Schmid, Wolf: "Implied Author". 13 Feb 2012. Hühn, Peter et al. (eds.): the living handbbook of narratology. Hamburg: Hamburg University Press. http://hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de/lhn/index.php?title=Implied_Author&oldid=1586

Implied Author

Last modified: 28 August 2011

Wolf Schmid

   [1]
1 Definition

[2]
The concept of implied author refers to the author-image contained in a work and constituted by the stylistic, ideological, and aesthetic properties for which indexical signs can be found in the text. Thus, the implied author has an objective and a subjective side: it is grounded in the indexes of the text, but these indexes are perceived and evaluated differently by each individual reader (→ Reader). We have the implied author in mind when we say that each and every cultural product contains an image of its maker. The implied author is therefore not a category specific to verbal narration; it is, however, most often discussed in relation to linguistic texts, particularly in narratological contexts.

   [3]
2 Explication

[4]
The implied author has, after being introduced by Booth (Booth, Wayne C. ([1961] 1983). The Rhetoric of Fiction. Chicago: Chicago UP.1961), become a widespread term for a concept referring to the author contained, but not represented, in a work. This concept presents itself in various forms. Many users treat it as a term for an entity positioned between the real author (→ Author) and the fictive narrator (→ Narrator) in the communication structure of narrative works. Those adopting a critical stance, on the other hand, use it as a term for a reader-generated construct without an equivalent pragmatic role in the narrative work. In neither of these usages it is claimed that authors have the intention of creating an image of themselves in their works. Instead, the image is understood as one of the by-products that, in the sense of Bühler’s expressive function of language (Bühler, Karl (1918/20). “Kritische Musterung der neueren Theorien des Satzes.” Indogermanisches Jahrbuch 4, 1–20.1918/20), necessarily accompany each and every symbolic representation. Any of the acts that produced a work can function as an indexical sign bearing this indirect form of self-expression. In particular, these acts include the fabrication of a represented world; the invention of a story with situations, characters (→ Character), and actions; the selection of a particular action logic with a more or less pronounced world-view; the deployment of a narrator and his or her perspective (→ Perspective - Point of View); the transformation of the story into a narrative with the aid of techniques such as flattening simultaneous events into a linear progression and rearranging the order of episodes; and finally, the presentation of the narrative in particular linguistic (or visual) forms.

[5]
The concept has provoked questions above all because it has two dissimilar aspects. On the one hand, it has an objective component: the implied author is seen as a hypostasis of the work’s structure. On the other hand, it has a subjective component relating to reception: the implied author is seen as a product of the reader’s meaning-making activity. The relative importance of these two aspects varies depending on how the concept is used: essentialists insist on the importance of the work’s structure in defining the implied author, whereas constructivists highlight the role played by the freedom of interpretation. At any rate, it must be remembered that, like the readings of different recipients, the various interpretations of a single reader are each associated with a different implied author. Depending on the function a work is believed to have had according to a given reading, the implied author will be reconstructed as having predominantly aesthetic, practical, or ideological intentions.

   [6]
3 History of the Concept and its Study

   [7]
3.1 Russian Formalism, Czech and Polish Structuralism

[8]
The concept of the implied author was first formulated systematically against the background of Russian formalism. The formalist Tynjanov ([Tynjanov, Jurij ([1927] 1971). “On Literary Evolution.” L. Matejka & K. Pomorska (eds). Readings in Russian Poetics: Formalist and Structuralist Views. Cambridge: MIT P, 66–78.1927] 1971: 75) coined the term “literary personality,” which he uses to refer to a work’s internal abstract authorial entity. Vinogradov, a scholar of language and style with links to the formalist movement, began developing the concept of the author’s image (obraz avtora) in 1926 (Čudakov, Aleksandr (1992). “V. V. Vinogradov i ego teorija poėtiki.” Slovo―vešč’―mir. Moskva: Sovremennyj pisatel’, 219–64.1992: 237–42; Gölz Gölz, Christine (2009). “Autortheorien im slavischen Funktionalismus.” W. Schmid (ed). Slavische Erzähltheorie. Russische und tschechische Ansätze. Berlin: de Gruyter, 187–237.2009). He later defined this image as “the concentrated embodiment of the essence of the work,” as “drawing together the entire system of the linguistic structures of the characters in their correlation with the narrator or narrators, and thereby being the conceptual stylistic centre, the focus of the whole” (Vinogradov Vinogradov, Viktor (1971). “Problema obraza avtora v chudožestvennoj literature.” O teorii chudožestvennoj reči. Moskva: Izd. Vysšaja škola, 105–211.1971: 118).

