I wonder how Booth responded to critics and theorists like Barthes and Derrida who in fact seemed to make the author disappear? Was Booth sympathetic with such language-focused approaches or did he stand firm on the primacy of the author?
I read Booth as responding to the 20th-century notion that the author should be absent from the text (as if the story happens independent of the author and without their meddling), arguing that that approach prevents us from seeing the rhetorical opportunities that come from allowing the author to be present in their own work. To say that fiction is rhetorical is to say that we can (and probably should) pay attention to the relationship between author and reader as mediated by the text, an argument that Booth would go on to make in "The Company We Keep," rather than just considering the text as a decontextualized aesthetic object.
I don’t think showing is to remove the author. It’s to immerse readers into that world, to make readers care about the characters, so that they wouldn’t put the book down. These days we have so many options, and therefore, it’s important to not let readers wander and find other options.
Great insight--there are definitely real benefits to showing. I think Booth was trying to point out that telling has overlooked benefits, but I also get the sense that he was responding to a group of critics and writers who were on a mission to make authors invisible. Of course, that was 60 years ago, so it's very possible that writers and critics have moderated their stances since then.
That's an insightful question! I tend to think of in terms of the difference between Aristotle's Poetics and his Rhetoric. The Poetics tends to focus more on features and qualities of texts while the Rhetoric focuses on resources of persuasion that speakers can use to interact with audiences. Booth's basic argument here is that rules that focus only on the formal qualities of a story are insufficient to explain how narrative works, suggesting instead that it's useful to think about how an author's storytelling strategies affect the reader's reception of the story. For Booth, the idea is that effective storytelling operates on principles similar to effective persuasion, and using "Rhetoric" in the title helps to emphasize the point.
@@WritingwithAndrew I love that question too. I also like your take on it. Although, it immediately makes me think that a book or talk on "the poetics of fiction" would be a very interesting thing to tackle. It would be an interesting lens to looking at style when it comes to fiction.
Isn't it the case that the idea of the implied author and/or narrators, both considered distinct from the actual author, a prejudice of western poetics and its basis in mimesis? Such theoretical constructs are very stage-y as though the actual author is donning a mask or ventriloquizing. Given the western bias, is Booth more sympathetic to the actual author or these other theoretical constructs?
It has been a while, so I'd hesitate to assert Booth's position too confidently. But I think the idea that there is a fundamental and unavoidable difference between the author-as-person and the author-as-represented-in-the-text is deep in the roots of the rhetorical approach. We could make assumptions about the actual author, but they would have to be based on the partial representations of the whole person that we find in a text.
"reality is negotiated between the author, the reader and the world of the work "
Thanks Andrew, I thoroughly enjoyed this. Looking forward to part two.
Thanks, I'm happy to hear it! You won't have to wait very long, either
Thank you for this video. It really helped me!
You're welcome--I'm happy to hear it!
Very interesting! Thank you.
You're welcome--thanks for watching!
I wonder how Booth responded to critics and theorists like Barthes and Derrida who in fact seemed to make the author disappear? Was Booth sympathetic with such language-focused approaches or did he stand firm on the primacy of the author?
I read Booth as responding to the 20th-century notion that the author should be absent from the text (as if the story happens independent of the author and without their meddling), arguing that that approach prevents us from seeing the rhetorical opportunities that come from allowing the author to be present in their own work. To say that fiction is rhetorical is to say that we can (and probably should) pay attention to the relationship between author and reader as mediated by the text, an argument that Booth would go on to make in "The Company We Keep," rather than just considering the text as a decontextualized aesthetic object.
❤️❤️ I liked the way you explained ❤️❤️
Thanks!
Just looking at your shelf. How does Booth's book compare with The New Rhetoric?
It's pretty different, more of a focused treatise on argumentation and how it works with some philosophical and legal flavor to it--but interesting!
I don’t think showing is to remove the author. It’s to immerse readers into that world, to make readers care about the characters, so that they wouldn’t put the book down. These days we have so many options, and therefore, it’s important to not let readers wander and find other options.
Great insight--there are definitely real benefits to showing. I think Booth was trying to point out that telling has overlooked benefits, but I also get the sense that he was responding to a group of critics and writers who were on a mission to make authors invisible. Of course, that was 60 years ago, so it's very possible that writers and critics have moderated their stances since then.
I have a question for you. Why did Booth write The Rhetoric of Fiction instead of The Poetics of Fiction? Your views please.
That's an insightful question! I tend to think of in terms of the difference between Aristotle's Poetics and his Rhetoric. The Poetics tends to focus more on features and qualities of texts while the Rhetoric focuses on resources of persuasion that speakers can use to interact with audiences. Booth's basic argument here is that rules that focus only on the formal qualities of a story are insufficient to explain how narrative works, suggesting instead that it's useful to think about how an author's storytelling strategies affect the reader's reception of the story. For Booth, the idea is that effective storytelling operates on principles similar to effective persuasion, and using "Rhetoric" in the title helps to emphasize the point.
@@WritingwithAndrew I love that question too.
I also like your take on it.
Although, it immediately makes me think that a book or talk on
"the poetics of fiction" would be a very interesting thing to tackle.
It would be an interesting lens to looking at style when it comes to fiction.
@@jonathanlochridge9462 Interesting--I'll put that in my back pocket...!
Isn't it the case that the idea of the implied author and/or narrators, both considered distinct from the actual author, a prejudice of western poetics and its basis in mimesis? Such theoretical constructs are very stage-y as though the actual author is donning a mask or ventriloquizing. Given the western bias, is Booth more sympathetic to the actual author or these other theoretical constructs?
It has been a while, so I'd hesitate to assert Booth's position too confidently. But I think the idea that there is a fundamental and unavoidable difference between the author-as-person and the author-as-represented-in-the-text is deep in the roots of the rhetorical approach. We could make assumptions about the actual author, but they would have to be based on the partial representations of the whole person that we find in a text.