DFG-Netzwerk "Diachronic Metalepsis"

Over the past two decades, metalepses (transgressions of narrative levels) have experienced a critical boom in different disciplines of literary studies, both modern and premodern. What makes this topic so attractive is the fact that metaleptic phenomena permit us to discuss key concepts of narrating. What exactly does ‘narrating’ mean and how does a narrator act? On which levels does narrating take place and how are these levels connected? How does the storyworld relate to reality? By transgressing real or imagined boundaries, metalepses shed light on a central objective of narrative texts: to bridge the border between the narrated and the narrating world. In this way, metalepses emerge as inherently (at least implicitly) metanarrative devices.