[9]
In the 1970s, Russian thought on the idea of the author in the text was taken further by Korman (Rymar’ & Skobelev Rymar’, Nikolaj & Vladislav Skobelev (1994). Teorija avtora i problema chudožestvennoj dejatel’nosti. Voronež: Logos-Trast.1994: 60–102). Drawing on Vinogradov’s concept of the author’s image and Baxtin’s theory of dialogic interaction between different points of meaning, Korman (Korman, Boris (1977). “O celostnosti literaturnogo proizvedenija.” Izbrannye trudy po teorii i istorii literatury. Iževsk: Izd. Udmurtskogo un-ta, 119–28.1977) developed a method that he described as “systemically subject-based.” At its center lies the study of the author as the “consciousness of the work.” Korman’s approach differs from the theory of his predecessors in two ways. In Vinogradov’s writings, the author’s image is described stylistically and presented as the product obtained when the different styles brought into play in a work are drawn together; Korman, on the other hand, concentrates primarily on the relations between the various centers of consciousness in the work. And whereas Baxtin’s interest in the problem of the author’s image is primarily philosophical and aesthetic in nature, Korman’s deliberations are dominated by poetics. For Korman, the author in the work—which he calls the “conceived author”—is realized “in the correlation of all the constituent textual elements of the work in question with its subjects of speech, i.e. those subjects to whom the text is attributed, and the subjects of consciousness, i.e. those subjects whose consciousnesses are expressed in the text” (Korman Korman, Boris (1977). “O celostnosti literaturnogo proizvedenija.” Izbrannye trudy po teorii i istorii literatury. Iževsk: Izd. Udmurtskogo un-ta, 119–28.1977: 120).

[10]
In the context of Czech structuralism, Mukařovský (Mukařovský, Jan (1937). “L’individu dans l’art.” Deuxième congrès international d’esthétique et de la science de l’art. Paris: F. Alcan, vol. 1, 349–54.1937: 353) spoke at an early date of the author in the work as an “abstract subject that, contained in the structure of the work, is merely a point from which it is possible to survey the entire work at a glance.” In any given work, Mukařovský adds, it is possible to find indications pointing to the presence of this abstract subject, which must never be identified with an actual individual such as the author or the recipient. He writes that the subject of the work “in its abstraction […] merely makes it possible to project these personalities into the internal structure of the work” (353).

[11]
Taking the ideas of his teacher as his starting point, the second-generation Czech structuralist Červenka suggested that the “subject of the work,” or “personality”—the entity that Mukařovský called the “abstract subject”—is the “signified,” the “aesthetic object” of the literary work, the work itself being treated as an index in the Peircean sense (Červenka Červenka, Miroslav ([1969] 1978). “Das literarische Werk als Zeichen.” Der Bedeutungsaufbau des literarischen Werks. München: Fink, 163–83.1969). For Červenka, the “personality” thus defined embodies the principle by which all the semantic levels of the work are dynamically united, without forcing us to suppress the inner richness and personal color that points back to the concrete author.

[12]
At the beginning of Polish research on the subject of the work we find Sławiński (Sławiński, Janusz (1966). “O kategorii podmiotu lirycznego. Tezy referatu.” J. Trzynadłowski (ed). Wiersz i poezja. Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolinskich, 55–62.1966, Sławiński, Janusz ([1967] 1975). “Die Semantik der narrativen Äußerung.” Literatur als System und Prozeß. München: Nymphenburger, 81–109.1967), whose writings reflect the ideas of Vinogradov and Mukařovský. Where Vinogradov introduces the concept of the “author’s image,” Sławiński refers to the “subject of the creative acts” or the “maker of the rules of speech.” Balcerzan (Balcerzan, Edward (1968). “Styl i poetyka twórczości dwujęzycznej Brunona Jasińskiego.” Z zagadnień teorii przekładu. Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolinskich, 14–16.1968) uses the term “internal author” to refer to the same entity. “Subject of the work” is the name given to the authorial entity in the work in the framework of literary communication outlined by Okopień-Sławińska (Okopień-Sławińska, Alexandra ([1971] 1975). “Die personalen Relationen in der literarischen Kommunikation.” R. Fieguth (ed). Literarische Kommunikation. Kronberg: Scriptor, 127–47.1971). Fieguth (Fieguth, Rolf (1975). “Einleitung.” R. F. Literarische Kommunikation. Kronberg: Scriptor, 9–22.1975: 16), Okopień-Sławińska’s German translator and commentator, describes it as the “subject of the use of literary rules in the work.”

   [13]
3.2 Approaches in the West

[14]
In Western narratology, the introduction of the implied author concept was linked to work on the notion of the unreliable narrator, in other words, the axiological disconnection of the narrator from the horizon of values against which a work operates. The paradigmatic form of the concept was developed by Booth (Booth, Wayne C. ([1961] 1983). The Rhetoric of Fiction. Chicago: Chicago UP.1961), an American literary scholar belonging to the Chicago School (Kindt & Müller Kindt, Tom & Hans-Harald Müller (1999). “Der implizite Autor. Zur Explikation und Verwendung eines umstrittenen Begriffs.” F. Jannidis et al. (eds). Rückkehr des Autors. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 273–87.1999, Kindt, Tom & Hans-Harald Müller (2006a). The Implied Author. Concept and Controversy. Berlin: de Gruyter.2006a, Kindt, Tom & Hans-Harald Müller (2006b). “Der implizite Autor. Zur Karriere und Kritik eines Begriffs zwischen Narratologie und Interpretationstheorie.” Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte 48, 163–90.2006b). Since Flaubert, there had existed a view according to which authors should be objective, that is to say neutral and impassionnate; Booth, in contrast, underlined the inescapable subjectivity of the author: “As he writes, [the real author] creates not simply an ideal, impersonal ‘man in general’, but an implied version of ‘himself’ that is different from the implied authors we meet in other men’s works. […] the picture the reader gets of his presence is one of the author’s most important effects. However impersonal he may try to be, his reader will inevitably construct a picture of the [author] who writes in this manner” (Booth [Booth, Wayne C. ([1961] 1983). The Rhetoric of Fiction. Chicago: Chicago UP.1961] 1983: 70–1).

