Wie mobil ist der Erzähler? Beobachtungen zu metaleptischen Szenenwechseln in Antike, Mittelalter und Renaissance

In a type of metalepsis common from antiquity to modern times, the narrator puts himself in direct contact with the narrated world by visualising the change of scene as a movement between two places or (groups of) characters. This article concentrates on the spatial aspect of this contact and investigates the question to what extent the narrator claims mobility in the narrated space. As the examples discussed show, there are striking differences between the epochs, which are significant for a historicised understanding of storytelling in general. While ancient (i.e., Greek and Latin) narrators sometimes transfer themselves to specific places, medieval vernacular scene shift formulae usually refer to characters, who are envisaged in a performative co-presence with the narrator and the addressees. This situation changes in the Italian Renaissance (Boccaccio, Ariosto), when narrators start to emphasise their mobility again, which they simultaneously enrich with new implications.