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'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)
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Last amended 24 Jul 2020 09:10:12
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Retrospective Intention : The Implied Author and the Coherence of the Oeuvre in Border Districts and The Plains
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