[15]
These words have been understood by some as referring to a self-image intentionally created by the author. However, it is more likely that Booth’s rather imprecise formulation was meant to capture the idea that the creator of every product is inevitably and involuntarily represented indexically in it.

[16]
Booth, who subscribed to the criticism of the “intentional fallacy” presented by Wimsatt & Beardsley (Wimsatt, William K. & Monroe C. Beardsley ([1946] 1976). “The Intentional Fallacy.” D. Newton-de Molina (ed). On Literary Intention. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 1–13.1946), hoped to sidestep two tenets of the New Criticism with the help of the implied author concept: the doctrine of autonomy and the insistence on the need to concentrate solely on the work itself. As Booth (Booth, Wayne C. (1968). “‘The Rhetoric of Fiction’ and the Poetics of Fictions.” Novel: A Forum on Fiction 1, 105–17.1968: 112–13) objected, the New Criticism’s fight against a string of “fallacies” and “heresies” served to rule out not just the author but also the audience, the “world of ideas and beliefs,” and even “the narrative interest” itself. The concept of authorship in the work was meant to provide a way round these obstacles, to make it possible to talk about a work’s meaning and intention without falling foul of the criminal heresies.

[17]
Booth’s approach has subsequently been taken up and refined on many occasions (cf. in particular Iser Iser, Wolfgang ([1972] 1974). The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP.1972; Chatman Chatman, Seymour (1978). Story and Discourse. Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film. Ithaca: Cornell UP.1978: 147–49; Rimmon-Kenan [Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith ([1983] 2002). Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics. London: Methuen.1983] 2002: 87–8). Equivalent concepts have also been introduced, some closely associated with Booth’s, others less so. Eco (Eco, Umberto (1979). The Role of the Reader. Bloomington: Indiana UP.1979), for example, speaks of the “model author,” which he treats as an interpretive hypothesis of the empirical reader, and Easthope (Easthope, Antony (1983). Poetry as Discourse. London: Methuen.1983: 30–72) draws on the linguistic work of Émile Benveniste in suggesting the term “subject of enunciation.” Building on the Slavic origins of the concept, Schmid (Schmid, Wolf (1973). Der Textaufbau in den Erzählungen Dostoevskijs. Amsterdam: Grüner.1973) introduced the term “abstract author” (taken up by, for example, Link Link, Hannelore (1976). Rezeptionsforschung. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer.1976: 40; Lintvelt [Lintvelt, Jaap ([1981] 1989). Essai de typologie narrative. Le “point de vue.” Théorie et analyse. Paris: Corti.1981] 1989: 17–22; Hoek Hoek, Leo H. (1981). La marque du titre. La Haye: Mouton.1981), which he has subsequently defended against criticism (Schmid Schmid, Wolf (1986). “Nachwort zur zweiten Auflage. Eine Antwort an die Kritiker.” W. Sch. Der Textaufbau in den Erzählungen Dostoevskijs. Amsterdam: Grüner, 299–318.1986: 300–06; cf. also the revision in Schmid [Schmid, Wolf ([2005] 2008). Elemente der Narratologie. Berlin: de Gruyter.2005] 2008: 45–64).

   [18]
3.3 The Implied Author Dispute

[19]
The concept of the implied author has given rise to heated debate. Hempfer (Hempfer, Klaus W. (1977). “Zur pragmatischen Fundierung der Texttypologie.” W. Hinck (ed). Textsortenlehre―Gattungsgeschichte. Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer, 1–26.1977: 10) passed categorical judgment over the concepts of the implied (in his words “implizit,” i.e. “implicit”) author and reader, writing that the two entities “not only seem to be of no theoretical use but also obscure the real fundamental distinction, that between the speech situation in the text and that outside it.” Over two decades later, Zipfel (Zipfel, Frank (2001). Fiktion, Fiktivität, Fiktionalität. Berlin: Schmidt.2001: 120) presented a similar indictment of the implied author, condemning the concept as “superfluous to narrative theory,” “hopelessly vague,” and “terminologically imprecise.” Bal has established herself as a bitter opponent of Booth’s implied author and Schmid’s abstract author. These “superfluous” concepts (Bal, Mieke (1981a). “The Laughing Mice, or: on Focalisation.” Poetics Today 2, 202–10.1981a: 208–09), she believes, have fostered the misguided practice of isolating authors from the ideologies of their works. The implied author, she believes, is a deceptive notion that promised to account for the ideology of the text. “This would have made it possible to condemn a text without condemning its author and vice versa—a very attractive proposition to the autonomists of the ’60s” (Bal, Mieke (1981b). “Notes on Narrative Embedding.” Poetics Today 2, 41–59.1981b: 42).

