289Words that (should not!) exclude: Scientific explanations and wordplay in science fiction and in Villiers de l’Isle-Adam’s <i>L’Ève future</i>

Abstract

Wordplay emphasizes the poetic function according to Jakobson as it foregrounds language.This is a major reason why wordplay and science fiction seem to be in heavy contradiction -the genre privileges the referential function in order to obtain a mediatic transparency thanks to which the innovation, which is usually at the center of science fiction texts, is not put into doubt by the reader.A well-known example is H. G. Wells' description of the time machine -maybe one of the most intriguing inventions in literature that fulfils a dream of mankind and finds a succinct and credible explanation in the novel.Almost at the same time French symbolist Auguste de Villiers de l'Isle-Adam presents in his L've future a comparable dream of mankind: the mechanical creation of a perfect being.Never theless, his narrative strategy could not be further away from Wells': the endless technical details with which his fictive Edison explains the android exclude the listening Lord Ewald, for whom the robot is created, and the reader alike.The same is true for some sophisticated wordplays which can be found in the novel and which, moreover, ridicule the scientist and his aspirations.These puns, exactly like the parodic scientific discourse, serve to ironize science and form part of Villiers' crusade against positivism.In this respect, wordplay serves in L've future goals that go way beyond a playful effect and can serve to specify the particular place of this French novel in the history of science fiction.