METALEPSIS AND THE METAREFERENTIAL POTENTIAL OF DUŠAN RADOVIĆ’SRADIO PLAYHOW BAD WORDS CAME ABOUT
Authors:   University of NišFaculty of PhilosophyDepartment of Communicology and JournalismNiš, Serbia, Petković Velibor V. 
Published: May 2022

Metalepsis and metareference are not new concepts in literary theory, but thanks to the hypermediation of contemporary culture, they have acquireda broader meaning that transcends intertextual relations. Metalepsis originally belongs to rhetoric where it denotesany kind of permutation, yetin the sphere of narratology it isunderstood as "the use of one word instead of another by transferring the meaning [...] a synonym ofboth metonymy and metaphor" (Genette 2006: 6). From Aristotle who reduced metalepsis to analogy and the gift "to notice well what is similar" (Aristotle 2008: 1459a),bydevelopment of media that not only depict but also create reality, we have come tometalepsis as a figure that unites author and work, connects the reader with the narration andbybroadening themeaning leads to the metadiegetic breakingdownof the boundaries between fiction and reality:"The limits of the use of metalepsis are set only by the recipient’s ability to understand it in the right way.If the author's intention to go beyond the framework is too 79confusing, such a figure does not achieve its goal"(Petković 2018: 239). Narratologist Werner Wolf noticed the similarityof metalepsis, thus defined,with the notion of metareference, which establishes intertextual andintermedial connections in the context of reality oversaturated with media content, producing a new phenomenon of transmediality –the influence of form (McLuhan 1971: 41) on the narrative and its communication with recipients: „‘Metareference’ as a transmedial concept can in brief be explained as follows: metareference issues forth from a logically higher 'meta-level' within a given artefact or performance, and denotes any self-reflexive reference to, or comment on, media-related aspects of the given medial artefact or performance, of a particular medium or the media in general ”(Wolf 2011: c). Dan Sperber attributes to humans a “metarepresentational capacity” that is “no less fundamental than the faculty for language”, and he claims that “[u] nderstanding the character and the role of this [...] capacity might change our view of what it is to be human (Sperber according to Wolf 2009: 2). The narratologiststancethat the narrator's direct address to the reader is also a metareference, likean authorial metalepsis, places Dušan Radović, a Serbian writer andmedia author, among the most deserving for creating a literary work that is "a great stage presentation and is as such received"(Jovanović 2001: 83). The founderof modern Serbian children's literature, Radović is an example of an original creator as a "genius who prescribes a rule for art" (Kant 1991: 191). Radović's radio play How BadWords Came Aboutis a good example of involving listeners and readers in metareferential recognition and decoding of meaning in metaconsciousness, and thenina liberating emotional reaction that does not question "reality", but indicates the diversity and richness of its media-mediated meanings.