ABSTRACT
A central theme of recent literary theory is that of the silencing of the author. Its logical consequence is the familiar idealization of the text itself — the text which is, par excellence, the narrative text. The author’s disappearance from the text finds a formulation in the various modern theories of the novel, from the Anglo-American school under the influence of Henry James to the continental phenomenological tradition. It is responsible for introducing into the critical vocabulary the notion of the narrator as a created persona distinct from the author alongside the notion of point of view, whether that of the narrator or that of a represented SELF. The narrator’s point of view is in no way to be confused with the author’s; the narrator’s perspective is in no way privileged but is only one among many. As a consequence, the unity of the text cannot be sought in a single unifying voice in it.
