Métalepse et image de soi de l’auteur dans le récit de fiction

The permeability of the borders between the inside and the outside of fiction invites us to combine narratological concepts, as “implied author” and “unreliable narrator” concentrated on the internal mechanisms of the text, and the concept of “discursive ethos” opening the text toward its external source, the author. The key concept of this article - the “metalepsis” - defined here as the intrusion of one narrative level into another - emphasizes the special relationship between the author and his work in the narrative. The combination of these methodological tools offers an analytical approach facilitating the apprehension of the unstable auctorial ethos in the fictional text.