Metalepsis (revised version; uploaded 13 July

2016)
John Pier

Created: 11. June 2011Revised: 14. July 2016

Definition
In its narratological sense, metalepsis, first identified by Genette, is a
deliberate transgression between the world of the telling and the world of the
told: “any intrusion by the extradiegetic narrator or narratee into the diegetic
universe (or by diegetic characters into a metadiegetic universe, etc.), or the
inverse […], produces an effect of strangeness that is either comical […] or
fantastic” ([1972] 1980: 234–35). After reviewing a few examples, Genette
observes that “[a]ll of these games, by the intensity of their effects,
demonstrate the importance of the boundary they tax their ingenuity to
overstep, in defiance of verisimilitude—a boundary that is precisely the
narrating (or the performance) itself: a shifting but sacred frontier [or
boundary] between two worlds, the world in which one tells, the world of which
one tells. […] The most troubling thing about metalepsis indeed lies in this
unacceptable and insistent hypothesis that the extradiegetic is perhaps
always diegetic and that the narrator and his narratees—you and I—perhaps
belong to some narrative” (236, original emphasis). Described as “taking hold
of (telling) by changing level” (235, n. 51), narrative metalepsis combines the
principle of narrative levels (Pier → Narrative Levels [1]) with “author’s
metalepsis,” a narrative figure with roots in the trope of metalepsis. Narrative
metalepsis constitutes a “deliberate transgression of the threshold of
embedding […]: when an author (or his reader) introduces himself into the
fictive action of the narrative or when a character in that fiction intrudes into
the extradiegetic existence of the author or reader, such intrusions disturb, to
say the least, the distinction between levels,” producing an effect of “humor” or
of “the fantastic” or “some mixture of the two […], unless it functions as a
figure of the creative imagination” (Genette [1983] 1988: 88).

These definitions, which remain foundational, providing the basis for a

narrative category which, up to the early 1970s, had never been properly
formulated, have been expanded, amended and refined by subsequent
research, partly by Genette himself in his book Métalepses (2004), an
exploration of the phenomenon not only in narrative fiction but also in theater,
film, television, painting and photography. These developments have come
about with the realization that metalepsis is not a mere localized stylistic
device or oddity, but also that it occurs in various forms, thus calling for the
elaboration of typologies, that it can be found in media other than language
and is indeed a phenomenon which is not inherently bound by or restricted to
narrative, and that its effects are not exclusively anti-illusionistic. A survey of
the literature suggests that the criteria for determining the occurrence of
metalepsis and the conditions of its extension are the focus of as much if not
more attention than the various definitions that have been set forth.

Explication
In addition to Genette’s “transgression” of levels or to Wagner’s (2002)
“sliding” between levels, metalepsis has been characterized as “undermining
the separation between narration and story” (Rimmon-Kenan [1983] 2002:
93); as a “strange loop” in the structure of narrative levels or a “short circuit”
between the “fictional world and the ontological level occupied by the author”
(McHale 1987: 119, 213); as a “narrative short circuit” causing “a sudden
collapse of the narrative system” (Wolf 1993: 358); or as producing a
“disruptive effect on the fabric of narrative” (Malina 2002: 1). Being the
“embryo” or “outline” (esquisse) of a fiction, metalepsis triggers “a playful
simulation of belief” (Genette 2004: 17, 25).

As can be seen from the diversity of these characterizations (among others),

current research cannot be neatly classified into clearly identified paradigms.
Nevertheless, three partially overlapping conceptions do seem to stand out, all
deriving more or less directly from the definitions of narrative metalepsis listed
above, although with little reference to its connection with the trope of
metalepsis:

 Rhetorical vs. ontological metalepsis

This distinction is contained implicitly in Genette’s definitions and
examples but is not systematically elaborated.
 Transmedial dimensions
This approach expands investigations to include non-verbal and
plurimedial manifestations of the phenomenon. A type of
metareference, metalepsis, particularly in its ontological form,
possesses a potential for self-reference and thus for laying bare
the fictionality of the work in which it appears.
 Metalepsis as paradox
Recentering on the original definition of narrative metalepsis, this
approach insists not on the rhetorical/ontological distinction but on
 the logically paradoxical movements between at least two
hierarchically distinct text-internal narrative levels.

On the whole, discussions support the idea that metalepsis appears only in
fictional contexts. Essentially, it functions with varying dosages of three
parameters: (a) illusion of contemporaneousness between the time of the
telling and the time of the told; (b) transgressive merging of two or more
levels; (c) doubling of the narrator/narratee axis with the author/reader axis.
These features are illustrated by Balzac’s “While the venerable churchman
climbs the ramps of Angoulême, it is not useless to explain…”—a “minimal”
metalepsis (cf. Pier 2005: 249–50) which, being incipiently transgressive,
leaps the boundary between narrator and extradiegetic narratee on the
communicative plane and puts story time on hold while the narrator, in a
relative cohabitation with the character, intervenes with a metanarrative
comment, demonstrating the latent metaleptic quality of narrative embedding
in general. This example leads to the idea that fictional narrative is by nature
metaleptic, that it is bound to the paradox of “a current presentation of the
past” (Bessière 2005), that it betrays “at least the potential for narrative
metalepsis” (Nelles 1997: 152).

