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The Implied Author: A Secular Excommunication

2011; University of Arkansas Press; Volume: 45; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

2374-6629

Luc Herman, Bart Vervaeck,

Rhetoric and Communication Studies

As Susan Lanser rightly points out, the implied author (Booth, Rhetoric) exists only inferred and imagined; essentially a matter of belief, existing only when and where readers construct it (Lanser 154). Though believers say they construct the implied author on the basis t the effect on the reader is mistaken for the origins of the story). (2) In the second part, we juxtapose Booth's spiritual tradition with two more down-to-earth angles on author images--the empirical approach proposed by Marisa Bortolussi and Peter Dixon, and the Bourdieu-inspired discourse analysis in the work of Jerome Meizoz, Dominique Maingueneau and Ruth Amossy. Our alternative to the implied author is a dynamic author image that is not at the root of the text, but originates in a process of negotiation between reader, text, context, and the author's self-presentation. The crucial role in this process is for the reader, but this role is not at the root of the process either. In the third part, we illustrate our alternative with reference to Thomas Pynchon. We show how readers construct his elusive author image, and how Pynchon and his editor develop reader images. In both cases, text and context play an important part, but the four elements of the constructive process (author's self-presentation, reader, text, context) are interdependent. In this complex and never-ending process of negotiation, there is neither an absolute starting point+ nor a God-like creator. 1. The Implied Author as Our Lord and Savior One: God = Invisible and Omnipresent In spite of His or Her invisibility, God is supposed to be everywhere, just like the implied author is supposed to pervade the text and, in some cases, even the entire literary production of any literary author. (3) The power of the concept is actually based on a weakness, namely on the impossibility to locate and trace in the actual text. The implied author is said to hover over the textual world, very much like a God who hovers over our actual world. The implied author does not have a voice but invents all voices telling the story (Chatman 85). …