Implied author
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The implied author is a concept of
All aspects of the text can be attributed to the design of the implied author—everything can be read as having meaning—even if the real author was simply "nodding" or a textual element was "unintentional". A story's apparent theme or implications (as evidenced within the text) can be attributed to the implied author even if disavowed by the flesh and blood author (FBA). [1]
History
Following the
In his 1961 book The Rhetoric of Fiction, Wayne C. Booth introduced the term implied author to distinguish the virtual author of the text from the real author. In addition, he proposed another concept, the career-author: a composite of the implied authors of all of a given author's works.[2] In 1978, Seymour Chatman proposed the following communication diagram to explain the relationship between real author, implied author, implied reader, and real reader:
- Real author → [Implied author → (Narrator) → (Narratee) → Implied reader] → Real reader
The real author and the real reader are flesh and blood parties that are extrinsic and accidental to narratives. The implied author, narrator, narratee, and implied reader are immanent to the text and are constructed from the narrative itself. In this diagram, the implied author is the real author’s persona that the reader assembles from their reading of the narrative.[3] Although the implied author is not the real author of a work, he or she is the author that the real author wants the reader to encounter in the reading of a work. Similarly, the implied reader is not the real reader of a text; he or she is the reader that the implied author imagines when writing a text.
- zero focalization
- The implied author is omniscient, seeing and knowing all; "vision from behind".
- internal focalization
- The implied author is a character in the story, speaking in a monologue with his impressions; "narrative with point of view, reflector, selective omniscience, restriction of field" or "vision with".
- external focalization
- The implied author talks objectively, speaking only of the external behavior of the characters in the story; "vision from without".
Mieke Bal argued that Genette's focalizations did not describe the implied author, but only the narrator of the story.
Seymour Chatman, in his book Coming to Terms, posits that the act of reading is "ultimately an exchange between real human beings [that] entails two intermediate constructs: one in the text, which invents it upon each reading (the implied author), and one outside the text, which construes it upon each reading (the implied reader)". Because the reader cannot engage in dialogue with the implied author to clarify the meaning or emphasis of a text, Chatman says, the concept of the implied author prevents the reader from assuming that the text represents direct access to the real author or the fictional speaker.[6] Chatman also argues for the relevance of the implied author as a concept in film studies, a position that David Bordwell disputes.
Hans-Georg Gadamer also considered the text as a conversation with the reader.
Bibliography
- ISBN 0691020337)
- ISBN 0300016921)
- ISBN 0374521360)
- ISBN 091514509X)
- ISBN 0192892614)
- ISBN 0801492599)
- ISBN 0802078060)
- ISBN 0801497361)
- ISBN 082647697X)
- ISBN 4845905744)
References
- ^ Follett, Taylor (November 28, 2016). "Fantastic Beasts: Amazing Writing and Terrible Representation". Daily Californian.
- OCLC 185632325.
- ^ Seymour Chatman, Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1978), 151
- ^ Genette, Gérard (1988). Narrative Discourse Revisited. Translated by Lewin, Jane E. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. p. 64.
- ISBN 978-0-8014-9535-9.
- ISBN 978-0-8014-9736-0.