History of the Concept and its Study

It is important to bear in mind that although metalepsis has its roots in ancient
rhetoric, narrative metalepsis is a recent concept in the history of poetics, with
the practice itself, under different denominations, or none at all, reaching back
to antiquity in both literary and visual forms, as copiously demonstrated by a
recent anthology edited by Eisen and von Möllendorff (2013). The fact that
metalepsis can now be theorized and applied according to definable criteria
has opened up avenues of historical research that extend beyond the corpus
of modernist and postmodernist works habitually taken into consideration in
the study of the concept and the practice.

The Rhetorical Background

The etymology of metalepsis is disputed, but its sense can readily be grasped
from the word’s Latin equivalent—transumptio: “assuming one thing for
another.” Metalepsis has a complex history in that it has been regarded either
as a variety of metonymy, a particular form of synonymy, or both. As
metonymy, it has been identified (a) in simple form as an expression of the
consequent understood as the antecedent or vice versa and (b) as a chain of
associations (“a few ears of corn” for “a few years,” the transfer of sense
implying “a few harvests” and “a few summers”). Another possibility is to
regard metalepsis in terms of an overlap between synonymy and homonymy
in such a way as not to respect the semantic demarcation between distinct
signifiers, resulting in the use of an inappropriate synonym: cano (“sing”) is a
synonym of canto (“sing”) and canto (“repeat”) a synonym of dico (“relate”);
therefore, cano is a synonym of dico (cf. Lausberg [1960] 1973: § 571;
Morier 1961; Burkhardt 2001; Meyer-Minnemann 2005: 140–43;
Roussin 2005: 41–4).

From the perspective of narrative theory, two positions derive from the rhetoric
of metalepsis. Genette (2004: 7–16), drawing on the first of the two types
above, notes that metalepsis shares with metaphor and metonymy the
principle of transfer of sense, and he considers it (following Dumarsais) a
metonymy of the simple type; he then expands it (with Fontanier) beyond the
single word to include an entire proposition. Metalepsis of antecedent and
consequent, he argues, is implicitly metalepsis of cause for effect or effect for
cause. From such causal relations he forges the notion of author’s metalepsis
whereby an author “is represented or represents himself as producing what, in
the final analysis, he only relates” (Fontanier). He also draws attention to the
proximity for the two rhetoricians of metalepsis and hypotyposis (a figure in
which the copy is treated, illusorily, as though it were the original, as in a
present-tense description), but particularly to the fact that, with metalepsis, the
narrator transgresses not merely the threshold of narrative but that of
representation, resulting in a “reduced metadiegetic” or “pseudodiegetic”
narrative in which, due to the lack of metadiegetic relay, the secondary
narrator effectively takes the place of the primary narrator (see also
Genette [1972] 1980: 236–37; a more radical form is “heterodiegesis,” which
“gathers in one single universe the world of production, fiction and reception”;
Rabau 2005: 60).

There have also been proposals to refer narrative metalepsis back to

metalepsis as use of an inappropriate synonym, notably by Meyer-Minnemann
(2005) and Schlickers (2005) (see also Nelles 1997: 152–57). The emphasis
here is not on authorial metalepsis as a type of metonymy, but on the
transgression of boundaries, of which there are two main types: one at
discourse level, with breaching of the “me-here-now” of enunciation (in
verbis transgression), the other at story level, with violation of the coordinates
of the enunciate (in corpore transgression) (see § 3.2.1 below).

Recent research has taken a somewhat different view of the rhetorical

heritage of narrative metalepsis. Thus, Nauta (2013a), re-examining the
sources of metalepsis from antiquity to Dumarsais and Fontanier, delineates
two strains, one concerned with allusion (following Quintilian), the other with
narrative (metalepsis as metonymy of the preceding and the following). The
latter, he maintains, is a trope in its own right, “operating on an expression
signifying the act of representing a situation or action, in which such an
expression is substituted by one signifying the act of creating or causing that
situation or action” (477)—a conception which is close to the narratological
definition: “any intrusion by the extradiegetic narrator or narratee into the
diegetic universe (or by diegetic characters into a metadiegetic universe, etc.),
or the inverse” (Genette [1972] 1980: 234–35). Yet, in his more recent work
on the topic, Genette advocated a special case of metonymy in which cause is
substituted for effect or effect for cause, proposing, accordingly, “to restrict the
term ‘metalepsis’ from now on to a manipulation—at least figural, but
sometimes fictional […]—of this particular causal relation which, in one way or
another, connects the author to his work or, more broadly, the producer of a
representation to this representation itself” (Genette 2004: 13–4). But from
Nauta’s rhetorical perspective, “manipulation” of causal relation is not
substitution of cause and effect, and it is, moreover, inconsistent with
metalepsis as a reflexive relationship between narrative levels (2013a: 479–
80; this position is also rallied to by Klimek 2010: 34–7).

