Aleksandr E. Efimenko, PhD in Philology, Lecturer, Department of the Russian Language, School of Foreign Languages of Lanzhou University, South Tianshui Road, 222, 730000, Lanzhou, China. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1922-7833
The purpose of the article is to identify the distinction between rhetorical metalepsis and ontological metalepsis and to create an updated classification of types of metalepsis. The example of metalepsis from O. de Balzac’s novel Lost Illusions as the narrator’s invasion to the diegetic world shows that this is only one of the types of metalepsis, namely, the 1 st type of rhetorical metalepsis in the function of announcing the transition from one diegetic line to another and at the same time of motivation of another narrative figure, the figure of analepsis. Analyzing other types of metalepsis identified by John Pier: auctorial metalepsis and ontological metalepsis of two types, the author of the article proves that both “auctorial metalepsis” and “ontological metalepsis” of the 1 st type are not independent types of metalepsis, but only the 2 nd and 3 rd types of rhetorical metalepsis. All of them are united by the verbal explicitness of the narrator, i.e. the explicitness of the communicative “narration event”. On the other hand, “ontological metalepsis of the 2 nd type” is proposed to be considered a fundamentally different type of metalepsis, in comparison with rhetorical metalepsis, containing the “invasion” of characters into the non-diegetic world, often combined with another narrative figure – the figure of prolepsis (foresight, or foreshadowing). Then it is concluded that there is probably only one independent function of metalepsis – to serve as an “baring the device” by reminding of the distinction between the referential “narrated event” and the communicative “narration event”.
figures; types of narrative metalepsis; motivation; narrator; diegesis.
10.08.2025
05.09.2025
Efimenko, A.E. “Figure of Narrative Metalepsis and Its Types”. Literaturovedcheskii zhurnal, no. 4(70), 2025, pp. 189–206. (In Russ.)
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