[20]
More balanced criticism has been put forward in many forms. The objections raised can be summarized as follows: (a) Unlike the fictive narrator, the implied author is not a pragmatic agent but a semantic entity (Nünning Nünning, Ansgar (1989). Grundzüge eines kommunikationstheoretischen Modells der erzählerischen Vermittlung. Trier: WVT.1989: 33, Nünning, Ansgar (1993). “Renaissance eines anthropomorphisierten Passepartouts oder Nachruf auf ein literaturkritisches Phantom? Überlegungen und Alternativen zum Konzept des ‘implied author’.” Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte 67, 1–25.1993: 9); (b) the implied author is no more than a reader-created construct (Rimmon-Kenan [Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith ([1983] 2002). Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics. London: Methuen.1983] 2002: 87; Toolan [Toolan, Michael J. ([1988] 2001). Narrative. A Critical Linguistic Introduction. London: Routledge.1988] 2001: 64) and as such should not be personified (Nünning Nünning, Ansgar (1989). Grundzüge eines kommunikationstheoretischen Modells der erzählerischen Vermittlung. Trier: WVT.1989: 31–32); (c) despite repeated warnings against an overly anthropomorphic understanding of the implied author, Chatman (Chatman, Seymour (1978). Story and Discourse. Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film. Ithaca: Cornell UP.1978: 151) puts forward a model in which the implied author functions as a participant in communication—which is, according to Rimmon-Kenan ([Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith ([1983] 2002). Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics. London: Methuen.1983] 2002: 89), precisely what the implied author is not; (d) in so far as it involves a semantic rather than a structural phenomenon, the concept of the implied author belongs to the poetics of interpretation rather than the poetics of narration (Diengott Diengott, Nilli (1993). “Implied Author, Motivation and Theme and Their Problematic Status.” Orbis Litterarum 48, 181–93.1993: 189); (e) Booth and those who have used the concept after him have not shown how to identify the implied author of any given text (Kindt & Müller Kindt, Tom & Hans-Harald Müller (2006b). “Der implizite Autor. Zur Karriere und Kritik eines Begriffs zwischen Narratologie und Interpretationstheorie.” Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte 48, 163–90.2006b: 167–68).

[21]
These criticisms are perfectly legitimate, but they are not sufficient to justify excluding the implied author from the attention of narratology. Many critics continue to use the concept, clearly because no better term can be found for expressing that authorial element whose presence is inferred in a work.

[22]
It is also striking that those who advocate abandoning the implied author have put forward few convincing alternatives. Nünning, for example, who believes that it is “terminologically imprecise,” “theoretically inadequate,” and “unusable in practice,” suggests replacing it with the “totality of all the formal and structural relations in a text” (Nünning, Ansgar (1989). Grundzüge eines kommunikationstheoretischen Modells der erzählerischen Vermittlung. Trier: WVT.1989: 36). In a chapter “In Defense of the Implied Author,” Chatman (Chatman, Seymour (1990). Coming to Terms. The Rhetoric of Narrative in Fiction and Film. Ithaca: Cornell UP.1990: 74–89) suggests a series of alternatives for readers uneasy with the term implied author: “text implication”; “text instance”; “text design”; or simply “text intent.” Finally, Kindt & Müller (Kindt, Tom & Hans-Harald Müller (1999). “Der implizite Autor. Zur Explikation und Verwendung eines umstrittenen Begriffs.” F. Jannidis et al. (eds). Rückkehr des Autors. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 273–87.1999: 285–86) identify two courses of action. We should, they suggest, either replace the term implied author with that of “author” itself (which would attract familiar objections from anti-intentionalistic quarters); or, if a non-intentionalistic concept of meaning is to be retained, we should speak instead of “text intention.” (Since texts as such do not have intentions, the latter term brings with it an undesirable metonymic shift from maker to product.)