The connection between the metalepsis of ancient grammar and rhetoric and
narrative metalepsis is “rather tenuous,” as Nauta observes. Nevertheless,
important work has been undertaken in the study of the metaleptic features of
ancient literatures such as de Jong’s (2009) seminal discussion of
apostrophe, the blending of narrative voices and other techniques in Greek
texts, Baumann’s (2013) study of metalepsis in ancient ekphrasis or Nauta’s
(2013b) considerations on metalepsis and metapoetics in Latin poetry, but
also Cornils’ (2005) essay on the metaleptic effects of evidentia, a specific
form of phantasia (characterized by a persuasive function) in the Acts of the
Apostles, to mention only a few sources. One major finding of these studies is
that, unlike modern practices, metalepsis in ancient literatures is a serious
technique which is used not for comic or anti-illusionistic effects, but rather as
a means for increasing the narrator’s authority and intensifying the credibility
of the narrative. This suggests the need for further work on the rhetorical
dimension of metalepsis, possibly in conjunction with pragmatics and the
theory of argumentation.

Principal Approaches
Rhetorical vs. Ontological Metalepsis
One widely acknowledged group of theories, originally formulated by Ryan
([2004] 2006), consists in breaking metalepsis down into rhetorical (Genette)
and ontological (McHale) forms. This represents an extension of Ryan’s
theory of illocutionary and ontological boundaries, frames and stacks (cf.
Pier → Narrative Levels [1], § 3.2.3) in so far as it incorporates the
transgression of boundaries which, in principle, are inviolable in narrative. The
distinction remains implicit in Genette, she notes, although his more recent
“figural” vs. “fictional” metalepsis corresponds roughly to her own. The
rhetorical variety “opens a small window that allows a quick glance across
levels, but the window closes after a few sentences, and the operation ends
up reasserting the existence of the boundaries” while the ontological type
“opens a passage between levels that results in their interpenetration, or
mutual contamination” (207). Taking a cue from McHale (1987: chap. 8), Ryan
defines ontological metalepsis in accordance with Hofstadter’s (1979: 10, 621)
Strange Loops and Tangled Hierarchies, and she further comments on the
connection of the violation of narrative hierarchies with similar phenomena in
logic, mathematics, language and science. As for Ryan’s rhetorical
metalepsis, Klimek (2010: 65) finds this inappropriate, and, referring instead to
Cohn’s ([2005] 2012) metalepsis at the discourse level and metalepsis at the
story level, she proposes the term “discourse metalepsis.”

Ryan’s distinction has been further broken down by Fludernik (2003). On

scrutinizing Genette’s narrative metalepsis, she concludes that this is an
umbrella term which contains an implicit four-term typology: (a) authorial
metalepsis (Virgil “has Dido die”): a metafictional strategy that undermines
mimetic illusion, foregrounding the inventedness of the story; (b) narratorial or
type 1 ontological metalepsis (in Eliot’s Adam Bede, the narrator invites the
narratee to accompany him to Reverend Irwine’s study): transgression from
the extradiegetic to the intradiegetic level is illusionary, drawing a fine line
between the reader’s immersion and lifting of the mimetic illusion; (c) lectorial
or type 2 ontological metalepsis (in a story by Cortázar, the reader of a novel
is [almost] killed by a character in that novel): implication of the narratee on
the story level or passage of a character from an embedded to an embedding
level (also occurs in second-person narration); (d) rhetorical or discourse
metalepsis (simultaneity of time of the telling/time of the told; cf. Pier 2005:
249–50 on “minimal” metalepsis).

