PR 446: Against the ubiquity of fictional narrators

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Authors

Andrew Kania

Abstract

In this paper I argue against the theory–popular among theorists of narrative artworks–that we must posit a fictional narrative agent in every narrative artwork in order to explain our imaginative engagement with such works. I accept that every narrative must have a narrator, but I argue that in some central literary cases the narrator is not a fictional agent, but rather the actual author of the work. My criticisms focus on the strongest argument for the ubiquity of fictional narrators, Jerrold Levinson's ontological-gap argument. Finally, I outline an alternative minimal theory of narrators, and some consequences thereof.

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