ABSTRACT
Chapter 4, ‘Discourse Deixis in Metalepsis’, builds on work in unnatural narratology and other fields to present a discourse deictic theory of metalepsis.
It demonstrates the theoretical logic and analytical value of distinguishing three types of metalepsis: metaleptic awareness, metaleptic communication, and metaleptic moves. This chapter then examines the discourse deictic mechanics of metalepsis in these three forms within John Barth’s Lost in the Funhouse (1988 [1968]), Brigid Brophy’s In Transit: A Heroi-Cyclic Novel (2002 [1969]), Robert Coover’s Pricksongs and Descants (2011 [1969], John Fowles’s The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1996 [1969]), B. S. Johnson’s Christie Malry’s Own Double-Entry (2001 [1973]), and Steve Katz’s The Exagggerations of Peter Prince (2017 [1968]). These analyses also draw on the concepts of counterparthood and transworld identity from Possible Worlds theory and explore how discourse deixis functions within their workings. Lastly, this chapter, considers narration as metaleptic communication, reading as a conceptual metaleptic move, and pseudo-authorial narrators and second-person protagonists as metaleptic counterparts of the author and reader.
