Alphonse Allais

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Alphonse Allais 1899
Plaque on the house where Alphonse Allais was born in Honfleur

Alphonse Allais (born October 20, 1854 in Honfleur , Département Calvados , † October 28, 1905 in Paris ) was a French writer , journalist and humorist . He died of a pulmonary embolism.

plant

Alphonse Allais has written hundreds of fantastic novels, almost all of them under time pressure. Besides a humorist he was at least as much a poet and among other forms he cultivated the poem in the “ holorime ”, in which the whole verse rhymes, so that the verses of a pair of rhymes consist of (almost) the same sound sequences over the entire line.

Examples:

  • "Par les bois du djinn où s'entasse de l'effroi,
    Parle et bois du gin ou cent tasses de lait froid."
  • “Alphonse Allais de l'âme ere et se f… à l'eau.
    Ah! l'fond salé de la mer! Hé! Ce fou! Hello."

The procedure is a lot easier in French than in German.

At times he can mock himself, for example with the following verse

"Ah! Vois au pont du Loing: de là vogue en mer Dante.
Hâve oiseau pondu loin de la vogue ennuyeuse. "

With the comment in a footnote:

"The rhyme isn't exactly rich , but I still prefer that to sinking into bad taste."

(If the holorime was really pure, ie on “emmerdante” instead of “ennuyeuse”, it would be pretty - dirty.)

The Universe by Alphonse Allais

Some people appear again and again in Alphonse Allais' world, including

  • Captain Cap, a person who doesn't mince his words ("The bureaucracy is like microbes: you don't negotiate with microbes, you kill them!")
  • Francisque Sarcey , an unmistakable theater critic of the Le Temps newspaper, embodiment of the bourgeois "round common sense" that was often quoted on the craziest occasions - the "victim" was not bothered by it, but even enjoyed being re-enacted by such a witty writer .
  • The economist Paul Leroy-Baulieu , a supporter of protectionism, whose theses Alphonse Allais ridiculed in several short stories under the pretext of praising them.

reception

Combat de nègres dans une cave, pendant la nuit. (Reproduction du célèbre tableau.) (1897)

Allais' picture “Combat de nègres dans une cave, pendant la nuit”, which consists of a black rectangle, could have served Kasimir Malewitsch as a reference for his “ Black Square ”. Allais' picture, on the other hand, is a plagiarism of a picture by Paul Bilhaud , which Allais, however, expanded with further monochrome pictures.

In his book “Lector in fabula”, Umberto Eco discusses the textual collaboration in the reception of Allais' “Un drame bien parisien” and “Die Templer”.

Works

  • À se tordre , Flammarion, Paris, 2002, ISBN 2-08-071149-0
  • Amours, délices et orgues , Union Générale, Paris 1985, ISBN 2-264-00711-7
  • Comment on fait les bonnes maisons. Contes , Michel, Paris 1990, ISBN 2-226-04011-0
  • Deux et deux font cinq , Union Générale, Paris 1985, ISBN 2-264-00672-2
  • A l'oeil , Librio, Paris 1995, ISBN 2-277-30050-0
  • Come on, read Allais. Satires of the turn of the century , Dtv, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-423-09261-0
  • Plaisirs d'humour , Librairie Générale, Paris 2003, ISBN 2-253-19302-X
  • Vive la vie! Choix de 49 contes , Famot, Geneva 1978
  • The carriage as a love nest and other frivolities. Edited, translated from French and with an afterword by Klaus Möckel , Edition digital, Pinnow 2019, ISBN 978-3-95655-984-6

Film adaptations

literature

  • Jean-Marc Defays: Jeux et enjeux du texte comique: stratégies discursives chez Alphonse Allais . Supplements to the journal for Romance philology; 243. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1992. Zugl .: Jyväskylä, Univ., Diss., 1991
  • Rudolf Zimmer: Aspects of linguistic comedy in French: Studies z. Language d. Humorist Alphonse Allais; 1854-1905 . Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1972. At the same time: Göttingen, Univ., Philos. Fak., Diss. 1970.

Web links

Commons : Alphonse Allais  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Alphonse Allais  - Sources and full texts (French)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ spiegel.de: Pictures behind Malevich's “Black Square” - SPIEGEL ONLINE , accessed on November 14, 2015
personal data
SURNAME Allais, Alphonse
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French writer and humorist
DATE OF BIRTH October 20, 1854
PLACE OF BIRTH Honfleur , Calvados department
DATE OF DEATH October 28, 1905
Place of death Paris