Horizontal metalepsis in narrative fiction

This article presents a paradoxical narrative device that is controversially discussed in narratology. Since the introduction of metalepsis into narratology by G & eacute;rard Genette in the "Discours du r & eacute;cit" (1972) - "Tous ces jeux manifestent [& mldr;] l'importance de la limite qu'ils s'ing & eacute;nient & agrave; franchir au m & eacute;pris de la vraisemblance, et qui est pr & eacute;cis & eacute;ment la narration (ou la repr & eacute;sentation) elle-m & ecirc;me; fronti & egrave;re mouvante mais sacr & eacute;e entre deux mondes: celui o & ugrave; l'on raconte, celui que l'on raconte" "All these games show [& mldr;] the importance of the boundary that they try so hard to cross, in defiance of verisimilitude, and which is precisely narration (or representation) itself; a moving but sacred boundary between two worlds: the world in which someone tells, and the world that someone tells" (my translation). - metalepsis was always modelled vertically. As early as 2005, Sabine Schlickers and Klaus Meyer-Minnemann proposed a horizontal modelling of this narrative device at a Paris conference on the metalepsis. In the following, I would like to take up this proposal once again, present the more recent criticism of this concept and then demonstrate the functioning of horizontal metalepsis using a series of examples from Argentinian literature and the visual arts.