The paper examines the phenomenon of narrative metalepsis in terms of its vivid implementation in Expressionist prose. It is argued that in Meyrink’s works (The White Dominican and The Angel of the West Window), a special metaleptic type termed as “mental metalepsis” propels the dialectical relationship between the Ancestor and his Descendant whose interactions consistently demonstrate the convergence of uncompromising struggle and profound unity

Lysanets, Y. V.

Лисанец, Юлия Валериевна

Лисанець, Юлія Валеріївна

Electronic Archive of the Ukrainian Medical Stomatological Academy

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УДК 821.112.2(436)-32 Майрінк.09 
Література зарубіжних країн 
Yulia Lysanets, PhD 
Ukrainian Medical Stomatological Academy, Poltava 
THE EXPRESSIONIST TRANSFUSION: METALEPSIS IN GUSTAV 
MEYRINK’S NOVELS 
Problem definition and its relationship with scientific and practical tasks. 
Metalepsis is the “undermining of ontological axioms” [1, 100]; the “intentional 
paradoxical transgression of ontologically distinct worlds and/or levels” [2, 91]. 
Metaleptic disruption of narrative fabric provides the effacement of the seemingly 
impermeable frontiers between the levels of story (histoire) and narration (récit). The 
interfusion of narrative levels implies epistemological disorientation, “unsettling 
readers’ sense of their own reality” [3, 17]. Hence, this narrative technique is endowed 
with the strong capacity to challenge and modify the reader’s perception.  
Analysis of recent research and publications on the subject. Metalepsis, as 
defined by Gérard Genette in Narrative Discourse, is “any intrusion by the 
extradiegetic narrator or narratee into the diegetic universe, or the inverse” [4, 234-
235]. Since its first publication, Genette’s original definition of metalepsis has been 
substantially elaborated, especially in terms of its vast variety of typologies. For 
instance, Marie-Laure Ryan [5] introduces rhetorical and ontological metaleptic types 
in order to draw a distinction between commentaries and physical transgression of the 
narrative thresholds correspondingly. William Nelles [6] suggests differentiating 
between intrametalepsis and extrametalepsis due to the vector of the transgressive 
movement. Alice Bell and Jan Alber [7] discriminate between three types of 
metalepsis: ascending and descending (depending on their directions), as well as 
horizontal metalepsis which is described by John Pier [8] as “transfictionality”.  
The aim of the article. The unceasing fluctuations of psychic energy within 
the narratives of Gustav Meyrink’s novels suggest the existence of a special 
metaleptic type (hereinafter termed as “mental metalepsis”). I propose to consider the 
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metaleptic oscillation of narrative consciousness as a separate category within the 
expanding typology of metalepses. The aim of this paper is therefore to disclose the 
purpose of mental metalepsis, as well as to demonstrate its unique features, potential 
narrative functions and effective performance in Expressionist texts. This article 
focuses upon the metaleptic narratives of Gustav Meyrink’s Expressionist novels, 
primarily because this narrative technique has not yet been examined particularly 
within the framework of Expressionist prose, as well as due to the fact that metalepsis 
is vividly manifested in the literary texts of this author. 
The principal data of the study. Gustav Meyrink’s novel The White 
Dominican demonstrates the adventurous experiments with extradiegetic and 
intradiegetic levels of narrative configuration. Christopher Dovecote is the intra-
homodiegetic narrator who pursues his storyline in the “Diary of an Invisible Man”. 
This embedded diary traces the neophyte’s spiritual journey towards esoteric 
enlightenment. Meanwhile, the central figure of the frame story (the extra-
heterodiegetic narrator) is an explicit provider of the first-person narrative who is 
situated outside the chronotope and persistently mentions the literary profession as 
his regular occupation. From the first lines of the novel the extradiegetic narrator 
starts his direct reflections on the nature of the creative process. The narrator’s 
metanarrative remarks thematise “the act of narrating or factors of it” [9, 132] and 
thereby activate the figure of the reader, generating the receptive illusion of a 
dialogue: “X or Y has written a novel. What does that mean?” [10, 15]. The 
extradiegetic narrator discloses his intention to write about the life of a fictional 
person named Christopher Dovecote. However, Dovecote steadily captivates the 
imagination of the frame narrator. The extradiegetic narrator starts to doubt that 
Dovecote is actually a fictional character: “he certainly did not spring from my 
imagination, of that I remain convinced... I say that openly” [10, 16].  
The two narrators engage in a kind of mental struggle for dominance over the 
narration. The frame narrator is overwhelmed with the act of artistic creativity which 
he cannot control any more: “Am I really the one who is “creating” this work or is 
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my imagination merely some kind of receiver for supernatural communications? 
Something like what is called, in the sphere of wireless telegraphy, an aerial?” [10, 
16]. Gradually, the intradiegetic narrator “breaks loose” from the embedded story: 
“What is one to say when one’s hand, usually such a willing tool of the mind, 
suddenly refuses to write the name of the hero of the story one has thought up, and 
insists on choosing a different one instead?” [10, 15].  
The frame narrator makes the conclusion which is fundamental in the context 
of the Expressionist philosophy: the intradiegetic and extradiegetic narrators must be 
bound with a kind of mysterious kinship: “I might have been this Christopher 
Dovecote in an earlier existence” [10, 18]. Dovecote embodies the unconscious 
creative impulse of the extradiegetic narrator, the “autonomous psychic complex” 
which lives an independent mental life. As Carl Gustav Jung asserts, the work of art 
is the product of infinite experience of a “collective man”: “Art is a kind of innate 
drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument. The artist is not a 
person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to 
realize its purposes through him” [11, 101]. Likewise, in Meyrink’s novel, the 
narrator is aware of his mission: he is actually the “tool” of creation, governed and 
guided by his literary product. The blurring of different ontological dimensions 
provides the paradoxical dynamics of Meyrink’s novel: the writer creates the book; 
however, the work of art in exactly the same way develops and configures the artist.  
