Herzog To À­Î¬¶û˹̹ ": The Implied Author's Changes And Its Significance

Saul Bellow has written a series of intellectual fictions during his middle and later stage. In these fictions, he lays emphasise upon the contradictions and conflictions between American intellectuals and their daily metropolitan life. Since these fictions are separately created in a long period of time ( more than thirty years ), Bellow's opinions on the identity and crisis of contemporary American intellectual has undoubtedly undergone a both profound and obvious variation. As is known to all, Bellow is famous for his meditation in American literary circles and his meditations on the intellectual problems are mainly reflected by the four fictions as below: Herzog (1964), Humboldt's Gift (1975), More Die of Heartbreak (1987) and Ravelstein (2000). This paper aims at analysing the texts by the theory of implied author invented by the American critic Wayne C. Booth and other relative narratological concepts stem from Gerard Genette and Mieke Bal, by doing so, we may be possibly to orientate the implied author in each fiction, to obtain a general idea on the development of the implied author in Bellow's intellectual fictions, to sketch out its orbit and interpret its meaning at last. This article can be dived into five parts: firstly, the introductory remarks, the author express a general idea on Bellow's intellectual fictions and his meditations on intellectual problems by a highly summarizing paragraph; secondly, in this part, the author concisely round up the relative essays and dissertations both domestic and abroad on Saul Bellow as well as his works to outline a brief studying history; thirdly, the author precisely explore the development of the implied author in the four fictions from a literal perspective with the help of some narratological concepts; fourthly, deepen the theme by examining and distinguishing the differences of implied author in these four fictions, interpreting the meaning of the implied author and its development; fifthly, summarize the dissertation and reach the conclusion. The author hopes that this research may help us have a close look at Bellow's opinions on the relationship between intellectual and their modern city life.