This thesis has a two-fold aim. Firstly, to propose a new reading of Jarry's works (in the context of his time and not as seen through the distorting lens of subsequent literary movements, as has all too often been the case). And secondly, to open up new possibilities in the way we understand the dynamic evolution of literary forms. Part One is an analysis of how Jarry sought a position amongst his contemporaries in the literary world at the beginning of his career, by defining how he appropriated the hermeneutic tools of the Symbolists to whom he became affiliated. Part Two focuses on the rhetorical strategies developed in his books. The " cerebral blind-man's buff " is the name Jarry gave to his poetics : he established devices that cause semantic diffraction and hence a greater suggestiveness.
