in medias res

Definitions

In the middle of a storyline.

not-comparable

Equivalents

Examples

“This novel begins in medias res.”

“As in a good epic, Ulysses begins in medias res and fills us in on Stephen's life since the end⟳ of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by flashback; and by the flashback of memory we are given the story of Molly's and Bloom's lives.”

“Homer begins in medias res. Then, well into the poem, he takes us back to tell⟳ us about the events that make⟳ up the beginning of the story. The Odyssey, for example, begins in the tenth year of Odysseus's wanderings; […]”

CEFR level