[23]
The case of Genette sheds light on the double-sided view of the implied author concept held by many theorists. Genette did not cover the implied author in his Narrative Discourse (Genette, Gérard ([1972] 1980). Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Ithaca: Cornell UP.1972), which led to a certain amount of criticism (e.g. Rimmon Rimmon, Shlomith (1976). “A Comprehensive Theory of Narrative: Genette’s Figures III and the Structuralist Study of Fiction.” PTL: A Journal for Descriptive Poetics and Theory of Literature 1, 33–62.1976: 58; Bronzwaer Bronzwaer, Wilhelmus J. M. (1978). “Implied Author, Extradiegetic Narrator and Public Reader.” Neophilologus 62, 1–18.1978: 3); he then devoted an entire chapter to it in Narrative Discourse Revisited ([Genette, Gérard ([1983] 1988). Narrative Discourse Revisited. Ithaca: Cornell UP.1983] 1988: 135–54). Detailed analysis in the latter work leads to a conclusion that is not at all unfavorable to the implied author. Genette observes first that, because it is not specific to the récit, the auteur impliqué is not the concern of narratology. His answer to the question “is the implied author a necessary and (therefore) valid agent between the narrator and the real author?” (139; emphasis in original) is ambivalent. The implied author, he says, is clearly not an actual agent, but is conceivably an ideal agent: “the implied author is everything the text lets us know about the author” (148). But we should not, Genette warns, turn this “idea of the author” into a narrative agent. This places Genette in a position not so different from that of the proponents of “full-blown models” of narrative communication to which he refers (Schmid Schmid, Wolf (1973). Der Textaufbau in den Erzählungen Dostoevskijs. Amsterdam: Grüner.1973; Chatman Chatman, Seymour (1978). Story and Discourse. Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film. Ithaca: Cornell UP.1978; Bronzwaer Bronzwaer, Wilhelmus J. M. (1978). “Implied Author, Extradiegetic Narrator and Public Reader.” Neophilologus 62, 1–18.1978; Hoek Hoek, Leo H. (1981). La marque du titre. La Haye: Mouton.1981; Lintvelt Lintvelt, Jaap ([1981] 1989). Essai de typologie narrative. Le “point de vue.” Théorie et analyse. Paris: Corti.1981), none of whom intend to make the implied author a narrative agent.

   [24]
3.4 Towards an Impartial Definition

[25]
The implied author can be defined as the correlate of all the indexical signs in a text that refer to the author of that text. These signs mark out a specific world-view and aesthetic standpoint. The implied author is not an intentional creation of the concrete author and differs categorically in this respect from the narrator, who is always an explicitly, or even implicitly, represented entity. The implied author belongs to a different level of the work; the implied author stands for the principle behind the fabrication of a narrator and the represented world in its entirety, the principle behind the composition of the work (note here Hühn’s “subject of composition” [Hühn, Peter (1995). Geschichte der englischen Lyrik, vol. 1. Tübingen: Francke.1995: 5], a development of Easthope’s “subject of enunciation” [Easthope, Antony (1983). Poetry as Discourse. London: Methuen.1983]). It has no voice of its own, no text. Its word is the entire text with all its levels, the entire work as a created object. Its position is defined by both ideological and aesthetic norms.

[26]
The implied author has only a virtual existence in the work and can be grasped only by turning to the traces left behind in the work by the creative acts of production, taking concrete shape only with the help of the reader. The implied author is a construct formed by the reader on the basis of his or her reading of the work. If the process of construction is not to simply confirm to the meanings that readers want to find in the first place, it must be based on the evidence in the text and the constraints this places on the freedom of interpretation. It would therefore be more appropriate to speak of reconstruction instead of construction.

[27]
The implied authors of various works by a single concrete author display certain common features and thereby constitute what we might call an œuvre author, a stereotype that Booth (Booth, Wayne C. (1979). Critical Understanding: The Powers and Limits of Pluralism. Chicago: Chicago UP.1979: 270) refers to as a “career author.” There are also more general author stereotypes that relate not to an œuvre but to literary schools, stylistic currents, periods, and genres.

[28]
Contrary to the impression given by the term “author’s image,” the relation between the implied author and the real author should not be pictured in such a way that the former becomes a reflection or copy of the latter. And despite the connotations of the German impliziter Autor (implicit author, which brings with it a shift from the reception-based orientation of implied to an ontologizing concept), the implied author cannot be modeled as the mouthpiece of the real author. It is not unusual for authors to experiment with their world-views and put their beliefs to the test in their works. In some cases, for example, authors use their works to depict possibilities that cannot be realized in the context of their real-life existence, adopting in the process standpoints on certain issues that they could not or would not wish to adopt in reality. In such cases, the implied author can be more radical than the real author ever really was or, to put it more carefully, than we imagine him or her to have been on the basis of the evidence available. Such radicalization of the implied author is characteristic, for example, of Tolstoj’s late works. The late Tolstoj was much less convinced by many of his ideas than his implied authors; the latter embodied, and took to extremes, one particular dimension of Tolstoj’s thought. Conversely, it is also possible for the ideological horizons of the implied author to be broader than the more or less markedly ideologically constrained ones of the real author. An example of this is Dostoevskij, who in his late novels developed a remarkable understanding of ideologies that he vehemently attacked as a journalist.

   [29]
3.5 Relevance to Narratology

[30]
Why should a semantic entity that is neither a pragmatic participant in communication nor a specific component of the narrative work be the concern of narratology at all? Recall here Rimmon (Rimmon, Shlomith (1976). “A Comprehensive Theory of Narrative: Genette’s Figures III and the Structuralist Study of Fiction.” PTL: A Journal for Descriptive Poetics and Theory of Literature 1, 33–62.1976: 58), who points out that “without the implied author it is difficult to analyze the ‘norms’ of the text, especially when they differ from those of the narrator.” Similarly, Bronzwaer (Bronzwaer, Wilhelmus J. M. (1978). “Implied Author, Extradiegetic Narrator and Public Reader.” Neophilologus 62, 1–18.1978: 3) notes that “we need an instance that calls the extradiegetic narrator into existence, which is responsible for him in the same way as he is responsible for the diegesis.” Chatman (Chatman, Seymour (1990). Coming to Terms. The Rhetoric of Narrative in Fiction and Film. Ithaca: Cornell UP.1990: 76) points out another advantage of the concept when he writes that “positing an implied author inhibits the overhasty assumption that the reader has direct access through the fictional text to the real author’s intentions and ideology.”

