Le texte à rire : technique du secret et art de l'illusion chez Alphonse Allais

The work of the famous French humorist Alphonse Allais (1854-1905), who wrote mainly short stories and press columns, presents a good subject for literary scholars and semioticians. This study looks at the most characteristic texts of Allais as complex and clever devices specially set up to achieve a humorous effect. Two strategies seem to be particularly important to this end: on the one hand, the sharing and the spreading of information among the protagonists of the text (author, readers, characters); on the other hand, the game of appearances - (trans)forming, (mis)interpreting, discovering and concealing them – in which the protagonists are engaged. One often finds these strategies in h…

MYSTIFICATION ET DÉMYSTIFICATION CHEZ ALPHONSE ALLAIS