A related group of theories, less focused on the rhetorical/ ontological divide,

emphasizes what Wagner (2002) has termed “metaleptic movements.”
Wagner divides these movements into three varieties: (a) from a higher to a
lower level (extra- to intradiegetic or, jumping a level, intra- to metadiegetic;
also intra- to metadiegetic: an author intervenes in her fiction); (b) from a
lower to a higher level, proceeding in the opposite direction, as when a
character transgresses the extradiegetic boundary; (c) “auto-intertextuality”
between diegeses of the same level, thus confronting parallel heterogeneous
fictive universes. He also takes up the question, largely neglected, of the
compositional distribution of metalepses: their location, amplitude and
frequency can have a significant impact on the strategy and readability of a
narrative (on this point, see also Häsner 2001: 40–3). Two comments,
however. First, although he does not use the term, Wagner implicitly adopts
Bal’s “hypodiegetic” inversion levels, (a) being an ascending transgression for
Genette and (b) a descending transgression (the latter dubbed
“antimetalepsis” by Genette 2004: 27). Second, the metaleptic status of (c),
later called “horizontal” metalepsis (dubbed "lateral" metalepsis by
Thoss 2015 and "horizontal transmigration" by Alber & Bell 2012: 169), has
been contested, notably by Klimek (2010: 67–8; 2011; cf. Hanebeck 2014:
63–4), who considers this feature to be akin to intertextuality or quotation. The
phenomenon has been studied under the name of “transfictionality,” defined
by Saint-Gelais as "the phenomenon by which at least two texts, by the same
author or not, jointly relate to a same fiction, be it by taking over characters,
extending a prior plot or sharing a fictional universe" (2011: 7). The disputed
status of these "horizontal" movements has recently been revisited by Lavocat
(2016: 498–99), who proposes the notions of "transfictional metalepsis" and
"self-referential author metalepsis."

Klimek herself is among those to subscribe to descending and ascending

metalepsis (see § 3.2.3 below). But mention must also be made at this point
of the model elaborated by Meyer-Minnemann (2005) and Schlickers (2005).
Taking a cue from Genette, this model provides for metalepsis of enunciation
(in verbis, at discourse level) and metalepsis of the enunciate (in corpore, at
story level), where each functions either vertically (bottom-up or top-down) or
horizontally, without change of level (dubbed “perilepsis” by Prince 2006:
628). To take only a few illustrations: (a) vertical metalepsis of enunciation
(top-down) obtains when an extradiegetic narrator transgresses the
intradiegetic boundary; (b) horizontal metalepsis of enunciation occurs with
the juxtaposition of two communicative situations at the same level; (c) with
transgression of the diegetic, ontological, spatial or temporal order there
occurs a vertical metalepsis of the enunciate; (d) horizontal metalepsis of the
enunciate is produced when, say, Woody Allen enters the world of Madame
Bovary. In this system metalepsis is seen as producing an effect of
strangeness, either comical or fantastic, but it is not considered a figure of
fictionality in Genette’s (2004) sense. The Meyer-Minnemann/Schlickers
model of metalepsis forms part of a larger theory of “paradoxical narration” in
which devices are employed either to cancel out boundaries (syllepsis,
epanalepsis, the latter type including mise en abyme) or
to transgress boundaries (metalepsis, hyperlepsis, the latter equivalent to
pseudodiegesis: metadiegetic narrative presented as though it were diegetic).
For an exhaustive typology following these parameters, identifying forty-one
subtypes, see Lang (2006).

In an earlier model, Nelles (1997: 152–57) differentiates metalepsis as being

either “unmarked” (occurring at discourse level) or “distinctly marked”
(occurring at story level). The latter divides into “intrametalepsis” (movement
from the embedding to the embedded level) and “extrametalepsis” (movement
in the opposite direction), with each type possessing analeptic and proleptic
forms on the temporal plane (for the related notions of “inward” vs. “outward”
metalepsis, see Malina 2002: 46–50). Rather than the rhetorical (discourse)
vs. ontological (story) distinction, Nelles, invoking epistemic (vertical) and
ontological (horizontal) embedding, adopts epistemological or verbal
metalepsis (knowledge of the other world) as opposed to ontological or modal
metalepsis (physical penetration of the other world). However, this latter pair
partly reduplicates and contradicts the other distinctions while the
classification as a whole leaves little room for the transgressive or paradoxical
nature of metalepsis.

In a proposal that partly cuts across the above models, Pier (2005: 252–53)
sets descending metalepsis off from ascending metalepsis. The former, which
occurs in Fludernik’s authorial and narratorial (type 1 ontological) varieties,
follows an intrametaleptic movement while the latter, found in the lectorial
(type 2 ontological) variety, involves an extrametaleptic movement; as for
discourse (or minimal) metalepsis, it remains poised, sometimes precariously,
between the two movements. Moreover, intrametaleptic movements mark an
affinity between narrator and narratee, and extrametaleptic movements an
affinity between character and narratee. Finally, these movements pertain
both in external metalepsis (between the extradiegetic and the intradiegetic
levels) and in internal metalepsis (occurring between two levels within the
story itself; cf. Cohn [2005] 2012).

