Treatise on Style

by Louis Aragon, Alyson Waters (Introduction, Translator)

Surprising juxtapositions like goats spread across pianos and fearful optical illusions like eyeballs being sliced characterized the surrealistic movement in the arts in 1928 when Louis Aragon published Traité du Style in Paris. Aragon had become ever more contemptuous of vogues and pretensions. In the name of surrealism, he produced the first significant critique of it. Instead of merely upsetting old relationships and skewering sensibilities, Traité du Style was meant to shock with a capital S, and it did. Only now has it been completely translated into English. Although time has attenuated the scandalous nature of Aragon's language, his criticism has lost none of its edge in this translation by Alyson Waters.From the beginning, which describes a postcard showing a little boy on a potty as representative of French humor and the French spirit, to the end, an attack in scatalogical language on the French military establishment, Aragon zeros in on one target after another. Nothing escapes his notice or venom—whether it is the masturbatory output of contemporary writers, the prostitution of culture, or the perversions of government.

Still, Treatise on Style is more than a brilliant diatribe directed against what Aragon perceived as the moral, political, and intellectual failures of his time. He proposes surrealism, in art as in life, as a means to achieve a valid ethical and aesthetic "style." Surrealism, as Aragon defines it here, loses some of its mythical and mystical trappings; it becomes inspiration with rolled-up shirt-sleeves. He exercises this faculty in his own writing, which aims to shake readers out of their complacency by alternating the intensely lyrical with the borderline obscene and juxtaposing the language of the educated elite with that of the street. Whether denouncing religious fantacism or dispensing praise, Aragon remains true to his idea of the surrealist project: to reclassify certain values through the act of writing itself. Treatise on Style entertains as a portrait of a movement and of a personality who kept moving.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, France, Theory

119 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1928

About the author

French writer Louis Aragon founded literary surrealism.

Louis Aragon, a major figure in the avant-garde movements, shaped visual culture in the 20th century. His long career as a poet, novelist, Communist polemicist and bona fide war hero secured his place in the pantheon of greats.

With André Breton and Phillipe Soupault, Aragon launched the movement and through Paysan de Paris (Paris Peasant), his novel of 1926, produced the considered defining text of the movement.

Aragon parted company with the movement in the early 1930s, devoted his energies to the Communist party, and went to produce a vast body that combined elements of the social avant-garde.

Aragon, a leading influence on the shaping of the novel in the early to mid-20th century, gave voice and images to the art. He, also a critic, edited as a member of the Académie Goncourt. After 1959, people frequent nominated him for the Nobel Prize.

Reviews

[Léa s'égare · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quelle claque ! Je ne vais/peux plus lire de la même manière maintenant.

Aragon critique et mauvaise foi en même temps. Contradictoire parfois mais logique souvent.
Lecture exigeante si vous êtes pas en forme passez votre chemin.

[baat1ste · Rating 5 out of 5]

C’est tellement le surréalisme par excellence.

Aragon chie sur tout le monde, même sur l’armée. Par son insolence et son humour débordante il dénigre tout, notamment l’ancienne littérature bourgeoise et la Nouvaile Revue Front-cesse.

Mais là où réside toute l’âme surréaliste, c’est qu’en plus de conspuer tout ce qui précède et constitue les années 20, il use allègrement d’images poétiques qui pullulent dans son œuvre.

La deuxième partie, notamment, est empreinte d’un style tout à fait surréaliste et ça tombe bien parce qu’il s’agit du moment où il évoque véritablement la notion de style.

