Antimetalepsis is a rhetorical and poetic device wherein a speaker or narrator appropriates a voice, perspective, or utterance that logically belongs to another entity—such as a deity, historical figure, or even the reader—and speaks through it as if it were their own, thereby collapsing boundaries between subjectivities; this technique interrogates authority, authorship, and identity, appearing in dramatic monologues like those of Robert Browning or in postmodern works where the poet channels multiple discourses simultaneously.

Antimetalepsis occurs when a metaphor’s vehicle and tenor switch roles mid-poem, creating recursive or layered meaning; advanced technique best used for philosophical or self-reflexive themes.