In a recent critical overview, Lavocat (2016) identifies two major approaches

to metalepsis, one favoring the boundaries of fiction (Genette), the other the
erasure of these boundaries (McHale). Examining the issues through the
possible worlds approach to fiction and emphasizing the relations between
(narrative) worlds rather than hierarchical levels, she observes the tendency in
the latter approach, which is focused largely on ontological metalepsis, to
stress the fusion of worlds, thereby effacing the boundary between fact and
fiction, a tendency favored, in part, by expanding study of the phenomenon to
the various media. Lavocat insists, however, on the intrafictional quality of
metalepsis—not its relation with the "real"—thus on playing with the
boundaries, with reality-in-fiction and fiction-in-fiction, rather than suppressing
them. Transgressive by its paradoxical nature, metalepsis owes its power to
its degree of literalness, and on this basis she proposes, in place of the
rhetorical/ontological divide, three "degrees" of metalepsis: (a) passage from
one level of embedding to another through an act of enunciation or its
equivalent in other media; (b) (non-)fictional representation of the author or
reader/spectator, but at a level different from that of the characters; (c)
authors, reader/spectators and characters in same world.

Transmedial Dimensions

Originally, metalepsis was formulated within the scope of language-based

narratives, and its study was largely reserved to works of high culture and the
avant-garde. Rather quickly, however, it was realized that the phenomenon
also extends to other media as well as to works of popular culture, particularly
those involving plurimedial and/or non-narrative forms of representation.
Examples can be found in Genette (2004) and in Pier and Schaeffer, eds.
(2005) but also in Kukkonen and Klimek, eds. (2011), not to mention a host of
other publications too numerous to mention here. (On transmediality, see
Ryan → Narration in Various Media [2], Ryan ed. 2004.)

An important step toward a specifically transmedial conception of

metalepsis was taken by Wolf (2005) who, looking at examples from drama,
film, comics and painting, laid the foundations for “exporting” metalepsis to
media other than language. Four features are singled out that enable
metalepsis to occur beyond verbal media: (a) it is found within
artefacts/performances that represent possible worlds (cf. Ryan 1991: esp.
chap. 9), but has no essential link with narrativity; (b) existence within these
artefacts/ performances of distinct levels or possible (sub)worlds that differ
from one another with reference to “reality” vs. “fiction” (the latter combining
“fictio” as artefact and “fictum” as “invention without direct reference to reality”;
Wolf 1993: 38–9); (c) actual transgression between or confusion of
(sub)worlds; (d) paradoxical nature of the transgression with reference to a
“natural” or conventional belief in the inviolability of these (sub)worlds in
“normal” life and fiction. On this basis, metalepsis, in any medium, is defined
as “a usually intentional paradoxical transgression of, or confusion between,
(onto)logically distinct (sub)worlds and/or levels that exist, or are referred to,
within representations of possible worlds” (Wolf 2005: 91, original emphasis;
for a commentary, cf. Hanebeck 2014: 66). Note, however, should be made of
the fact that this definition (as is the case with the partial redefinition in
Wolf 2009: 50) is heavily weighted in favor of ontological (i.e. story level)
metalepsis involving impossible physical transgressions, and that although
rhetorical metalepsis is included in the discussion, the different types of
metaleptic movements mentioned in the previous section are not taken into
account. Also introduced is epistemological metalepsis, the “impossible”
knowledge characters might have of their fictional status, the effect of which is
to reflect the metareferential nature of metalepsis, although metareferential
potential remains highest in the ontological form, laying bare the fictionality of
the work (52–6). Following up on Wolf is Thoss's transmedial definition of
metalepsis as "a paradoxical transgression of the line that separates the
inside from the outside of a storyworld" (2015: 4) together with three
"prototypes": (a) transgressions between a storyworld and another imaginary
world; (b) transgressions between a storyworld and reality; (c) transgressions
between a storyworld and the discourse that represents it.

Affirming the indisputably transmedial quality of metalepsis, Hanebeck,

following a different line of reasoning, focuses on how this phenomenon
resists the narrative structuration of (hermeneutic) understanding by denying
the logical and pragmatic rules that govern the act of narration. "Metalepsis,"
he observes, "occurs when and if a recipient of a (narrative) representation
feels that the logic of acts of (narrative) representation are violated or negated
in such a way that the 'natural' spatial, temporal and hierarchical relationships
between the domain(s) of the signifier and the domain(s) of the signifier no
longer apply" (Hanebeck 2014: 69). Building on existing typologies
(Nelles 1997; Fludernik 2003; Klimek 2010; Ryan [2004] 2006), Hanebeck
goes on to single out four "scales" along which diegetic universes,
represented through any medium, may either remain distinct or collapse: (a)
temporal dimensions; (b) spatial dimensions; (c) worlds ("the holistically
structured networks of meaning and relatedness") which coincide with diegetic
levels; (d) hierarchical relations (37). On this basis, he proposes a "tree
structure" of metaleptic types in which "figurative" metalepsis subsumes
epistemological metalepsis and rhetorical metalepsis, on the one hand, and
where ontological metalepsis breaks down into "recursive" and "immersive"
metalepsis, on the other, each with a series of subtypes (73–99).

