The fog can be cut with a knife and winter chills
are in the air. I made coffee and sat down to read. For background I chose an
old cassette of French songs – Brassens, Ferré and Barbara.
Listening songs on a 50 year old cassette is like
playing Maria Callas singing “Carmen” on a vinyl record. Or using a mechanical film camera on a busy
street. And very similar to the await of your muse’s visit while looking for
hours at the blank paper in your typewriter.
It is the beatitude of enjoying the Wabi-sabi of the
ordinary moments. And celebrating the perfect imperfections in sound, shape or
colour.
…The first song was by Georges Brassens “Il n’y a pas d’amour heureux” (There is
no happy love) using the iconic 1943 poem by Louis Aragon. I put my book down,
shut my eyes and recalled the thousands prior moments when I heard that song.
And, for the first time, I realised that I had not
seen that poem translated in any of the languages I know. More, that I had not
read any serious translations of Aragon’s works, a man nominated 4 times for
the Nobel Prize in literature and a titan of modern French literature.
The fog outside was denser now, but my mind determined
to search more about Aragon’s anonymity in the non-Francophone world.
To stay with the times, I asked for an analysis by
AI about the reasons why Aragon’s works have not been translated. Interestingly, the analysis I got identified
cultural barriers to translation as the core reason. Specifically:
The
very elements that made Aragon a household name in France also made his poetry
exceptionally difficult to export:
- The Musical Connection: In France,
Aragon's immense popularity is sustained because his poems were turned
into iconic pop and folk songs by legendary French artists like Léo
Ferré, Jean Ferrat, and Georges Brassens. Because these songs rely
heavily on the natural rhythm, cadence, and slang of the French language,
they rarely translate effectively into other cultures.
- Strict Wordplay
and Formal Meter: During
WWII, Aragon abandoned complex avant-garde styles to write patriotic
Resistance poetry using traditional French alexandrine (12-syllable)
verse and precise rhyme schemes. This rigid, classical musicality is
notoriously difficult to replicate in English while keeping the emotional
weight intact.
Since AI synthesized from available writings about
my question, I was surprised, since that many authors, in as many languages and
styles, do have their works translated and read around the globe. But what was
striking, is Aragon’s seemingly purposeful decision to write to keep his
cultural identity intact, and not worry about recognition beyond what the
French would call his “terroir”(1).
To my subsequent inquiry about the early years of
Aragon’s, this is what I got from AI:
Aragon’s
early work in the 1920s defined Surrealism through an intense focus
on urban mythologies, the subconscious, and the marvelous hidden
within everyday modern life.
Partnering
closely with André Breton, Aragon helped launch the movement via early reviews
like Littérature (1919)
and key theoretical and literary texts.
Key
Characteristics of Surrealism in Aragon's Early Work
- Urban Walkabouts
and the "Marvelous": In
masterworks like Paris
Peasant (Le
Paysan de Paris, 1926), Aragon turned the streets, passages, and
ordinary commercial spaces of Paris into a dreamlike landscape. He
captured an aura of haunting telepathy and uncanny encounters in everyday
urban routines.
- Surrealist
Détournement (Repurposing): Aragon
practiced détournement—displacing
everyday objects, historical tropes, or commercial items from their
normal functions to metamorphise the present and shatter rigid rationalism.
- Theoretical
Exploration of "Surreality": In
texts like A Wave of
Dreams (1924) and Treatise on Style (1928), Aragon chronicled the
group's "period of trances," collective illusions, automatic
speaking, and states of mental exhaustion or hallucination that unlocked
the subconscious.
- Grounded Realism
vs. Pure Automatism: Unlike
Breton’s more detached or purely automatic approach (such as in Nadja), Aragon’s early prose
remained tethered to hyper-detailed, almost journalistic observations of
real places and physical settings, creating tension between gritty
realism and dream logic.
- Early Poetry
Collections: In
early poetic works like Feu
de joie (1920) and Le Mouvement perpétuel (1925), Aragon rejected
traditional logic and grammar to pursue deep, subconscious truths.
This is more in line of what we had learned in
college literary classes. The French Surrealism movement had a significant
impact on the daily observations people ignore as uncreative, allowing the
subconscious shape, colour and give a voice to our own identity, especially in
urban settings.
But French Surrealism traveled outside of France and
the French language thanks to one of Aragon’s co-pioneer, André Breton.
While Aragon’s work remained within the Francophone
world, Breton traveled to a number of European countries and the United States
and Mexico and introduced French surrealism to emerging authors and artists.
Among those who adopted the use of the unconscious or subconscious in
transforming their observations of the daily observed reality are:
David Gascoyne (1916–2001): As
a leading British surrealist poet and translator, Gascoyne traveled to Paris in
the 1930s, befriended figures like Breton, and experimented directly with
automatic writing and dream-narration.
