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- Title
Eating Up the Plot: "Ontological Metalepsis" in Apuleius's Tales of Aristomenes and Diophanes.
- Authors
ULRICH, JEFFREY P.
- Abstract
Though critics of Apuleius's Metamorphoses have long recognized how inset tales can reverberate in the larger narrative structure in interesting ways, they have overlooked how the direction of influence is often reversed. This article analyzes how elements of the frame narrative in the Met. seep into the secondary diegetic level of inset tales at two vital interpretative junctures. First, Aristomenes' tale in book 1 is modeled chiastically on Lucius's initial refusal to rationalize an incredible fabula. Then, in a secondary replication, Milo's tale of Diophanes incorporates verbal and conceptual resonances of both the opening frame narrative and the initial inset tale. This maneuver between diegetic frames, which I label "ontological metalepsis," represents a Platonic narratological strategy to engage readers by implicating them in the deceptions of fiction.
- Publication
TAPA, 2022, Vol 152, Issue 1, p243
- ISSN
2575-7180
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1353/apa.2022.0012