proleptic
- adjective
- /prəˈlɛptɪk/
- Literature
:
proléptico
- In his novel, the author uses a proleptic style to hint at the tragic events that will unfold later.
Examples
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It's the proleptic knowledge, the knowledge looking ahead to the future, that the author of a grand narrative is in the sole position of giving.
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This account of interwar culture fits into a much broader historical trajectory; moreover, this cultural condition prefigures the nuclear dread of the Cold War and, I would add, the similarly proleptic, anticipatory form of mourning typical of climate change fiction.
Academic text (2018) -
This name would have been, however, proleptic and anticipatory.
Academic text (2016) -
Catastrophe becomes proleptic.
Academic text (1991) -
In contrast to the Beaurepas cousins, readers can examine the meaning of their proleptic and analeptic readings.
Academic text (2018) -
Incarnational by definition, a Word Christology could give greater emphasis to God's proleptic transformation of human societies.
Academic text (2010) -
As such, it is a proleptic version of the core of the passage in which the Visionary becomes the transparent eyeball, a site that crosses nothing and all, full sight and the annihilation of sight.
Academic text (1997) -
This is an interesting proleptic moment, for a major part of the trade to which Fagin apprentices Oliver in London is the stealing of pocket handkerchiefs, potentially a hanging offense.
Academic text (2005) -
The close proximity of these verb forms relativizes their truth claims so that we can no longer be certain which preterite is securely past and which is premature or proleptic.
Academic text (1998) -
He goes on to say that this continual task of "catching up" with reality, linked to the proleptic expectation brought to all exchanges with others, is what protects us from the dreariness of an overly presumptuous habit.
Academic text (1999)
Synonyms
33
7.4
Saying or showing what will happen in the future, often as if from a spiritual source
16
8.9
Knowing about things before they happen
1
9.1
Saying that something will happen in the future, often by a religious person
Suggests or shows what will happen later in a vague, symbolic way
How Anticipatory
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
Proleptic comes from Greek parts pro- 'before' and -leptic from a root meaning 'take', and the pro- is the same 'before' you see in prologue, so it originally meant 'taken beforehand'. So a proleptic scene or hint shows something before it happens, which is why it means 'anticipating' or 'foreshadowing'.