainte (1958) (published in English in 1959 as Holy Week)
- Le Fou d'Elsa (1963)
- La Mise à mort (1965)
- Blanche ou l'oubli (1967)
- Henri Matisse, roman (1971)
- Théâtre/Roman (1974)
- Le Mentir-vrai (1980)
- La Défense de l'infini (1986)
- Les Aventures de Jean-Foutre La Bite (1986)
Poetry
- Le Musée Grévin, published under the pseudonym François la Colère by the Editions de Minuit
- La Rose et le réséda
- Feu de joie, 1919
- Le Mouvement perpétuel, 1926
- La Grande Gaîté, 1929
- Persécuté persécuteur, 1930–1931
- Hourra l'Oural, 1934
- Le Crève-Cœur, 1941
- Cantique à Elsa, 1942
- Les Yeux d'Elsa, 1942
- Brocéliande, 1942
- Le Musée Grevin, 1943
- Complainte de Robert le Diable, 1945
- La Diane française, 1945
- En étrange pays dans mon pays lui-même, 1945
- Le Nouveau Crève-Cœur, 1948
- Le Roman inachevé, 1956
- Elsa, 1959
- Les Poètes, 1960
- Le Fou d'Elsa, 1963
- Il ne m'est Paris que d'Elsa, 1964
- Les Chambres, poème du temps qui ne passe pas, 1969
- Demeure de Malkine, 1970
Essays
- Une vague de rêves, 1924
- Treatise on Style, 1928 (French: Traité du style)
- Pour un réalisme socialiste, 1935
See also
- Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century, a list which includes Aurélien
- Category:Works by Louis Aragon
References
- ISBN 978-0-8264-4748-7.
- ^ "Louis Aragon | French author". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 19 October 2020.
- ^ "Louis Aragon". Oxford Reference. Retrieved 19 October 2020.
- ^ "Nomination Archive". NobelPrize.org. 1 April 2020. Retrieved 22 March 2021.
- ^ a b c "Louis Aragon". Poetry Foundation. 19 October 2020. Retrieved 19 October 2020.
- ^ a b "Louis Aragon | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 19 October 2020.
- ISBN 9781438108377.
- ISBN 978-1-351-49836-4.
- OCLC 3052637.
- ^ "INDEX OF HISTORIC COLLECTORS AND DEALERS OF CUBISM". www.metmuseum.org. Retrieved 14 October 2021.
- ^ La Chasse au Snark, Pierre Seghers, Paris 1949
- ^ The Annotated Snark, edited by Martin Gardner, Penguin Books, 1974
- ^ "Commune | A Popular Magazine for a New Era of Revolution". Commune. Retrieved 20 April 2023.
- ^ "Elsa Triolet and Aragon". Retrieved 22 January 2020.
- ^ Moorehead, Caroline. 2011. A Train in Winter. Pages 21–22.
- ISBN 9782877302500.
- ^ Mélinée Manouchian: Manouchian, EFR, Paris 1954
- ^ https://www.google.com/books/edition/Historical_Dictionary_of_French_Literatu/wb9rEAAAQBAJ
- ^ https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Facts_on_File_Companion_to_World_Poe/lblcBR7uDoYC
- ISBN 978-1-4381-0837-7.
- ISBN 978-963-386-304-6.
- ^ French: « Et voilà qu'une fin de nuit, au transistor, nous avons entendu la condamnation de nos illusions perpétuelles... »
- JSTOR 40866341.
- ISBN 978-0-7876-5252-4.
Further reading
- ISBN 0-7148-3503-X.
- Polizzotti, Mark (1995). Revolution of the Mind: The Life of André Breton Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. ISBN 0-7475-1281-7
External links
- Media related to Louis Aragon at Wikimedia Commons
- J'arrive où je suis étranger poem with music, listenable on-line.
- Les Lettres Françaises.