The Author’s Second Self or a Set of Implicit Norms: The Concept of the Implied Author and Its Discontents

Abstract

Despite being a standard element of formalist poetics, the notion of the implied author actually resists easy conceptualisation. This paper analyses classical Western theorisations of the implied author and relates them to relevant Polish literary-theoretical studies in order to assess the utility of the concept. It demonstrates that the implied author can be construed as an anthropomorphic entity (re-)constructed by the reader on the basis of textual signals. Thus understood, the notion of the implied author throws into sharp relief a lack of straightforward correlation between the real author and the idea of author derived from the text, and therefore proves to be a useful literary-theoretical tool.