Théophile Gautier’s fantastical smile: humour, incongruity and reflexivity

The aim of this article is to analyse the relationship between humour and the Fantastic in Théophile Gautier’s fantastic short stories. Humorous tales such as “La Cafetière”, “Omphale” or “Le Pied de momie” as well as more serious stories like “Avatar”, “Jettatura” or “Arria Marcella” are taken into account. The purposes are on the one hand, to examine how Gautier introduces humour in the Fantastic and on the other hand, to give details about comic processes (like parody and parodic register) and its effects. Finally, it is important to underline that reflexivity is the point of convergence of humour and the Fantastic.