Le Conte insolite francais au XX siecle

Abstract

The study concerns the category of short fiction oscillating between the fantastic and the marvellous and it points out the existence of a new type of tale in the twentieth century French literature. The term “uncanny tale” is in not frequent in critical discourse, though some theoreticians, like M. Guiomar, J.-B. Renard and J. Goimard, have been interested in the concept of the uncanny. The aim of this study is to characterize the essential features of the uncanny tale and advance a definition of the category on the basis of short fictions of G. Apollinaire, M. Aymé, G.-O. Châteaureynaud, P. Gripari, M. Schneider, J. Supervielle, B. Vian or M. Yourcenar, not to mention the most famous authors. Reading and examining the uncanny tale or short stories, which classification remains ambiguous, accentuate two aspects: how the uncanny is created and how it should be read. The formation of the uncanny universe consists of choosing its particular figures, time and space. The perception of this category is subject to the reader’s knowledge of culture codes and intertextuality of the uncanny tales.