Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The concepts “implied author” and “implied reader” were introduced into literary criticism by Wayne Booth in The Rhetoric of Fiction ( 1961 ), which emerged from the neo-Aristotelian school of formalism associated with the work of R. S. Crane. Booth's seminal text, an expanded second edition of which appeared in 1983, set out to examine what he calls “the technique of non-didactic fiction, viewed as the art of communicating with readers” (xiii). This concern for the reader led Booth to reevaluate the conventions associated with authorship and reading; specifically, to identify the authors and readers implied by the reading process. The implied author and implied reader are figures imagined or “inferable” by the reader or critic based on formal and rhetorical elements of the text. The implications of these concepts for literary theory are significant, for they cast doubt upon readings of literary texts that rely on the real-life experience of authors and readers – that is to say, that rely on extratextual elements that are difficult, if not impossible, to locate, measure, or substantiate. For Booth, the implied author, the authorial presence projected by a specific narrative, is often – or, many would argue, always – distinct from the “real” (i.e., the living or once-living figure to whom a given work is attributed) author of the text. The role and importance of the implied author ... log in or subscribe to read full text