Issue Details: First known date: 2020... 2020 Retrospective Intention : The Implied Author and the Coherence of the Oeuvre in Border Districts and The Plains
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'This essay examines the dialogic relationship between Gerald Murnane’s final novel, Border Districts (2017), and his third published novel, The Plains (1982), to argue that Murnane’s late works enact a “retrospective intention” that revises the meaning of his earlier works. Murnane’s writings depict a complex relationship between author, intention, text and reader through the notion of the “implied author”, a figure that gives coherence to the total meaning of a work, while also being purely textual in nature. By comparing Wayne C. Booth’s influential definition of the implied author and Murnane’s use of the term, however, I argue that Murnane foregrounds and exploits its internal contradictions for generative purposes. The implied author functions similarly to what I will call retrospective intention.' (Introduction)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Gerald Murnane : Another World in This One Anthony Uhlmann (editor), Sydney : Sydney University Press , 2020 18449887 2020 anthology criticism

    'Gerald Murnane is one of Australia’s most important contemporary authors, but for years was neglected by critics. In 2018 the New York Times described him as “the greatest living English-language writer most people have never heard of” and tipped him as a future Nobel Prize winner.

    'Gerald Murnane: Another World in This One coincides with a renewed interest in his work. It includes an important new essay by Murnane himself, alongside chapters by established and emerging literary critics from Australia and internationally. Together they provide a stimulating reassessment of Murnane’s diverse body of work.'

    Source: Publisher's blurb.

    Sydney : Sydney University Press , 2020
    pg. 45-62
Last amended 24 Jul 2020 09:10:12
45-62 Retrospective Intention : The Implied Author and the Coherence of the Oeuvre in Border Districts and The Plainssmall AustLit logo
Subjects:
Newspapers:
    Powered by Trove
    X