Aragon as a Socialist Realist : The Uses of a Literary Etiquette from the Thirties to the Sixties

Résumé 0

How can it be explained that Louis Aragon, the major introducer of the notion of socialist-realism in France and the major author to proclaim this label on the literary scene during thirty years or more, is so rarely put in the category of “socialist-realist”? The article tries to answer this question by studying how – both in a voluntary and constrained manner – Aragon uses that label from the Thirties to the Sixties. He starts by showing the deadlocks and the contradictions in a question usually badly termed or evacuated. He then approaches the problem in terms of credibility of a venture aiming at vowing the meaning of the “literary movement,” and after having done so, comes back on the moment of origin of the Thirties when every condition seems to be met to achieve the success of a new literary label: favourable context, ability to mobilise writers, assets and competencies to initiate a rewriting of the history of literary modernity. On the other end, thirty years later, the situation is quite different and Aragon then stands in a defensive position to claim socialist realism. In order to understand this persistence, it is notably necessary to measure the role of literary labels in the way the author builds the coherence of his development and his place in literary history.