[31]
The concept of the implied author is particularly useful in textual interpretation because it helps us describe the layered process by which meaning is generated. The existence of the implied author, not part of the represented world but nonetheless part of the work, casts a shadow over the narrator, who often appears as master of the situation and seems to have control over the semantic order of the work. The presence of the implied author in the model of epic communication highlights the fact that narrators, their texts, and the meanings expressed in them are all represented. Only on the level of the implied author do these meanings acquire their ultimate semantic intention. The presence of the implied author in the work, above the characters and the narrator and their associated levels of meaning, establishes a new semantic level arching over the whole work: the authorial level (→ Narrative Levels).

   [32]
3.6 Implied Reader

[33]
In many discussions, the implied author is paired with a recipient entity occupying a supposedly equivalent position on the opposite side of the communication situation: the “implied reader” (as in Booth Booth, Wayne C. ([1961] 1983). The Rhetoric of Fiction. Chicago: Chicago UP.1961), to be distinguished from the addressee of the fictive narrator, known as the “narratee” (Prince Prince, Gerald (1971). “Notes toward a Characterization of Fictional Narratees.” Genre 4, 100–06.1971) or “fictive reader” (Schmid Schmid, Wolf (1973). Der Textaufbau in den Erzählungen Dostoevskijs. Amsterdam: Grüner.1973).

[34]
Among the theorists who have worked on the implied reader, Iser (Iser, Wolfgang ([1972] 1974). The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP.1972, Iser, Wolfgang (1976). Der Akt des Lesens: Theorie ästhetischer Wirkung. München: Fink.1976) deserves special mention. In the first, German version of The Act of Reading, Iser describes the implied reader (or impliziter Leser, as he calls it) as a “structure inscribed in the texts” not having any real existence (Iser Iser, Wolfgang (1976). Der Akt des Lesens: Theorie ästhetischer Wirkung. München: Fink.1976: 60). He then goes on (to quote his subsequent English version of the text) to say that the implied reader “embodies all those predispositions necessary for a literary work to exercise its effect—predispositions laid down, not by an empirical outside reality, but by the text itself. Consequently, the implied reader as a concept has his roots firmly planted in the structure of the text; he is a construct and in no way to be identified with any real reader” (Iser Iser, Wolfgang (1978). The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP.1978: 34).

[35]
Červenka ([Červenka, Miroslav ([1969] 1978). “Das literarische Werk als Zeichen.” Der Bedeutungsaufbau des literarischen Werks. München: Fink, 163–83.1969] 1978: 174–75) characterizes the “addressee’s personality,” by which he means the implied reader, with the statement that “if the subject of the work was the correlate of the totality of the acts of creative choice, then the overall meaning of the work’s addressee is the totality of the interpretive abilities required: the ability to use the same codes and develop their material analogously to the creative activity of the speaker, the ability to transform the potentiality of the work into an aesthetic object.” In Russia, following on from Korman, Rymar’ & Skobelev (Rymar’, Nikolaj & Vladislav Skobelev (1994). Teorija avtora i problema chudožestvennoj dejatel’nosti. Voronež: Logos-Trast.1994: 119–21) use the term “conceived reader.” Korman (Korman, Boris (1977). “O celostnosti literaturnogo proizvedenija.” Izbrannye trudy po teorii i istorii literatury. Iževsk: Izd. Udmurtskogo un-ta, 119–28.1977: 127) himself had paired the “author as bearer of the work’s concept” with the corresponding entity of the “reader as postulated addressee, ideal principle of reception.” Similarly, Eco (Eco, Umberto (1979). The Role of the Reader. Bloomington: Indiana UP.1979) pairs the “model author” with the “model reader,” defined by him as a hypothesis formed by the empirical author.

[36]
It is tempting to assume, as several theorists have indeed done, that the relationship between implied author and implied reader is a symmetrical one. If the implied author is an image of the real author created by the real reader, then, we might be inclined to conclude, the implied reader must be the image of the real reader envisaged by the real author. The true state of affairs, of course, is more complicated, for there is no symmetry between the ways in which the two abstract entities are formed. The implied reader is ultimately one of the attributes of the concrete reader’s reconstructed implied author. It follows that the implied reader is no less dependent on the reader’s individual acts of reconstruction than the implied author whose attribute it is.