Eventually, the extradiegetic narrator admits the final victory of Dovecote and 
completely surrenders to his will. Christopher literally replaces the consciousness of 
the extradiegetic narrator and confidently launches his own narrative, starting with 
“Christopher Dovecote’s first revelation” [10, 19]. Thus, the intradiegetic narration 
imperceptibly “floods” the extradiegetic level. It is remarkable that the frame 
narrative is asymmetric: the extradiegetic narrator does not appear anymore; he is 
completely assimilated by his forefather. In this context, Meyrink incorporates into 
the discourse of the novel the words of John the Baptist: “He must increase, but I 
must decrease” (John 3:30) which acquire special significance in the context of the 
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author’s conception: “The one that must increase is our Founding Father, but I must 
decrease!” [10, 131]. The relationship between the Ancestor and his Descendant is 
antinomic and still interdependent: “the night of your winter solstice is the day of my 
resurrection” [10, 87]. The novel demonstrates the blurring of boundaries between the 
outer world and the inner world of a person: “Thou become me, and I become Thou” 
[10, 87]. In this context, it is relevant to refer to the observations of Richard Murphy 
as to the “deconstructive” moment of the Expressionist art: “it effaces the boundaries 
between the external and the internal, the real and the imaginary”, as well as 
“between subject and object” [12, 119]. The monistic mysticism of Gustav Meyrink 
results in the complete dissolution of the narrator within the universal “I”. 
The intradiegetic narrator of The Angel of the West Window also entirely 
replaces the consciousness of the extradiegetic narrator. The novel focuses on the life 
of the Elizabethan magus John Dee, the alchemist’s spiritual transmutations on the 
way toward immortality. It is notable that the heroes of the novel manage to live in 
different temporal planes within the coherent narration. The narrator of the frame 
story easily “plunges” into the diegesis – the world of John Dee; the characters are 
mentally projected onto the plane of distant past by means of magic, as well as 
through imagination: “I found myself in the grip of a bizarre fancy: I have already 
experienced all this, right down to the last detail, so many – how many? – years 
ago…” [13, 164]. In this context, the author skillfully introduces a pun with the word 
“imagine” (German: “einbilden”). Meyrink splits the lexeme into the prefix “ein” 
which denotes the inward direction, and the root “Bild”, i.e. “image”. Based on these 
considerations, the writer endeavors to blur the boundaries of the conventional word 
perception: Meyrink reconsiders the verb “sich einbilden” through emphasizing its 
literal meaning: “to enter the image”. This is exactly the way the consciousness of the 
intradiegetic narrator is displayed: it seeks to “enter”, to “twist into” the image of the 
extradiegetic narrator, to replace his identity.  
Thus, the intradiegetic narrative is a powerful energy field which becomes an 
active opponent in the process of reading. In The Angel of the West Window, Baron 
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Müller (the extra-homodiegetic narrator) reads the manuscripts of his distant ancestor 
John Dee (the intra-homodiegetic narrator), and eventually merges with the image of 
his forefather. As Kurt Pinthus [14] observes, Expressionism was primarily the art of 
masses which sought to break any mental and social barriers between people. This art 
aspired to ultimate generalization and archetypization, to the reconstruction of the 
unifying element. Having dissolved in his ancestor, Baron Müller becomes the 
prolongation of John Dee and achieves the transcendent breakthrough to his primal 
essence. This is the way the hero manages to retrieve the divine component of his 
soul (which is actually the principal objective of Expressionism). The metaleptic 
transgression is indispensible and inevitable: the extradiegetic narrator needs the 
intradiegetic one in order to feel the global involvement, cherished by the 
Expressionists; the intradiegetic narrator, in his turn, needs the extradiegetic one in 
order to fulfill himself in the Descendant. The heroes embark on a paradoxical act of 
mutual constitution, launching each other into existence: the descendent is being 
formed by the ancestor and vice versa, exactly as the “drawing hands” at Maurits 
Cornelis Escher’s metaleptic lithograph of the same name.  
Thus, the boundaries between the narrative universes in The White Dominican 
and The Angel of the West Window turn to the permeable membranes: the 
extradiegetic narrator can intervene into the diegesis, while diegesis “floods” the 
world of the discourse. This “transgressive” strategy seems to be consonant with the 
considerations of the Viennese Expressionist Paul Hatvani [15] who advocated the 
artistic “I” which sought to “flood” the external world. In both novels the 
intradiegetic levels are represented as mysterious texts which possess powerful magic 
properties and strive to capture their recipients in the process of reading. The 
Expressionist narrative deprives the reader of the possibility of relying on the 
inherited cosmology: instead, it seeks to “unfold”, to “break out” by means of 
metalepsis. 
Research findings and challenges in the examined area. Mental metalepsis 
in Gustav Meyrink’s novels efficiently triggers the principal ideas of Expressionist 
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literature: the effacement of frontiers between literary discourse and reality; erosion 
of the subject-object opposition; and finally, disintegration of consciousness. The 
infinite transgressions of narrative boundaries launch the paradoxical metamorphoses 
of the Artist and the Work of Art; the mystical transformations of the Ancestor and 
the Descendant. The extradiegetic and intradiegetic narrators get involved in an 
extraordinary process of mutual creation and fulfillment. The narrative levels are 
interdependent, interrelated and co-present; their interchangeable nature embodies the 
blurring of such oppositions as “external / internal”, “textual plane / non-textual 
world”. It has been demonstrated that mental metalepsis as one of the main narrative 
strategies in Gustav Meyrink’s novels undermines the conventions in a purely 
Expressionist way.  
The ontological interpenetration of extradiegetic and intradiegetic narrative 
levels eliminates the opposition between subject and object, facilitates the 
Expressionist erosion of boundaries between literary discourse and non-textual reality. 
Therefore, it seems quite relevant to proceed investigating other literary works of 
Expressionism in terms of metalepsis and its specific features.  
 
