Metalepsis

For the moth subgenus Metalepsis, see Cerastis.

Metalepsis (from Greek: μετάληψις) is a figure of speech in which a word or a phrase from figurative speech is used in a new context.

Examples

• "I've got to catch the worm tomorrow."
  • "The early bird catches the worm" is a common maxim, advocating getting an early start on the day to achieve success. The subject, by referring to this maxim, is compared to the bird; tomorrow, the speaker will awaken early in order to achieve success.

Quotes

For the nature of metalepsis is that it is an intermediate step, as it were, to that which is metaphorically expressed, signifying nothing in itself, but affording a passage to something. It is a trope that we give the impression of being acquainted with rather than one that we actually ever need. — Quintilian

But the sense is much altered & the hearer's conceit strangely entangled by the figure Metalepsis, which I call the farfet, as when we had rather fetch a word a great way off than to use one nearer hand to express the matter as well & plainer. — George Puttenham

In a metalepsis, a word is substituted metonymically for a word in a previous trope, so that a metalepsis can be called, maddeningly but accurately, a metonymy of a metonymy. — Harold Bloom

Narratology

In narratology (and specifically in the theories of Gerard Genette), a paradoxical transgression of the boundaries between narrative levels or logically distinct worlds is also called metalepsis.

"Perhaps the most common example of metalepsis in narrative occurs when a narrator intrudes upon another world being narrated. In general, narratorial metalepsis arises most often when an omniscient or external narrator begins to interact directly with the events being narrated, especially if the narrator is separated in space and time from these events."

"There are so many examples of forking-path and metaleptic narratives by now that my recommendations will have to seem arbitrary. One of the most thoroughly enjoyable constructions of enigmatic worlds within worlds is Nabokov's Pale Fire (1962). A good short text is Robert Coover's The Babysitter (1969). In film, a frequently referenced forking-path narrative is Peter Howitt's Sliding Doors (1998)."

"[In Tom] Stoppard's The Real Inspector Hound, the framing diegetic situation is here equally a theatre. In this fictional theatre a whodunnit is performed, witnessed by an audience which includes two theatre critics. In the course of the embedded performance these critics become paradoxically involved in the hypodiegetic play within a play, an involvement which even leads to the death of one of them. Thus, as in the case of Pirandello's Sei personaggi, the typical traits of a metalepsis can here also be recognized: a fictional representation consisting of several distinct worlds and levels, among which unorthodox transgression occur."

See also

• Catachresis
• Metonymy

Bibliography

• Kukkonen, Karin and Klimek, Sonja (eds.). Metalepsis in Popular Culture. (Narratologia, 28.) Berlin: De Gruyter 2011. ISBN 978-3-11-025278-1 ISSN 1612-8427