Ils le charmèrent avec des sourires et du savon Ils menacèrent sa vie avec une action de chemin de fer Ils le poursuivirent avec des fourches et de l'espoir

“ Ils le traquèrent avec des gobelets ils le traquèrent avec soin Witness the key stanza of the poem in Aragon's translation:

The French surrealists had long claimed Lewis Carroll as one of their own, and Aragon published his translation of The Hunting of the Snark in 1929, 'shortly before he completed his transition from Snarxism to Marxism', as Martin Gardner puts it. Nevertheless, Aragon was also critical of the USSR, particularly after the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1956) during which Joseph Stalin's personality cult was denounced by Nikita Khrushchev. During the World Congress of Writers for the Defence of Culture (1935), Aragon opposed his former friend André Breton, who wanted to use the opportunity as a tribune to defend the writer Victor Serge, associated with Leon Trotsky's Left Opposition. He would remain a member for the rest of his life, writing several political poems including one to Maurice Thorez, the general secretary of the PCF.

In 1933 he began to write for the party's newspaper, L'Humanité, in the 'news in brief' section. In the 1920s, Aragon became a fellow traveller of the French Communist Party (PCF) along with several other surrealists, and joined the Party in January 1927. Having been involved in Dadaism from 1919 to 1924, he became a founding member of Surrealism in 1924, with André Breton and Philippe Soupault under the pen-name 'Aragon'. Andrieux's refusal or inability to recognize his son would influence Aragon's poetry later on.

Aragon was only told the truth at the age of 19, as he was leaving to serve in the First World War, from which neither he nor his parents believed he would return. Aragon's mother passed Andrieux off to her son as his godfather. His biological father, Louis Andrieux, a former senator for Forcalquier, was married and thirty years older than Aragon's mother, whom he seduced when she was seventeen. He was raised by his mother and maternal grandmother, believing them to be his sister and foster mother, respectively. Louis Aragon (French: , born Louis Andrieux 3 October 1897 – 24 December 1982) was a French poet, novelist and editor, a long-time member of the Communist Party and a member of the Académie Goncourt.

Holy Week by Louis Aragon