The pragmatics of personal and impersonal fiction

ML Ryan - Poetics, 1981 - Elsevier
A much debated question among literacy critics is whether the concept of narrator is equally
applicable when the narrator presents some degree of individuation, and when he remains
totally anonymous (as in the classical “omniscient narration” of the XIXth century novel). A
positive answer to this question is compatible with a definition of fiction as an act of
impersonation by which the actual speaker, or author, delegates the responsibility for the
speech acts he is accomplishing to a substitute speaker. A negative answer would restrict …