Editing Louis Aragon (section)

== Early life (1897–1939) ==
[[File:Louis Aragon by Man Ray slnsw.jpg|thumb|Portrait of Louis Aragon by [[Man Ray]], half-tone print.]]
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, [[:fr:Louis Andrieux|Louis Andrieux]], a former senator for [[Forcalquier]], was married and thirty years older than Aragon's mother, whom he seduced when she was seventeen. Aragon's mother passed Andrieux off to her son as his [[godparent|godfather]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|date=2020-10-19|title=Louis Aragon|url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/louis-aragon|access-date=2020-10-19|website=Poetry Foundation|language=en}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite web|title=Louis Aragon {{!}} Encyclopedia.com|url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/literature-and-arts/french-literature-biographies/louis-aragon|access-date=2020-10-19|website=www.encyclopedia.com}}</ref> Aragon was only told the truth at the age of 19, as he was leaving to serve in the [[First World War]], from which neither he nor his parents believed he would return. Andrieux's refusal or inability to recognize his son would influence Aragon's poetry later on.{{Citation needed|date=January 2021}}

Having been involved in [[Dada]]ism from 1919 to 1924, he became a founding member of [[Surrealism]] in 1924,<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lblcBR7uDoYC&q=louis%20aragon%20dadaism%201919%201924&pg=PA71|title=The Facts on File Companion to World Poetry: 1900 to the Present|last=Arana|first=R. Victoria|date=1 January 2008|publisher=Infobase Publishing|isbn=9781438108377|pages=71|language=en}}</ref> with [[André Breton]] and [[Philippe Soupault]], under the pen-name "Aragon".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Caute |first=David |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_Kw0DwAAQBAJ&dq=pen-name+%22Aragon%22&pg=PT170 |title=Politics and the Novel During the Cold War |date=2017-09-08 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-351-49836-4 |language=en}}</ref> 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”.<ref name=":02">{{Cite book |last=Bonnet |first=Marguerite |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/3052637 |title=André Breton: naissance de l'aventure surréaliste |date=1975 |publisher=Corti |isbn=2-7143-0263-7 |location=Paris |pages=270–271 |language=fr |oclc=3052637}}</ref>

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.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.metmuseum.org/art/libraries-and-research-centers/leonard-lauder-research-center/research/index-of-cubist-art-collectors/aragon|title=INDEX OF HISTORIC COLLECTORS AND DEALERS OF CUBISM|access-date=2021-10-14|website=www.metmuseum.org}}</ref>

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 [https://kuenste-im-exil.de/KIE/Content/EN/Topics/schriftstellerkongress-en.html 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]].<ref name=":1" />

Aragon was also critical of the [[USSR]], particularly after the [[20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union]] (1956) during which [[Joseph Stalin]]'s [[personality cult]] was [[On the Personality Cult and its Consequences|denounced]] by [[Nikita Khrushchev]].

The French surrealists had long claimed [[Lewis Carroll]] as one of their own, and Aragon published his translation of ''[[The Hunting of the Snark]]''<ref>''La Chasse au Snark'', Pierre Seghers, Paris 1949</ref> in 1929, "shortly before he completed his transition from Snarxism to Marxism", as [[Martin Gardner]] puts it.<ref>''The Annotated Snark'', edited by Martin Gardner, Penguin Books, 1974</ref> Witness the key stanza of the poem in Aragon's translation:

{{cquote|''Ils le traquèrent avec des gobelets ils le traquèrent avec soin''<br />
''Ils le poursuivirent avec des fourches et de l'espoir''<br />
''Ils menacèrent sa vie avec une action de chemin de fer''<br />
''Ils le charmèrent avec des sourires et du savon''}}<ref>Translating, "They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;/They pursued it with forks and hope;/They threatened its life with a railway-share;/They charmed it with smiles and soap." — ''The Hunting of the Snark, Fit the Fifth, ll. 1-4.</ref>

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|date=January 2021}}

=== The ''Commune'' (1933–1939) ===

Apart from working as a journalist for ''L'Humanité'', Louis Aragon also became, along with [[Paul Nizan]], editor secretary of the journal ''Commune'', published by the ''[[Association des Écrivains et Artistes Révolutionnaires]]'' (Association of Revolutionary Writers and Artists), which aimed at gathering intellectuals and artists in a common front [[anti-fascism|against fascism]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Commune {{!}} A Popular Magazine for a New Era of Revolution |url=https://communemag.com/ |access-date=2023-04-20 |website=Commune |language=en-US}}</ref> Aragon became a member of the directing committee of the ''Commune'' journal in January 1937, along with [[André Gide]], [[Romain Rolland]] and [[Paul Vaillant-Couturier]]. The journal then took the name of "French literary review for the defence of culture" (''« revue littéraire française pour la défense de la culture »''). 

With Gide's withdrawal in August 1937, Vaillant-Couturier's death in the autumn of 1937 and Romain Rolland's old age, Aragon became its effective director. In December 1938, he called as [[chief editor]] the young writer [[Jacques Decour]]. The ''Commune'' journal was strongly involved in the mobilization of French intellectuals in favour of the [[Spanish Second Republic|Spanish Republic]].{{citation needed|date=May 2021}}

=== Director of ''Ce soir'' (1937–1953) ===

In March 1937, Aragon was called on by the PCF to head the new evening daily ''[[Ce soir]]'', which he was charged with launching, along with the writer [[Jean-Richard Bloch]]. ''Ce soir'' attempted to compete with ''[[Paris-soir]]''. Outlawed in August 1939, ''Ce soir'' was re-opened after the Liberation, and Aragon again became its lead, first with Bloch then alone after Bloch's death in 1947. The newspaper, which counted [[Émile Danoën]] among its collaborators, closed in March 1953.