H1 Levels & Fields

HANDOUT 1: FIELDS OF NARRATOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION
Levels of Communication / Fields of Narratological Investigation
Level Addresser Addressee Type of utterance

empirical narrative A narrative text within
communication: a larger framework of socio-
Author Reader culturally determined
patterns of communication
level of communication as implied Text as an artistic structure:
by the text → a text’s total organization
Implied Author Implied Reader (e.g. as a piece of literature /
a work of art= an artistic
composition/ construct)
level of narration [narrative Narrator Narratee narrative mediation:

discourse] narrative discourse: types of
narrators; typologies of
narrative situations [Stanzel
+ Genette]
story-as-discoursed [sjuzhet]
level of what is being narrated: story Characters’ utterances:

(world); “story material” fabula vs. Character Character various modes /techniques
story- as -discoursed : sjuzhet of speech and thought
existents: characters + setting representation + dual voice
events: actions/acts+ happenings phenomenon
/incidents [mimesis vs. diegesis]
the setting = chronotope [space
setting + time setting]
techniques of character portrayal/
character construction
The Concept of the Implied author:
Russian Formalism –“Obraz awtora” (V. Vinogradov) = “artistic consciousness organizing”, a non-
empirical figure of an author ( “inscribed”, “imprinted” in the verbal material of the text.
American Formalism (New Criticism): the sender of the artistic structure: “designing intelligence”,
“hypothetical intention”, “intention realized” etc.
Wayne C. Booth (1961) “the real author’s second self”, as an “implied version of himself” and as “an ideal,
literary, created version of the real man”.
1. the text’s “core of norms and choices”

2. not a technical or formal device, but the source of the beliefs, norms, and purposes of the text, the
origin of its meaning, the embodiment of the “moral and emotional content of each bit of action and
suffering of all the characters. It includes, in short, the intuitive apprehension of a completed artistic
whole”.
3. “the mirror image” (Chatman 1990) of the implied author.
4. “autor wpisany”, dysponent reguł artystycznych”, autor wirtualny”, “podmiot czynności twórczych”,
(the subject of artistic acts).
Responses to Booth’s idea:
a. the implied author refers to “voiceless” and “depersonified phenomenon” (Diengott) which is
neither speaker, voice, subject, nor participant in the narrative communication situation.
b. (Rimmon-Kennan 2002). “a construct inferred and assembled by the reader from all the
components of the text” = “an inferred author”
str. 1
c. Phelan (2004) “ a streamlined version of the real author, an actual or purported [claimed,
supposed] subset of the real author’s capacities, traits, attitudes, beliefs, values and other
properties that play an active role in the construction of a particular text.”
d. (Nünning 1997, Kindt and Müller 1999) the implied author = “narrative strategy” or “text
intent’
Booth : personalized + textual = implied author
Rimmon- Kennan: personalized+ reader construed = reader’s idea of the author inferred by the reader from the
text.
Nünning, Kindt and Müller: depersonalized + textual = “text intent”, “narrative strategy”
Phelan: personalized + textual = a streamlined version [actual or purported] of the author active in the
construction of a text”.
Diegenott: implied author is a “depersonified phenomenon”
A Review of some Reader Constructs:
1. The intended reader

2. The model reader [ Umberto Eco]
3. Authorial audience [Rabinowitz]
4. The implied reader [Wolfgang Iser]
5. The supperreader (archilecteur) [Riffatere]
6. An informed reader [Stanley Fish]
Intended (or ideal reader) - the reader intended by the implied author; a particular role to be adopted/played by
the reader in the reading process.
The model reader (Umberto Eco) “ To organize a text, its author has to rely upon a series of codes that assign
given contents to the expressions he uses. To make his text communicative, the author has to assume that the
ensemble of the codes he relies upon is the same as that shared by his possible reader. The author has thus to
foresee a model of the possible reader (hereafter Model Reader) supposedly able to deal interpretatively with the
expressions in the same way as the author deals generatively with them”.
1. specific linguistic code/s

2. certain literary style/ s = literary codes
3. specific specialization indices. a specific encyclopedic competence.
[..] it seems that a well - organized text on the one hand presupposes a model competence coming, so to speak,
from outside the text, but on the other hand woks to build up, by merely textual means, such a competence.”
The implied reader: Wolfgang Iser. The Act of Reading:
“We may call him, for want of a better term, the implied reader. He embodies all these predispositions
necessary for a literary work to exercise its effect – predispositions laid down, not by 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”.
“It is generally recognized that literary texts take on their reality by being read, and this in turn means that texts
must already contain certain conditions of actualization that will allow their meaning to be assembled in the
responsive mind of the recipient. The concept of the implied reader is therefore a textual structure anticipating
the presence of a recipient without necessarily defining him: this concept prestructures the role to be assumed
by each recipient, and this holds true even when texts deliberately appear to ignore their possible recipient or
actively exclude him. Thus the concept of the implied reader designates a network of response-inviting
structures, which impel the reader to grasp the text.
No matter who or what he may be, the real reader is always offered a particular role to play, and it is this role
that constitutes the concept of the implied reader. There are two basic, interrelated aspects of this concept: the
reader’s role as a textual structure, and the reader’s role as a structured act.”
str. 2
Stanley Fish: “The informed reader is someone who 1.) is a competent speaker of the language out of which the
text is built up. 2.) is in full possession of “semantic knowledge that a mature […] listener brings to this task of
comprehension”. This includes the knowledge[…] of lexical sets, collocation probabilities, idioms, professional
and other dialects, etc. 3.) has literary competence. […] The reader of whose responses I speak, then, is the
informed reader, neither an abstraction, nor an actual living reader, but a hybrid – a real reader […] who does
everything within his power to make himself informed.”
EXERCISE
Graham Greene [1904 -1991]
“The Second Death”
She found me in the evening under trees that grew outside the village. I had never cared for
her and would have hidden myself if I'd seen her coming. She was to blame, I'm certain, for
her son's vices. If they were vices, but I'm very far from admitting that they were. At any rate
he was generous, never mean, like others in the village I could mention if I chose.
I was staring hard at a leaf or she would never have found me. It was dangling from its twig,
its stalk torn across by the wind or else by a stone one of the village children had flung. Only
the green tough skin of the stalk held it there suspended. I was watching closely, because a
caterpillar was crawling across the surface, making the leaf sway to and fro. The caterpillar
was aiming at the twig, and I wondered whether it would reach it in safety or whether the leaf
would fall with it into the water. There was a pool underneath the trees, and the water always
appeared red, because of the heavy clay in the soil.
[1929]
str. 3

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HANDOUT 1: FIELDS OF NARRATOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION

Levels of Communication / Fields of Narratological Investigation

Level Addresser Addressee Type of utterance

level of narration [narrative Narrator Narratee narrative mediation:

level of what is being narrated: story Characters’ utterances:

The Concept of the Implied author:

1. the text’s “core of norms and choices”

Responses to Booth’s idea:

Booth : personalized + textual = implied author

Diegenott: implied author is a “depersonified phenomenon”

A Review of some Reader Constructs:

1. The intended reader

1. specific linguistic code/s

The implied reader: Wolfgang Iser. The Act of Reading:

Graham Greene [1904 -1991]

“The Second Death”

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