Louis Aragon Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Robin Walz

Critical Essay by Robin Walz

SOURCE: Walz, Robin. “The Baedeker of Hives: The Opera Passageway and Aragon's Le Paysan de Paris.” In Pulp Surrealism: Insolent Popular Culture in Early Twentieth-Century Paris, pp. 13-41. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.

In the following essay, Walz explores Aragon's depiction of the Paris Opera Passageway in his novel Le Paysan de Paris and the socio-historical role of the Passageway in Parisian culture.

paysan, anne (de pays). n. Homme, femme de compagne.—Par extens. Rustre, personne grossière: Un franc paysan.—Œnol. Se dit, dans la classification des vins de Bordeaux, de ceux qui occupent le dernier rang.

peasant (from pays, country). n. Countryman or country-woman.—By extension, Unsophisticated, uncouth character: A simple peasant.—Œnology. Name commonly given to the lowest order of Bordeaux wine classifications.

—Larousse du XXe siècle (1932)

Toward the end of the first half of Le Paysan de Paris—that portion dedicated to the Opera Passageway—some of the owners of the...
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