M. Bakhtin's “Primary author” concept and the “implied author” in modern narratology

This paper is to study the correlation between M. Bakhtin's “primary author” concept and the narratology term “implied author”. The concept of the implied author was introduced by an American scholar Wayne C. Booth. This notion is related to a certain instance which exists in the process of creation and perception of a literary work, irrespective of the author's personality. The works of the Russian researchers of the 20th century are significant for the study of the implied author concept and its origins. The variety of papers of the period in question allow us to track back the results of the “author” concept at the theoretical level of knowledge, namely: the formalist “author-mask” pattern, V.V. Vinogradov's “author's image” concept, M. Bakhtin's categories of the “primary author” and “secondary author, B. Korman's author as an “intertextual phenomenon”. There M. Bakhtin's concept of the “primary author” is closely associated with that of “implied author”. M. Bakhtin suggests the “primary author” and the “secondary author” as general notions of authorship. According to him, the “primary author” is not a created but a creating one, whereas the “secondary author” is created and creating. The “primary author” as “author-creator” is different from a real personality and the subject of creation. Unlike the “primary author”, the “secondary” one is created and creating. As a creator, the “primary author” is outside the artistic world, where only the “secondary author” exists as a representative of the “primary author”. This inequality is the basis of M. Bakhtin's author theory, where the “primary author” is separated not only from the author as a human being, but from the “secondary author” as a speaker in narration. This feature is crucial for denoting the “implied author” concept in modern narratology, the major point being that the “implied author” is intermediate between the “real” one and the “narrator”.