The implied author is a concept of

literary criticism Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Th ...

developed in the 20th century. Distinct from the

author An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...

and the

narrator Narration is the use of a written or spoken commentary to convey a story to an audience. Narration is conveyed by a narrator: a specific person, or unspecified literary voice, developed by the creator of the story to deliver information to the a ...

, the term refers to the "authorial character" that a reader infers from a text based on the way a literary work is written. In other words, the implied author is a construct, the image of the writer produced by a reader as called forth from the text. The implied author may or may not coincide with the author's expressed intentions or known personality traits. 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).

History

Following the

hermeneutics Hermeneutics () is the theory and methodology of interpretation, especially the interpretation of biblical texts, wisdom literature, and philosophical texts. Hermeneutics is more than interpretative principles or methods used when immediate c ...

tradition of

Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as treat ...

Thomas Carlyle Thomas Carlyle (4 December 17955 February 1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher. A leading writer of the Victorian era, he exerted a profound influence on 19th-century art, literature and philosophy. Born in Ecclefechan, Dum ...

and

Benedetto Croce Benedetto Croce (; 25 February 1866 – 20 November 1952) was an Italian idealist philosopher, historian, and politician, who wrote on numerous topics, including philosophy, history, historiography and aesthetics. In most regards, Croce was a lib ...

, Intentionalists P. D. Juhl and E. D. Hirsch Jr. insist that the correct interpretation of a text reflects the

intention Intentions are mental states in which the agent commits themselves to a course of action. Having the plan to visit the zoo tomorrow is an example of an intention. The action plan is the ''content'' of the intention while the commitment is the ''a ...

of the real author exactly. However, under the influence of

structuralism In sociology, anthropology, archaeology, history, philosophy, and linguistics, structuralism is a general theory of culture and methodology that implies that elements of human culture must be understood by way of their relationship to a broader ...

Roland Barthes Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 26 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popular ...

declared " the death of the (real) author", saying the text speaks for itself in reading. Anti-intentionalists, such as

Monroe Beardsley Monroe Curtis Beardsley (; December 10, 1915 – September 18, 1985) was an American philosopher of art. Biography Beardsley was born and raised in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and educated at Yale University (B.A. 1936, Ph.D. 1939), where he re ...

and

Roger Fowler Roger Fowler (1938–1999) was a world-renowned and long-serving British Linguist, and was professor of English and Linguistics at the University of East Anglia. He is well known for his works in stylistics. Together with Bob Hodge, Gunther Kress ...

, also thought that interpretation should be brought out only from the text. They held that readers should not confuse the meaning of the text with the author's intention, pointing out that one can understand the meaning of a text without knowing anything whatsoever about the author. In his 1961 book ''The Rhetoric of Fiction'',

Wayne C. Booth Wayne Clayson Booth (February 22, 1921, in American Fork, Utah – October 10, 2005, in Chicago, Illinois) was an American literary critic. He was the George M. Pullman Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in English Language & Literature and ...

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. 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 → mplied 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. 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.

Gérard Genette Gérard Genette (7 June 1930 – 11 May 2018) was a French literary theorist, associated in particular with the structuralist movement and such figures as Roland Barthes and Claude Lévi-Strauss, from whom he adapted the concept of ''bricolage ...

uses the term ''

focalization Focalisation is a term coined by the French narrative theorist Gérard Genette. It refers to the perspective through which a narrative is presented. Genette focuses on the interplay between three forms of ''focalization'' and the distinction betw ...

'' rather than point of view of a work to distinguish between Who sees?' (a question of mood) and 'Who speaks?' (a question of voice)", though he suggests "perceives" might be preferable to "sees", given that it is more descriptive. In his 1972 book ''Narrative Discourse'', he took issue with Booth's classifications (among others), suggesting three terms to organize works by focal position: ; ''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 In theatre, a monologue (from el, μονόλογος, from μόνος ''mónos'', "alone, solitary" and λόγος ''lógos'', "speech") is a speech presented by a single character, most often to express their thoughts aloud, though sometimes a ...

