Cacher le genre par la contrainte pour dire l’indicible : du lipogramme de Perec au « lipogenre » de Garréta

In a writing system with constraints, the constraint, far from being pure author divertissement, often becomes “productive” at a higher level, by influencing not only the diegesis, but also the semantic plane of the text and, therefore, its deepest meaning. This article aims to study this property of the constraint in Georges Perec’s La Disparition (1969) and in Anne F. Garréta’s Sphynx (1986). We will demonstrate that the two constraints used in these works, the lipogram in Perec and the “lipogender” in Garréta, contribute to the construction of a writing of lack, of absence, which, by playing on the occultation/disappearance of the gender, exploits the potential of the “unspoken” and unexpectedly interprets the “unspeakable”.