Irony & Narrative Commentary & Control in VL & adorno

[jbor]

on 21/6/03 1:20 AM, Tim Strzechowski at dedalus204 at attbi.com wrote:

> ("but there's probably a
> linguistic term for it as well"), the term "prolepsis" may not entirely
> pertain to what Pynchon is doing here.  My definition states: "a rhetorical
> figure in the anticipation, and answering or nullifying beforehand, of
> objections or opposing arguments."

Yes, it's a rhetorical figure, but it's also used frequently in literature:

http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/Figures/P/prolepsis.htm

It's actually a very common feature of teacher discourse: "Today, children,
we're going to learn about ... " Another term which is used to describe the
way it positions the listener is "prospectiveness".

As I noted, and I misquoted, the second example ("These were to be the first
of several rude updates ... ") also refers back to the proleptic technique
Pynchon's narrator is using, quite probably in a self-conscious way. This is
an example of what is meant when postmodern texts are described as being
"reflexive", or self-referring.

best