Література 
1. Fludernik M. An Introduction to Narratology / M. Fludernik. – New York : 
Routledge, 2009. – 215 p. 
2. Wolf W. Metalepsis as a Transgeneric and Transmedial Phenomenon / W. Wolf // 
Narratology beyond Literary Criticism : Mediality, Disciplinarity [Ed. 
J.C. Meister]. – Berlin : Walter de Gruyter, 2005. – P. 83–107.  
3. Malina D. Breaking the Frame : Metalepsis and the Construction of the Subject / 
D. Malina. – Columbus : Ohio State University Press, 2002. – 255 p.  
4. Genette G. Narrative Discourse : An Essay in Method / G. Genette. – New York : 
Cornell University Press, 1980. – 270 p. 
5. Ryan M.L. Metaleptic Machines / M.L. Ryan // Semiotica. – 2004. – 150(1–4). –  
P. 439–469. 
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6. Nelles W. Frameworks : Narrative Levels and Embedded Narratives / W. Nelles. 
– New York : Lang, 1997. – 290 p.  
7. Bell A. Ontological Metalepsis and Unnatural Narratology / A. Bell, J. Alber // 
Journal of Narrative Theory. – 2012. – 42(2). – P. 166–192. 
8. Pier J. Metalepsis / J. Pier // Handbook of Narratology [Eds P. Hühn, J. Pier]. – 
Berlin : Walter de Gruyter, 2010. – P.190–203. 
9. Nünning A. Metanarration als Lakune der Erzähltheorie : Definition, Typologie 
und Grundriß einer Funktionsgeschichte metanarrativer Erzähleräußerungen / 
A. Nünning // Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik. – 2001. – 26(2). – 
P. 125–164. 
10. Meyrink G. The White Dominican / G. Meyrink. – Cambs : Dedalus Ltd., 1994. – 
310 p. 
11. Jung C.G. The Spirit in Man : Art and Literature / C.G. Jung. – London : 
Routledge, 1984. – 158 p. 
12. Murphy R. Theorizing the Avant-Garde : Modernism, Expressionism, and the 
Problem of Postmodernity / R. Murphy. – Cambridge : Cambridge University 
Press, 1999. – 252 p. 
13. Meyrink G. The Angel of the West Window / G. Meyrink. – CA : Ariadne Press, 
1991. – 370 p. 
14. Pinthus K. Vorwort / K. Pinthus // Menschheitsdämmerung. Ein Dokument des 
Expressionismus [Ed. K. Pinthus]. – Berlin : Ernst Rowohlt, 1920. – P. 7–35. 
15. Hatvani P. Versuch über den Expressionismus / P. Hatvani // Theorie des 
Expressionismus. – Stuttgart : Philipp Reclam, 1994. – P. 68–73. 
 
