Literary anomaly:
The comedic style of Hélène du Taillis Cover Image

Anomalie littéraire : la plume comique d’Hélène du Taillis
Literary anomaly: The comedic style of Hélène du Taillis

Author(s): Vicky Gauthier
Subject(s): French Literature, Theory of Literature, Sociology of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
Keywords: comic novels; 20th century French writers; comic writing by female authors; irony and transfictionality; Hélène du Taillis;

Summary/Abstract: When we think of classic comedic novels, the names of male authors such as Rabelais, Cervantes, or Scarron often come to mind.However, the contributions of women writers to this genre have been overlooked as literary anomalies. Hélène du Taillis (1873-1961),a French journalist and writer, is a literary anomaly in the history of early20th-century French literature. She wrote not one but two successfuland critically acclaimed comedic novels, "Enterrons l’adultère"(1923) and "La Nouvelle Bovary" (1927), at a time when this genrewas largely dominated by male writers and considered marginalliterature (and still is today). This article aims to examine Taillis's twonovels from the perspectives of Hamon and Saint-Gelais on ironyand transfictionality. By doing so, highlighting the unique aspects of Taillis's comedic writing, demonstrating that a comical heritage also exists among women writers.

  • Issue Year: 2023
  • Issue No: 36
  • Page Range: 45-62
  • Page Count: 18
  • Language: French
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