Genettian Narrative Typology at Odds: Scrutiny of False Analepsis in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling

In the world of narratology today, Gérard Genette’s narrative typology is among the most annotated schemata and it is widely popular since his narrative theory seems to prevail over a great number of narratives in the whole history of literature, ranging from classic to modernist and postmodernist works. It is as if such works were following a prescribed scheme to expand and develop – which proves the universality of his narrative theory. Throughout this article, Genettian typology is discussed from a partially different perspective in one of the canonical British prose works in The Age of Sensibility. The dominance of Genettian typology in Tom Jones is undeniable as it shall be discussed how; however, a modification and manipulation of one of the anachronies – analepsis – and the introduction of a new type of analepsis – false analepsis – by Henry Fielding employed for the first time in the very period is the major focus of this article. In this study, false analepsis are justified by means of exemplification and multiple references to Tom Jones as the only case study of this article. Moreover, the impact of anachronies on this work is emphasized. Fielding’s work not only employs anachronies, but also introduces a new branch of anachronies, which is the very false analepsis as a form of anachrony.