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It is traditionally maintained in structural linguistics that by cutting verbal signs off each other paradigmatically, and enchaining some of them against the others syntagmatically, language system makes a body of text signify a certain meaning which is sustainable through contextual fluctuations. In line with this Saussurian assumption, and in an attempt to ascertain the authorial intention in literary works, many literary scholars have been mistaken rhetorics for criticism, albeit under the rubrics of structural poetics. This article, however, dismisses the futile attempt to pull certain meanings out of literary masterpiecesfor the purpose of investigating the origins of textuality in any work—let it not be shelved as great literature or literary at all. It aims to demonstrate why such mechanical procedures, prevalent in rhetorical studies, cannot account for textuality beyond the question of the thematic unity of a work; wherein textuality and plurality of text are suppressed in favor of the integrity and entirety required for works of verbal art. To account for the extensive significance of text and the abundance of its possible readings, a seemingly heterogeneous body of texts (including a piece of a poem, an extract from an article, and a vignette) has been analyzed within a reader-oriented framework. Drawing on Roland Barthes (1981), Asgari Pashaei (1995) and Christian Metz (1982), I have tried to move away from rhetorics toward a more proper notion of literary criticism.     

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Metalepsis, in its narratological sense, is a trope in which an unnatural relationship is built between different levels of narrative. The natural relationship between narrative levels is formed by the act of narrating; a character from one level becomes the narrator of another. The term “Metalepsis of topic and illustration” can be coined to name a similar trope. This trope has been used for centuries in Persian poetry. Every Image comprises a topic and an illustration. The topic is what is being talked about and the illustration is what the topic is compared to. When several images are present along together, two different levels are distinguishable: the level of the topic and the level of illustration. The natural relationship between these two levels is similarity and any other relationship will result in metalepsis. As in the narratological metalepsis, there is always a paradox in the metalepsis of topic and illustration. The effect of these two kinds of metalepsis is also similar and can be humorous, fantastic, or a mixture of the two.