[37]
Two hypostases of the (re)constructed implied reader should be distinguished on the basis of the functions it can be thought to have. First, the implied reader can be seen as an assumed addressee to whom the work is directed and whose linguistic codes, ideological norms, and aesthetic ideas must be taken account of if the work is to be understood. In this function, the implied reader bears the factual codes and norms that it is assumed the audience will use. Second, the implied reader can be seen as an image of the ideal recipient who understands the work in a way that optimally matches its structure and who adopts the interpretive position and aesthetic standpoint put forward by the work (Schmid [Schmid, Wolf ([2005] 2008). Elemente der Narratologie. Berlin: de Gruyter.2005] 2008: 68–72, Schmid, Wolf (2007). “Textadressat.” Th. Anz (ed). Handbuch Literaturwissenschaft. Stuttgart: Metzler, vol. 1, 171–81.2007).

   [38]
4 Topics for Further Research

[39]
(a) Where systematic considerations and practical applications are concerned, there is a pressing need to identify the indexical signs that refer to the implied author, and to distinguish between author- and narrator-specific indexes. (b) The manifestation of the implied author in different periods, cultural spheres, text types, and genres has yet to be examined in detail.

[40]
(Translated by Alastair Matthews)

   [41]
5 Bibliography

   [42]
5.1 Works Cited

  • Bal, Mieke (1981a). “The Laughing Mice, or: on Focalisation.” Poetics Today 2, 202–10.
  • Bal, Mieke (1981b). “Notes on Narrative Embedding.” Poetics Today 2, 41–59.
  • Balcerzan, Edward (1968). “Styl i poetyka twórczości dwujęzycznej Brunona Jasińskiego.” Z zagadnień teorii przekładu. Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolinskich, 14–16.
  • Booth, Wayne C. ([1961] 1983). The Rhetoric of Fiction. Chicago: Chicago UP.
  • Booth, Wayne C. (1968). “‘The Rhetoric of Fiction’ and the Poetics of Fictions.” Novel: A Forum on Fiction 1, 105–17.
  • Booth, Wayne C. (1979). Critical Understanding: The Powers and Limits of Pluralism. Chicago: Chicago UP.
  • Bronzwaer, Wilhelmus J. M. (1978). “Implied Author, Extradiegetic Narrator and Public Reader.” Neophilologus 62, 1–18.
  • Bühler, Karl (1918/20). “Kritische Musterung der neueren Theorien des Satzes.” Indogermanisches Jahrbuch 4, 1–20.
  • Červenka, Miroslav ([1969] 1978). “Das literarische Werk als Zeichen.” Der Bedeutungsaufbau des literarischen Werks. München: Fink, 163–83.
  • Chatman, Seymour (1978). Story and Discourse. Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
  • Chatman, Seymour (1990). Coming to Terms. The Rhetoric of Narrative in Fiction and Film. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
  • Čudakov, Aleksandr (1992). “V. V. Vinogradov i ego teorija poėtiki.” Slovo―vešč’―mir. Moskva: Sovremennyj pisatel’, 219–64.
  • Diengott, Nilli (1993). “Implied Author, Motivation and Theme and Their Problematic Status.” Orbis Litterarum 48, 181–93.
  • Easthope, Antony (1983). Poetry as Discourse. London: Methuen.
  • Eco, Umberto (1979). The Role of the Reader. Bloomington: Indiana UP.
  • Fieguth, Rolf (1975). “Einleitung.” R. F. Literarische Kommunikation. Kronberg: Scriptor, 9–22.
  • Genette, Gérard ([1972] 1980). Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
  • Genette, Gérard ([1983] 1988). Narrative Discourse Revisited. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
  • Gölz, Christine (2009). “Autortheorien im slavischen Funktionalismus.” W. Schmid (ed). Slavische Erzähltheorie. Russische und tschechische Ansätze. Berlin: de Gruyter, 187–237.
  • Hempfer, Klaus W. (1977). “Zur pragmatischen Fundierung der Texttypologie.” W. Hinck (ed). Textsortenlehre―Gattungsgeschichte. Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer, 1–26.
  • Hoek, Leo H. (1981). La marque du titre. La Haye: Mouton.
  • Hühn, Peter (1995). Geschichte der englischen Lyrik, vol. 1. Tübingen: Francke.
  • Iser, Wolfgang ([1972] 1974). The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP.
  • Iser, Wolfgang (1976). Der Akt des Lesens: Theorie ästhetischer Wirkung. München: Fink.
  • Iser, Wolfgang (1978). The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP.
  • Kindt, Tom & Hans-Harald Müller (1999). “Der implizite Autor. Zur Explikation und Verwendung eines umstrittenen Begriffs.” F. Jannidis et al. (eds). Rückkehr des Autors. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 273–87.
  • Kindt, Tom & Hans-Harald Müller (2006a). The Implied Author. Concept and Controversy. Berlin: de Gruyter.
  • Kindt, Tom & Hans-Harald Müller (2006b). “Der implizite Autor. Zur Karriere und Kritik eines Begriffs zwischen Narratologie und Interpretationstheorie.” Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte 48, 163–90.
  • Korman, Boris (1977). “O celostnosti literaturnogo proizvedenija.” Izbrannye trudy po teorii i istorii literatury. Iževsk: Izd. Udmurtskogo un-ta, 119–28.
  • Link, Hannelore (1976). Rezeptionsforschung. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer.
  • Lintvelt, Jaap ([1981] 1989). Essai de typologie narrative. Le “point de vue.” Théorie et analyse. Paris: Corti.
  • Mukařovský, Jan (1937). “L’individu dans l’art.” Deuxième congrès international d’esthétique et de la science de l’art. Paris: F. Alcan, vol. 1, 349–54.
  • Nünning, Ansgar (1989). Grundzüge eines kommunikationstheoretischen Modells der erzählerischen Vermittlung. Trier: WVT.
  • Nünning, Ansgar (1993). “Renaissance eines anthropomorphisierten Passepartouts oder Nachruf auf ein literaturkritisches Phantom? Überlegungen und Alternativen zum Konzept des ‘implied author’.” Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte 67, 1–25.
  • Okopień-Sławińska, Alexandra ([1971] 1975). “Die personalen Relationen in der literarischen Kommunikation.” R. Fieguth (ed). Literarische Kommunikation. Kronberg: Scriptor, 127–47.
  • Prince, Gerald (1971). “Notes toward a Characterization of Fictional Narratees.” Genre 4, 100–06.
  • Rimmon, Shlomith (1976). “A Comprehensive Theory of Narrative: Genette’s Figures III and the Structuralist Study of Fiction.” PTL: A Journal for Descriptive Poetics and Theory of Literature 1, 33–62.
  • Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith ([1983] 2002). Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics. London: Methuen.
  • Rymar’, Nikolaj & Vladislav Skobelev (1994). Teorija avtora i problema chudožestvennoj dejatel’nosti. Voronež: Logos-Trast.
  • Schmid, Wolf (1973). Der Textaufbau in den Erzählungen Dostoevskijs. Amsterdam: Grüner.
  • Schmid, Wolf (1986). “Nachwort zur zweiten Auflage. Eine Antwort an die Kritiker.” W. Sch. Der Textaufbau in den Erzählungen Dostoevskijs. Amsterdam: Grüner, 299–318.
  • Schmid, Wolf ([2005] 2008). Elemente der Narratologie. Berlin: de Gruyter.
  • Schmid, Wolf (2007). “Textadressat.” Th. Anz (ed). Handbuch Literaturwissenschaft. Stuttgart: Metzler, vol. 1, 171–81.
  • Sławiński, Janusz (1966). “O kategorii podmiotu lirycznego. Tezy referatu.” J. Trzynadłowski (ed). Wiersz i poezja. Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolinskich, 55–62.
  • Sławiński, Janusz ([1967] 1975). “Die Semantik der narrativen Äußerung.” Literatur als System und Prozeß. München: Nymphenburger, 81–109.
  • Toolan, Michael J. ([1988] 2001). Narrative. A Critical Linguistic Introduction. London: Routledge.
  • Tynjanov, Jurij ([1927] 1971). “On Literary Evolution.” L. Matejka & K. Pomorska (eds). Readings in Russian Poetics: Formalist and Structuralist Views. Cambridge: MIT P, 66–78.
  • Vinogradov, Viktor (1971). “Problema obraza avtora v chudožestvennoj literature.” O teorii chudožestvennoj reči. Moskva: Izd. Vysšaja škola, 105–211.
  • Wimsatt, William K. & Monroe C. Beardsley ([1946] 1976). “The Intentional Fallacy.” D. Newton-de Molina (ed). On Literary Intention. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 1–13.
  • Zipfel, Frank (2001). Fiktion, Fiktivität, Fiktionalität. Berlin: Schmidt.