Exploring the transmedial dimensions of metalepsis poses the challenge, as

the above proposals show, of rethinking narrative metalepsis so as to
accommodate the features of visual and performance media, for which the
language-based story-discourse distinction is not well adapted. One option is
of course to address the issues through ontological reconceptualization.
Another possibility is to take into consideration so-called media affordances,
i.e. how the various media influence and shape the forms of representation,
but also how, in the different media environments, metalepsis interacts with
representation. This is the avenue chosen by the contributors to Kukkonen
and Klimek, eds. (2011), a collection of essays on metalepsis in media-rich
artifacts drawn from popular culture. In her introductory essay, Kukkonen
(2011b) identifies the essential terms of metalepsis as worlds, boundaries and
transgressions along with their types, effects and functions; she also provides
a “basic matrix of types” applicable across media which allows for various
combinations of the direction (ascending or descending) and mode (rhetorical
or ontological) of metalepsis as well as for horizontal or intertextual metalepsis
—a matrix that overarches the various models developed in the volume.

On the basis of an exhaustive typology developed out of this matrix, Limoges

(2011) demonstrates the strong potential of animation film for illusionistic
extradiegetic transgressions, both ascending and descending. This is unlike
comics, where the “gutter” between panels that governs the page layout offers
possibilities of foregrounding such that a character might lift the corner of a
page to hide an object in the image (or throw it out), thus highlighting the
production process through ontological metalepsis (Kukkonen 2011a). Klimek
(2011: 26–7) observes that if metalepsis in the performing arts has a potential
for spilling over into the audience’s “real” world, this is not the case in
narrative fictions, where it can occur only between levels within the artifact (on
metalepsis in film, theater, the visual arts and picture books, see Klimek 2010:
73 ff.). Where Klimek considers horizontal “intertextual” transgressions not to
be metaleptic, Feyersinger (2011), studying trans-world “crossovers” in TV
series and spinoffs in which characters and situations are carried over from
one show to another, sees crossovers and metalepses as two poles along a
spectrum of world-connecting devices that share certain elements and effects.
As shown by these and other essays, technical innovations brought in by the
mass media and, more recently, by the digital technologies, have contributed
significantly to the use of metalepsis and to the diversity of metaleptic effects
in the popular culture corpus.

Metalepsis as Paradox

At the heart of metalepsis is transgression of the “sacred boundary” between

the world of the telling and the world of the told. In the logic of representation,
levels of existence are distinct, and their violation constitutes a paradox. In
literary theory such paradox is often understood in the everyday sense of a
statement contrary to received opinion or belief, something “unnatural.” In the
technically logical sense, however, paradox is an issue that arises in self-
reference, as illustrated by the liar’s paradox, where the principle that a
proposition cannot be both true and false at the same time is contradicted
(Epimenides, a Cretan, says “All Cretans are liars”)—a mind-bender also
conveyed visually by the Möbius strip, Klein’s bottle and Escher’s drawings.
Hofstadter (1979) examines various manifestations of this paradox in modern
mathematics and science, even providing a recursive dialogue (103–26) that
illustrates the problem of metalepsis, although the term appears nowhere in
the book.

It is important to note that paradox has been integrated into the poetics of
postmodernist fiction, a type of writing which, according to McHale (1987),
“foregrounds ontological issues of text and world” (27). Adopting an ontology
taken from possible worlds theory (33–6), McHale recasts Genette’s narrative
levels in terms of ontological levels, and he goes on to describe metalepsis as
“the ontological dimension of recursive embedding” (120). Metalepsis is
characterized, on the one hand, as a “short circuit” between the “fictional
world and the ontological level occupied by the author” (213), a special case
which, as observed by Klimek (2010: 57), corresponds to Genette’s author’s
metalepsis. On the other hand, the violation of narrative levels in more
complex forms of metalepsis is identified with the “Strange Loop,” a
phenomenon that occurs “whenever, by moving upwards (or downwards)
through the levels of some hierarchical system, we unexpectedly find
ourselves right back where we started,” and also with a subcategory of the
Strange Loop, the “Tangled Hierarchy”: “when what you presume are clean
hierarchical levels take you by surprise and fold back in a hierarchy-violating
way” (Hofstadter 1979: 10, 691; qtd. in McHale 1987: 119). Conceptually
speaking, however, short circuits and strange loops/tangled hierarchies are
not of the same order.