Bref, un bijou surréaliste brut qui est, à mon goût, trop peu mis en avant

[pauline_nlp · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jean Ristat a dit : «Le Traité du style fut écrit au cours des années 1926-1927. Le livre paraîtra qu'en 1929, André Gide et Paul Valéry (violemment pris à partie dans le texte) s'opposant à sa publication. Pamphlet ou poème - " chaque image doit produire un cataclysme " -, il marque une étape importante dans l'histoire littéraire. Certains n'ont voulu retenir que l'insolence, l'humour, la virtuosité exceptionnelle de l'écriture d'Aragon. D'autres lecteurs cependant vont plus loin et voient dans le Traité du style l'amorce par Aragon du dépassement du surréalisme en réalisme. L'auteur se livre en fait ici à un jeu de massacre où rien de notre époque n'est épargné ou respecté : l'art, la politique, la morale, la civilisation occidentale. Aragon développe dans le Traité du style une conception du monde comme chaos : " ... je parle un langage de décombres où voisinent les soleils et les plâtres. " On trouve aussi dans ces pages une analyse du problème de la signification qui l'amènera quelques années plus tard à intégrer l'idéalisme artistique du surréalisme. Le surréalisme a fait de l'inspiration poétique non " une visitation inexplicable, mais une faculté qui s'exerce ". Aragon écrira en 1933 qu'il faut passer maintenant " du mécanisme individuel à la connaissance du mécanisme de classe de cette inspiration ". Le traité du style ne peut être isolé dans l'évolution de la pensée et de l'écriture d'Aragon. Il en est un des moments essentiels.»
Il semblerait que 2 étoiles soit une note assez basse me concernant. Je dois cependant avouer que, malgré le fait que cette lecture n'est pas été déplaisante, je n'ai pas réussi à comprendre où l'auteur voulait me mener, je n'ai pas réussi à me mettre dans son argumentation. J'en ai compris quelques traits mais la plupart des choses m'ont échappée. J'ai effectivement vu cette insolence, cet humour et cette virtuosité...mais je n'ai pas réussi à en sortir quelque chose. A vrai dire je ne saurais pas ressortir quelque chose de cette lecture. Il est vrai aussi que rien ne soit respecté ici mais qu'a voulu dire l'auteur ? Je ne vois pas où est «le style», je ne vois pas ce qu'est le style, quelle définition nous en donne-t-il ? Peut-être que je n'ai pas assez réfléchi durant ma lecture, je n'ai peut-être pas pris assez de recul lors de celle-ci.
Si vous avez une analyse à proposer, je suis preneuse.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this to get a better idea of the young Aragon in his Surrealist days before he became the great hero of the Resistance. He revels in being an enfant terrible, railing against all the sacred cows of French literature – Rimbaud, Hugo, Baudelaire … all the way up through Gide. Indeed, he classifies the entire canon of French letters as “stableboys” or “clowns,” except for Lautréamont. If one can gain anything from this rant (and a rant it most certainly is), it’s that Aragon’s idea of style is a contrarian mantra: “be anything but boring.”

Much of this book is bluster, but the choice cuts are memorable. One highlight includes his letter to a critic: “Dear Scumbag: I have just read your vulgar pronouncements of the 15th and the 19th of September. I find you to be obscene, asinine, and above all, lying and cowardly … Intellectual turd, you have the dirty face of your dirty job. You are an old shirt abandoned in a urinal.” (This might be the greatest put-down I’ve ever read.) He continues by suggesting that young readers will figuratively sodomize the critic’s corpse with a broom handle(!) before concluding: “I respectively stop up my nose in the presence of your goatee.”

It’s cartoonish, bombastic, and outlandish. Like Hunter S. Thompson, he uses exaggerated theatrics to tackle serious issues with humor. The book concludes: “So: since looking at them cross-eyed in the street will get me time in the slammer, I have the honor, in my own home, in this book, here and now, very consciously, to say that I shit on the entire French army.”

At first, one ponders in amazement, “THIS guy became the great literary hero and defender of the French nation in the Resistance?!” Yet it makes perfect sense. Outrageous, funny, fiercely independent, and opposed to authority and staid norms, the young Aragon was a pistol firing in all directions at once. He “shits” on those who would deign to delineate a “style,” pushing back on any restrictions of voice and form. Naturally, when his nation was invaded by the epitome of authoritarian repression (who themselves were obsessed with a sleek, rigid style of theatrical political aesthetics, from their uniforms to their conformist symbols), he took direct aim and started shitting.

[Matt Morris]

For Aragon, style isn't merely a matter of syntax, word choice, tone, or other rhetorical & technical concerns, but to a much larger degree, it's about attitude. Briefly & bluntly, if you're an ass-kissing lackey, your work is likely to have all the appeal of a "shirt in a urinal," even if you check all the prescribed boxes of what makes literature worthwhile, because twaddle is twaddle, regardless of technique. With remorseless wit, Aragon delivers an outrageous & (at the time) scandalous repudiation of widely held literary theories & personages.

For more reviews, visit The Greater Encyclopedia of Universal Knowledge https://miscmss.blogspot.com/2022/08/...

[Joanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Louis Aragon ~ was a ferocious beast

Sharp teeth and a voracious appetite. The opposite of 'having a dream' is not 'taking action'..the opposite is 'not having a dream'.

[Nate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aragon at his vitriolic best... ooo dang!

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite Surrealist texts by one of the most cranky Surrealists.