   [43]
5.2 Further Reading

  • Kahrmann, Cordula, et al. ([1977] 1996). Erzähltextanalyse. Weinheim: Beltz.
  • Schönert, Jörg (1999). “Empirischer Autor, Impliziter Autor und Lyrisches Ich.” F. Jannidis et al. (eds): Rückkehr des Autors. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 289–94.
  • Suleiman, Susan R. & Inge Crosman eds. (1980). The Reader in the Text. Princeton: Princeton UP.

Contents

Wolf Schmid is Professor of Slavic Literatures at the University of Hamburg (emeritus since 2009). He was the founder of the „Narratology Research Group“, director of the „Interdisciplinary Center for Narratology“ at the University of Hamburg, and chairman of the „European Narratology Network“. He has published books and articles on Russian prose fiction (Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Russian avant-gard of the 1920s, Andrej Bitov and Russian prose of the 1970s). His narratological publications include Narratology (in Russian 2003, 2008; in German 2005, 2008; in English 2010). He is co-editor of the Handbook of Narratology (2009) and executive editor of the series Narratologia.

How to contribute

more

How to cite

Create an automatic citation reference by selecting the relevant passage in the article with your mouse, then copy and paste the reference from this text box.

Schmid, Wolf: "Implied Author". In: Hühn, Peter et al. (eds.): the living handbook of narratology. Hamburg: Hamburg University Press.
URL = hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de/lhn/index.php​?title=Implied Author​&oldid=1586
[view date: 13 Feb 2012]

more