Lysanets Yu. The Expressionist Transfusion: Mental Metalepsis in Gustav 
Meyrink’s Novels 
Summary. The paper examines the phenomenon of narrative metalepsis in 
terms of its vivid implementation in Expressionist prose. It is argued that in Meyrink’s 
works (The White Dominican and The Angel of the West Window), a special 
8 
 
metaleptic type termed as “mental metalepsis” propels the dialectical relationship 
between the Ancestor and his Descendant whose interactions consistently 
demonstrate the convergence of uncompromising struggle and profound unity.  
Keywords: Expressionism, metalepsis, narrator 
 
Лисанець Ю.В. Експресіоністичне взаємопроникнення: Металепсис у 
романах Густава Майрінка 
 Анотація. У статті розглядається наративний металепсис з точки зору 
його яскравого втілення в експресіоністичній прозі. У романах Густава 
Майрінка “Білий Домініканець” і “Ангел західного вікна” виокремлено 
специфічний для експресіонізму тип металепсису, який визначається як 
“ментальний”. Зазначений тип металепсису відтворює діалектичний 
взаємозв’язок між Пращуром і Нащадком: поєднання безкомпромісної 
боротьби і глибинної єдності.  
Ключові слова: експресіонізм, металепсис, наратор 
 
Лисанец Ю.В. Экспрессионистическое взаимопроникновение: 
Металепсис в романах Густава Майринка 
Аннотация. В статье рассматривается нарративный металепсис с точки 
зрения его яркого воплощения в экспрессионистической прозе. В романах 
Густава Майринка “Белый Доминиканец” и “Ангел западного окна” выделен 
специфический для экспрессионизма тип металепсиса, который определяется 
как “ментальный”. Выделенный тип металепсиса воспроизводит 
диалектическую взаимосвязь между Предком и Потомком: сочетание 
бескомпромиссной борьбы и глубинного единства. 
Ключевые слова: экспрессионизм, металепсис, рассказчик 


The Expressionist Transfusion: Metalepsis in Gustav Meyrink’s Novels

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The Expressionist Transfusion: Metalepsis in Gustav Meyrink’s Novels

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