Philip Lamantia (1927–2005): An
American surrealist poet from San Francisco, Lamantia was championed early on
by André Breton. He embraced the French surrealist torch of psychic automatism,
subversive syntax, and visionary ecstasy, bridging the gap between European
surrealism, the San Francisco Renaissance, and the Beat Generation.
Leonora Carrington (1917–2011): Though
born in England, Carrington became a central figure of international Surrealism
through her association with Max Ernst and the Paris-to-Mexico surrealist
network. Living in Mexico, she became a pillar of Mexican Surrealism, known for
her visionary, mythic, and alchemical paintings.
The latter network is especially revealing because French
Surrealism and Mexican art became deeply connected in the late 1930s and
1940s, when European Surrealists fled World War II and found a creative haven
in Mexico.
The two worlds came together when André Breton traveled to Mexico
in 1938. He famously declared that Mexico was a "surrealist country"
by its very nature, shaped by its folk art, rituals, and pre- Columbian mythology.
The most celebrated female
Mexican painter is Frieda Kahlo. During his visit to Mexico, Breton championed
her as a "natural surrealist", although Kahlo disagreed with the
label. She stated that she did not paint dreams, but rather her own reality and
physical/emotional pain.
… After my research on French Surrealism, the description
of Aragon’s early works, a starting point of French Surrealism, kept resonating
in my mind:
In
masterworks like Paris Peasant (Le Paysan de Paris, 1926), Aragon
turned the streets, passages, and ordinary commercial spaces of Paris into a
dreamlike landscape. He captured an aura of haunting telepathy and uncanny
encounters in everyday urban routines.
I found myself thinking about street photography, a
1940s Leica camera, and countless hours walking urban streets around the world
in search of that shot that celebrates the ordinary. And, I wondered if the
father of street photograph, Henri Cartier-Bresson was influenced by the French
Surrealism in the 1930s.
Et voilà, after 60 years of street photography
influenced by the philosophy of Cartier-Bresson, I discovered what had escaped
me all these decades!
He was not only influenced by the movement, but was
part of surrealism starting 1925. It is said that he attended meetings and
gatherings lead by Aragon and Breton to discover the movement’s focus on the subconscious
and spontaneous expression.
Diving further into Cartier-Bresson’s life, my AI
search identified key events that shaped his vision for photography:
The Surrealist Roots (Early 1930s)
- Subconscious
& Spontaneity: Cartier-Bresson
attended surrealist gatherings starting around 1925, absorbing the
movement's
- The
Leica Discovery: After studying painting
and training under André Lhote, he picked up a 35mm Leica camera in 1932.
He applied surrealist concepts of "objective chance"—wandering
the streets without a fixed destination, alert to bizarre coincidences,
mannequins, reflections, and dreamlike spatial relationships.
- Visual
Disruption: He viewed his photographs
not as traditional reporting, but as "little disruptions in
reality" that uncovered a hidden, irrational poetry beneath ordinary
life.
Transition to Humanism and
Photojournalism
The
Shift in Label: Though friends with surrealists
like Max Ernst and deeply inspired by Eugène Atget, Cartier-Bresson eventually
pivoted toward documentary and humanist photography—partly on the advice of
Robert Capa, who suggested he frame his work as documentary to get assignments.
The
Spirit Remained: Even as he traveled the globe
capturing major historical moments as a photojournalist (such as the Liberation
of Paris and Gandhi's final days), he retained the surrealist eye for geometry,
serendipity, and the fleeting "decisive moment" where
the head, eye, and heart align
...On a foggy morning I listened to Brassens sing
Aragon’s famous poem about love. And my mind took me to researching about
French Surrealism linking literature to painting and photography. Unexpectedly,
as a street photographer, I ended up learning more about Cartier-Bresson and
street photography, closing the circle of my short curiosity journey.
Finally, this time as an academic, I wonder if among
my readers there a student who is searching for a dissertation topic in
literature or the arts. I believe exploring the tentacles of the 1930s French
Surrealism will be a much valued contribution to the field.
November 2, 2026
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2026
1. (1) Terroir (from
the French word terre, meaning "land") is the complete
set of natural and environmental factors that give an agricultural product its
unique flavor, aroma, and character.
I often think of terroir when defining identity. While most commonly known as a descriptor of French wine identity, when talking about the arts the “unique flavor, aroma, and character” acquire a distinct meaning.
Aragon’s works and his decisions to shape them through his French identity are derived, I believe in part, from his conscious cherishing of his terroir.
For losing one's terroir is always an existential loss.
