Metalepsis and the Fringe of Reality in Smollett’s Humphry Clinker

This chapter focuses on Tobias Smollett’s epistolary novel, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771), from a narrative point of view. Drawing on Gérard Genette's narratology, the chapter defines metalepsis as a transgression between narrative levels or between distinct fictional worlds. It thus explores a special metaleptic situation: the appearance of the author (Tobias Smollett) in the novel The Expedition of Humphry Clinker. The chapter shows how Smollett’s metalepses are parodic critiques of the authoritarian and authoritative claims made by classic omniscience. Smollett’s novel proves to be much more modern than expected from a canonised eighteenth-century novel.