'Fais de cela un monument'

Abstract

This article focuses on Louis Aragon's representation of the experience of the Second World War in his prose writing, and more particularly on the roles of memory and commemoration in this representation. Alongside his Resistance poetry, Aragon composed clandestine texts which were conceived as written memorials to fellow communists killed during the war, memorials which stress communist heroism and patriotism. His novel Les Communistes, published between 1949 and 1951, was also intended to bear witness to the experience of French communists during the war, but it also demonstrates the difficulties of remembrance. It looks back on the Second World War as a source of painful memories which the author sometimes struggles to voice. Particular attention is paid to Aragon's re-creation of the Dunkirk episode, a narrative refined through several versions.