The Metalepticon : a Computational Approach to Metalepsis

The technical term ‘metalepsis’ may not be well known outside narratology and narrative theory: the phenomenon denoted by it certainly is. Metalepses abound in representational art and often are the hallmark of particularly innovative works. Hence, when Gérard Genette introduced the term into the narratological debate in his Discours du récit the little more than two pages devoted to the topic surveyed an impressive range of literary works and authors: Cortazar, Vergil, Diderot, Sterne, Balzac, Proust, Pirandello, Genet, Robbe-Grillet. Indeed, Genette traced this literary ancistry way back to Plato’s Theaitetos,[1] thus combining his narratological definition of metalepsis with an (albeit sketchy) account of the phenomenon’s proliferation throughout the history of Western thought and literature.[2]