French poetry 101 – Louis Aragon

[foudebassan]

The phrase "fellow travellers" is by David Caute, an academic, and means all the post-war intellectuals that sided with communist ideals and were, if not members of, at least strongly sympathetic to the Communist Party. Communists were among the first to organise resistance to the Nazis in France, and little was known of the Soviet atrocities in the immediate post-war era. If you add in some fascination for the concepts of revolution, of equality among all citizens, of anti-imperialism – Communist movements were also the first to campaign against colonialism – and of course Sartre’s cries for intellectuals to be “engaged” in some noble cause, you have all the ingredients for an entire generation to have a crush on Marxism-Léninism.

Louis Aragon (1897-1982) is often quoted as the archetype of this generation.

He is born to a very young mother and a middle-aged diplomat who refuses to acknowledge him, let alone marry his mother. To avoid scandal, they all pretend that he is his mother's younger brother, and his father's godson. This might explain why he changes his name early on, to the pseudonym Aragon.

He is trained as a doctor and sent to the front lines in 1918, where he meets André Breton. They stay close after the war, in the Dadaist and surrealist crowds, and Aragon becomes a member of the Communist party in 1926.

In 1928, in a café, he meets Elsa Triolet. She is a Russian émigré, sister-in-law to Maiakovski (with whom she slept before he hooked up with her sister) and a novelist. It is love at first sight and Aragon, who's always had homosexual tendencies, forsakes it all for her. She is his muse, his inspiration; his two major poetry books are dedicated to her. They marry in 1938.

Aragon opposes the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact – he is, of course, in favour of a big alliance between France, the Soviet Union and Britain – and parts ways for good from Drieu la Rochelle, a novelist for whom he might or might not have harboured romantic feelings. Drieu is not unfavourable to Nazi Germany; during the occupation, he writes for official publications and he eventually chooses suicide over exile at the liberation.

Nothing such for Louis and Elsa. They print anti-German propaganda, get arrested when they try to smuggle it over the ligne de démarcation, are liberated, and participate to resistance movements from Nice. Aragon receives the croix de guerre (military decoration) at the liberation, for the second time (he earned his first during WW1).

In post-war France, they found a left-leaning literary magazine, and openly support the Soviet Union. That is not to say they are entirely sycophantic – they publish many east-European authors, including dissidents. It is Elsa who first translates Soljenitsine and Aragon who has it published. They even cause an uproar in 1953 when, on the occasion of Stalin’s death, they publish a portrait of him by Picasso that is anything but conform to the standards of Soviet realism.

It is also a very prolific period for Aragon. He edits a Communist-funded magazine, writes novels, and composes the essential part of his poetical work, among which today’s poem.



There is a soundtrack!



Il n'y a pas d'amour heureux

Rien n'est jamais acquis à l'homme. Ni sa force
Ni sa faiblesse ni son coeur. Et quand il croit
Ouvrir ses bras son ombre est celle d'une croix
Et quand il croit serrer son bonheur il le broie
Sa vie est un étrange et douloureux divorce
Il n'y a pas d'amour heureux

Sa vie elle ressemble à ces soldats sans armes
Qu'on avait habillés pour un autre destin
A quoi peut leur servir de ce lever matin
Eux qu'on retrouve au soir désoeuvrés incertains
Dites ces mots ma vie et retenez vos larmes
Il n'y a pas d'amour heureux

Mon bel amour mon cher amour ma déchirure
Je te porte en moi comme un oiseau blessé
Et ceux-là sans savoir nous regardent passer
Répétant après moi les mots que j'ai tressés
Et qui pour tes grands yeux tout aussitôt moururent
Il n'y a pas d'amour heureux

Le temps d'apprendre à vivre il est déjà trop tard
Que pleurent dans la nuit nos coeurs à l'unisson
Ce qu'il faut de malheur pour la moindre chanson
Ce qu'il faut de regrets pour payer un frisson
Ce qu'il faut de sanglots pour un air de guitare
Il n'y a pas d'amour heureux

Il n'y a pas d'amour qui ne soit douleur.
Il n'y a pas d'amour dont on ne soit meurtri.
Il n'y a pas d'amour dont on ne soit flétri.
Et pas plus que de toi l'amour de la patrie
Il n'y a pas d'amour qui ne vive de pleurs.
Il n'y a pas d'amour heureux.
Mais c'est notre amour à tous les deux.



(There is no happy love

Nothing is ever granted to man. Neither his strength
Nor his weakness nor his heart. And when he thinks
He opens his arms his shadow is that of a cross
And when he thinks he embraces his happiness he crushes it
His life is a strange and painful divorce
There is no happy love

His life is like these weaponless soldiers
Who were clothed for another fate
What use is it to get up at dawn
Them who are found at night idle uncertain
Say these words my life and keep from crying
There is no happy love

My love my dear love my wrench
I carry you within myself like a wounded bird
And those who don't know watch us as we pass by
Repeating after me the words that I plaited
And who died right afterwards for your big eyes
There is no happy love

Time to learn how to live and it is already too late
Let our hearts weep together in the night
As much misfortune as is needed for the least of songs
As much regrets as is needed to pay for a shiver
As much sobbing as is needed for a guitar melody
There is no happy love

There is no love that is not sorrow.
There is no love that leaves unbruised.
There is no love that leaves unshrivelled.
And no more than you the love of the fatherland
There is no love that does not thrive on tears.
There is no happy love.
But this love belongs to us both.)

The translation here is very inadequate – this poem works, as you may have noticed, without punctuation, and relies heavily on the unsaid word and image associations. And there is absolutely nothing here even remotely reminiscent of Communist principles…



Elsa dies in 1970, and, after a suicide attempt and a suitable period of mourning, Aragon turns back to male companionship. He also takes his distances from the Communist party, who subsequently ceases to fund his magazine. That does not stop the recently elected Mitterrand from decorating him shortly before his death, in 1982.

Aragon's best-known quote is probably "la femme est l'avenir de l'homme" (woman is man's future), an echo to Marx's "man is man's future".

I haven’t been able to find my favourite poem by him on the wild internets, so here it is, from memory (ie, subject to some slight distortions):

“Je tisserai ma rime au métier de la fée
Et trouvère du vent je verserai la vaine
Avoine verte de mes veines
Pour récolter la strophe et t’offrir ce trophée.”

It’s the first poem in Fou D’Elsa. If you find it, you’ll have my eternal gratitude for at least half an hour.



Next time: I haven’t decided yet. You have a choice between Camus and Prévert. Oh, and if you really, really want Ponge or Michaux, speak up now or remain silent forever.