In a refinement of this model, Wolf (1993: 349–72), considering the forms of

disturbance of mimetic illusion caused by the failure to observe ontological
boundaries, sets the “contamination” of extra-fictional reality with textually
produced fiction off from that of inner-fictional boundaries. Unlike in McHale
(1987), where metalepsis, short circuit and strange loop are employed
synonymously, here it is only the latter, inner-fictional form that gives rise to
metalepsis, also called “narrative short circuit” by Wolf, a metafictional
technique whose effect is to trigger “a sudden collapse of the narrative
system” (358). Narrative short circuits appear punctually either (a) between
the extradiegetic and the intradiegetic levels or (b) between the intradiegetic
and one or more hypodiegetic levels, although no distinction is made between
descending and ascending metalepsis as discussed in the previous section.
To these simple forms of metalepsis is added a complex form in which the
previous two types are combined, setting in motion a recurrent Möbius-strip-
like contamination of levels, as would be the case of a first-person narrator
confronted with her own fictionality on reading a text about herself.

It is against the backdrop of a critical discussion of McHale, Wolf and other

authors that Klimek sets out a theory of metalepsis, not in terms of ontology
but rather of paradox. All metalepses, she argues, are paradoxical, but not all
forms of paradox (e.g. temporal, spatial) are metaleptic. The “short circuit”
metaphor is rejected and with it the idea that metalepsis “collapses the
narrative system,” thereby systematically disrupting aesthetic illusion. Klimek’s
conception is in fact closely aligned with Genette’s original definition with
which, not surprisingly, the expansion of metalepsis from “figure” to “fiction”
(cf. “All fictions are woven through with metalepses”; Genette 2004: 131) is
judged incompatible (Klimek 2010: 36).

The typology of metalepsis developed out of these considerations makes no

reference to the rhetorical vs. ontological paradigm or to the reality vs. fiction
divide evoked by many of the transmedial approaches. Rather, three major
types are identified: (1) descending metalepses, passing (a) from
extradiegesis to intra- or hypodiegesis, or (b) from intradiegesis to
hypodiegesis; (2) ascending metalepses, going in the opposite direction; (3)
complex forms including (a) Möbius-strip narratives in which (1) and (2) fold
recursively onto one another, the intradiegesis turning out to be the
extradiegesis and vice versa, and (b) tangled heterarchy, where the
representing and the represented are not hierarchically ordered (in computer
science heterarchy is “a structure in which there is no single ‘highest level’”;
Hofstadter 1979: 134) (Klimek 2010: 69–72; 2011).

It will be noted that with the introduction of complex forms this typology rules
out horizontal metalepsis (e.g. Wagner 2002; Meyer-Minnemann 2005;
Schlickers 2005; Lang 2006; Thoss 2015). This is due to the fact that the
representation of parallel worlds belonging to the same level entails no
transgression between the world of the telling and the world of the told
(Klimek 2010: 68). Moreover, the complex forms, although compatible with
Genette’s original treatment of metalepsis, were not foreseen by him, or in any
case they were nearly ruled out ([1983] 1988: 88). Finally, underlying Klimek’s
system is an explicit theory of metareference which incorporates paradox: (a)
gradated metareference demanding a strict separation of sign levels; (a.1)
infinite metareference, a gradated and never-ending circular repetition; (a.2)
recursive metareference, e.g. mirror within a mirror; (b) paradoxical
metareference, as in Escher’s Drawing Hands (cf. Fricke 2003, 2011: 256–57;
Klimek 2010: 51, 330 ff.).

Effects

As research on metalepsis has advanced, so too has reflection on the

conditions, diversity and nuances of its effects. Noted early on for the
strangeness of its comic or fantastic effects or the mixing of humor and the
fantastic and also as something “troubling,” metalepsis has been
characterized as “a figure of the creative imagination” (see § 1 above).
Between its deconstructive “mutinous nature as a narrative device that
disrupts narrative structure” (Malina 2002: 132) and its immersive qualities
there lies a store of positions on these issues.

For a starter, it is more likely that metalepsis will be encountered in the

baroque, in romanticism and in postmodernism than in classicism or realism,
and also that it will be employed in the comic and fantastic genres more
readily than in tragedy or in lyric poetry (Pier & Schaeffer 2005: 10–1).
Moreover, the effects will vary widely according to the media and
combinations of media in which metaleptic devices are employed (e.g.
Wolf 2005; Kukkonen & Klimek eds. 2011).

