Survival of the Fittest: Metalepsis and the Author Figure in Postmodern Fiction
Abstract
The separation of ontological and functional levels in fiction have conventionally been upheld by the often impregnable buttresses of diegetic levels. These signal the discrete separation between the author and his or her characters, between text and intertext, between one fictional world and the other, between reality and fantasy, fact and fiction. Contemporary works of fiction repeatedly undermine such distinctions, a practice that often lends itself to theoretical explorations of postmodernist poetics. By tracing a formerly unmarked causal link between two significant facets of postmodernist fiction –metalepsis and the author figure – this paper proposes to rethink the modernist-postmodernist divide. The two components addressed here pertain to seemingly distinct aspects of literary composition: metalepsis is the narrative device associated with the transgression of diegetic levels; the fictionalization of the author figure is a theoretically-charged theme explored in much contemporary fiction. Despite this evident disparity, it will be argued that the evolution of the author figure into the twenty-first century is contingent upon the gradual dissolution of the former.