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 Maria Gertrudis "Mieke" Bal (born 14 March 1946 in Heemstede) is a Dutch cultural theorist, video artist, and Professor Emerita in Literary Theory at the University of Amsterdam. Previously she also was Academy Professor of the Royal Netherlands ...

argued that Genette's focalizations did not describe the implied author, but only the narrator of the story.

Seymour Chatman Seymour Chatman (August 30, 1928 – November 4, 2015) was an American film and literary critic and professor emeritus of rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley. He is one of the most significant figures of American narratology (theor ...

, in his book ''Coming to Terms'', posits that the act of reading is "ultimately an exchange between real human beings

hat A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mecha ...

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. Chatman also argues for the relevance of the implied author as a concept in film studies, a position that

David Bordwell David Jay Bordwell (; born July 23, 1947) is an American film theorist and film historian. Since receiving his PhD from the University of Iowa in 1974, he has written more than fifteen volumes on the subject of cinema including ''Narration in th ...

disputes.

Hans-Georg Gadamer Hans-Georg Gadamer (; ; February 11, 1900 – March 13, 2002) was a German philosopher of the continental tradition, best known for his 1960 ''magnum opus'', '' Truth and Method'' (''Wahrheit und Methode''), on hermeneutics. Life Family an ...

also considered the text as a

conversation Conversation is interactive communication between two or more people. The development of conversational skills and etiquette is an important part of socialization. The development of conversational skills in a new language is a frequent focus ...

with the reader.

Bibliography

* Juhl, P. D., ''Interpretation: An Essay in the Philosophy of Literary Criticism'', 1981 () * Hirsch, E. D., Jr., ''Validity in Interpretation'', 1967 () *

Barthes, Roland Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 26 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popular ...

, "La mort de l'auteur" (in French) 1968, in ''Image-Music-Text'', translated in English 1977 () * Beardsley, Monroe, ''Aesthetics: Problems in the Philosophy of Criticism'', 1958, 2nd ed. 1981 () * Fowler, Roger, ''Linguistic Criticism'', 1986, 2nd ed. 1996 () * Genette, Gérard, "Figures III", 1972, ''Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method'', translated in English 1983 () * Bal, Mieke, "De theorie van vertellen en verhalen" (in Dutch) 1980, ''Narratology: introduction to the theory of narrative'', translated in English 1985, 1997 () * Chatman, Seymour, ''Coming to Terms: The Rhetric of Narrative in Fiction and Film'', 1990 () * Gadamer, Hans-Georg, ''Wahrheit und Methode. Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik'' (in German) 1960, ''Truth and Method'', translated in English 1989, 2nd ed. 2005 () * Sumioka, Teruaki Georges, ''The Grammar of Entertainment Film'' (in Japanese) 2005 ()

References

{{Reflist, 1=2, refs= {{cite book , title = The Rhetoric of Fiction , url = https://archive.org/details/rhetoricoffictio00wayn , url-access = registration , last = Booth , first = Wayne C. , page
431
, edition = 2nd , year = 1983 , publisher = University of Chicago Press , isbn = 978-0-226-06558-8 , oclc = 185632325 , location = Chicago {{cite book , pages
64
��66 , title = Narrative Discourse Revisited , url = https://archive.org/details/narrativediscour00gene_0 , url-access = limited , last = Genette , first = Gérard , edition = 2nd , publisher = Cornell University Press , location = Ithaca, NY , year = 1988 , isbn = 978-0-8014-9535-9 , others = trans. Lewin, Jane E. {{cite book , pages
75
��76 , title = Coming to Terms: the rhetoric of narrative in fiction and film , url = https://archive.org/details/comingtotermsrhe00chat , url-access = limited , last = Chatman , first = Seymour Benjamin , publisher = Cornell University Press , location = Ithaca, NY , year = 1990 , isbn = 978-0-8014-9736-0

External links

"Implied Author" in ''The Living Handbook of Narratology'', Hamburg University Press
Literary criticism