The anti-illusionistic quality of metalepsis has never been called into question.
Even so, there remains the thorny question of knowing under what conditions
it is illusion-breaking or illusion-building. Metalepsis has been described by
Wolf as a radically disruptive metafictional device that prevents immersion and
aesthetic illusion (Wolf 1993: 356 ff., 2005: 103; Wolf → Illusion
(Aesthetic) [3]). But in consideration of his work on metareference, he has
more recently come to the view that similar metaleptic devices may, subject to
“filter factors” such as the intracompositional makeup of the work, generic
frames and habituation, produce different effects and possibly contribute to
immersion: “the feeling of experientially participating in a representation”
(Wolf 2013: 121). Schaeffer (2005) takes a different view of the matter. From
a cognitive perspective, metalepsis, as a representational technique, is not
incompatible with immersion but serves, rather, as an “emblem” of the “split
state” of immersion: “the dynamics of immersion involves metaleptic mental
operations in the most literal sense of the term” (333; for a critique, cf.
Wolf 2013: 121, n. 14; on metalepsis and “double-scope” cognitive blending,
see Feyersinger 2012). Klimek (2010), focusing on the device itself, looks at
the issues in the context of descending and ascending metalepses. The
former, both as production (cf. author’s metalepsis) and as reception (cf.
reader immersion), tends toward aesthetic illusion (231–33) whereas the latter
(when for instance a character bursts out of the fiction) postulates a higher
and purely fictitious reality (247–49).

It is also possible to consider the effects of metalepsis through the lens of

defamiliarization. Metalepsis was never identified as such by the Russian
formalists, but it can be associated with one of their key concepts: “laying bare
the device.” Rather than a rhetorical figure, the violation of ontological
boundaries or a paradox, and rather than culminating in the collapse of
narrative categories or in the breaking of mimetic illusion, metalepsis
conceived as laying bare the device enters the work’s composition
via sjužet construction: more even than digressions, parallelisms, etc., it
highlights the artificial relations between “form” and “material,”
between sjužet and fabula, and thus supports the idea that art is “made” of
devices. These principles were set out particularly in Šklovskij ([1921] 1990).
This famous essay discusses the digressions and various techniques
employed in Tristram Shandy for conflating narration and action in a
conspicuous way so as to defamiliarize the objects of perception in the
process of sjužet construction, compelling the reader to a heightened
awareness of the constructedness of narrative (cf. Schmid 2005, [2005] 2010:
176–79).

Related Concept: Mise en abyme

Mise en abyme is founded on a relation of similarity between the embedded

and embedding stories—“simple,” “infinite” or “aporetic” reduplication or
reflection, according to Dällenbach (1977)—rather than on transgression.
Although both phenomena are dependent on levels, they must not be
confused. Even so, there is a significant coincidence between the aporetic
form (“fragment supposedly including the work in which it is included”; 51), or
what Cohn ([2005] 2012) termed “pure mise en abyme,” and metalepsis. The
two are bound together by the troubling effect produced on the reader by the
“unacceptable and insistent hypothesis that the extradiegetic is perhaps
always diegetic and that the narrator and his narratees—you and I—perhaps
belong to the same narrative” (Genette [1972] 1980: 236). Such a mise en
abyme, triggering a sense of vertigo, is the product of a Möbius-strip-like
metalepsis, or paradoxical iteration occurring in the system of metareference
(cf. Fricke 2003, 2011: 257).

Topics for Further Investigation

More than a rhetorical flourish, metalepsis raises the question of the porosity
of levels and boundaries in narratives and in other cultural representations,
but not their dissolution. Research in recent years has expanded the scope of
the phenomenon considerably and contributed to significant refinement of
scholarly understanding of its workings and modalities. Among topics
requiring additional study are the following: (a) relative weight of local vs.
global effects of metalepsis; (b) metalepsis and fictionality
(breaking/intensification of mimetic illusion, immersion, etc.); (c) the role of
metalepsis in trans-/intermediality with regard to multimedia and to popular
culture; (d) metalepsis and related practices in historical poetics going back to
ancient narrative as well as a historical inventory of artistic movements and
corpuses employing these devices; (e) the rhetorical potential of metalepsis.

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Further Reading

 Hofer, Roberta (2011). "Metalepsis in Live Performance: Holographic

Projections of the Cartoon Band 'Gorillaz' as a Means of Metalepsis." K.
Kukkonen & S. Klimek (eds.). Metalepsis in Popular Culture. Berlin/New
York: de Gruyter, 232–251.
 Ryan, Marie-Laure (2005). “On the Theoretical Foundations of
Transmedial Narratology.” J. Ch. Meister (ed.). Narratology beyond
Literary Criticism: Mediality, Disciplinarity. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1–23.
 Ryan, Marie-Laure (2006). “Narrative, Media, and Modes.” Avatars of
Story. Minneapolis/London: U of Minnesota P, 1–30.
 Schuldiner, Michael (2002). "Writer's Block and the Metaleptic Event in
Art Spiegelman's Graphic Novel, Maus." Studies in American Jewish
Literature 21, 108–115.
 Thon, Jan-Noël (2008). "Zur Metalepse im Film." H. Birr, M. S. Reinerth
& J.-N. Thon (eds.). Probleme filmischen Erzählens. Berlin: LIT, 85–
110.

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