The implied author is a concept of literary criticism developed in the 20th century. Distinct from the author and the narrator, the term refers to the character a reader may attribute to an author based on the way a literary work is written, which may differ considerably from the author's true personality.
The distinction from the narrator is most clear in ironic works, such as Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal: the narrator cheerfully offers his proposal that poor Irish people sell their children as food for the rich, but unlike Swift or the reader, the implied author is unaware of the horror inherent in the proposal.
Author Saul Bellow once observed that it was not surprising, with all the revision that goes into a work, that an author might appear better on the page than in real life.
Read more about Implied Author: History, In Film, Bibliography
Famous quotes containing the words implied and/or author:
“The citizen who criticizes his country is paying it an implied tribute.”
—J. William Fulbright (1905–1995)
“The lesson intended by an author is hardly ever the lesson the world chooses to learn from his book.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)