Bohumil FoftInstitute for Czech Literature,

Czech Academy of Sciences and Masaryk University

How Many (Different) Kinds ofFictional Worlds Are There?

Since 1989 many literary theoretical books connected with the heritage of the so-called Prague School have been published in the Czech Republic. Also, books wecould consider primary sources of Czech structuralism, such as Jan Mukafovsky'sselected works (two volumes of his Studie) and Felix Vodicka's books Pocdtkykrdsne prozy novoceske and Struktura vyvoje, have been either republished afterdecades or newly edited. Furthermore, there are now several books written by theirstudents and followers, who, under the communist regime, could hardly publish orcould not publish at all. The scholars of this generation of Czech structuralists,those who stayed in Czechoslovakia in the seventies and eighties, were allowedneither to officially educate a new generation of their followers in universities norto influence them by their work. Some of the members decided to leave thecommunist state and live abroad. Thus, we speak about the Czech branch and aboutthe foreign branch of this generation of Czech structuralism. Nevertheless, after1989 books of Miroslav Cervenka and Milan Jankovic (i.e., of those who stayed)appeared in Czech bookstores next to books hy Jiff Veltrusky, Kvetoslav Chvatfk,or Lubomir Dolezel (i.e., of those who left the country)—some of them originallywritten in Czech and others translated from foreign languages. The authors pursueddifferent approaches, methodologies, and strategies in their studies of literaryworks, but these differences can still be seen as variety inside a relatively consistentframework of structuralist thought. They share some theoretical problems, such astext and its structure, structured meaning, stylistic analysis, and so on. Some oftheir books were originally written before 1989, but some are much more recent,usually reflecting their authors' long continuing development of theoreticalthought. An example of such a work is the 2003 Czech translation of LubomirDolezel's Heterocosmica, which first appeared in English in 1998 and whichintroduces the most recent elaboration of a new and influential trend incontemporary literary theoretical study: possible-world semantics.

In this study I would like to highlight, first, the connection betweenHeterocosmica and the Czech structuralist tradition and, second, its place in thecontemporary Czech theoretical environment. In this particular case, I would liketo single out one important book that stemmed from this enviroment, MiroslavCervenka's Fikcni sv^ lyriky {Fictional Worlds of Lyric Poetry, 2003), and topresent a general comparison of the concrete theoretical results both books leaveopen for further literary investigation.

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Dolezel's WorldsThe Czech translation of Heterocosmica is significant specifically for two reasons:first, it introduces the Czech reader to the results of work that Dolezel has beeninvolved for more than twenty years; second, the translation given by the authorhimself provides Czech readers with completely new theoretical terminology. Thebook is organized around the crucial notion of fictional worlds. It must bementioned that the concept of fictional worlds is not considered new. At least inCzech structuralist tradition it was, to a certain extent, used by Mukafovsky as wellas by Vodicka. This kind of usage was, so to speak, theoretically innocent.Mukafovsky and Vodicka speak purely about a world within a work; the worlditself is not subject to much discussion.' In their discussions the world of a work ofart is not considered a referential framework of fictional semantics. This does notsurprise us when we bear in mind that it is foremost the lack of reference that isconsidered one ofthe weakest points of the Czech structuralist school (see Dolezel,Occidental Poetics). Both structural analysis of particular texts and structuralistaesthetics as a part ofthe wider philosophy of art omit any deeper exploration of thenotion of text reference.

Generally speaking, Dolezel has been involved in the topic of fictional worldsfor several decades, whereas Cervenka offered the idea of fictional worlds of lyricpoetry relatively recently and did so directly under Dolezel's influence. As early asthe 1980s Dolezel published some particular articles that anticipated several topicsand aspects of his narrative semantics of possible worlds. Since then his effortshave been concentrated on the development of an integral semantic which uses thenotion of a world produced by the semantic potential of narrative texts, as its crucialterm. Cervenka, on the other hand, belongs to the set of prominent structuralisttheoreticians of lyric poetry and verse, though his contribution to the generalsemantics of literary texts cannot be overlooked. Dolezel's Heterocosmica,published in 1998, has significantly contributed to the recent discussion of fictionalworlds as possible worlds. Heterocosmica is so far the only book that successfulycombines deep theoretical research and explanation of fictional worlds and theirsemantics with an analysis of particular fictional texts. Thus Heterocosmica is themost comprehensive study ever written on possible-worlds semantics and devotedto research and analysis of narrative texts and their worlds. Unlike Dolezel,Cervenka in his Fikcni svety lyriky deals with a rather rare idea of fictional worldsbased on texts of lyric poetry. To some extent Cervenka offers an application of awell-developed semantics of narrative texts to texts of lyric poetry, though thisapplication does not follow the narrative semantics in every way, partly because ofthe different object to which the semantics is applied and partly because of hisdifferent theoretical approach to textual reference itself.

Dolezel's narrative semantics of possible worlds is established on two levels.The first level pertains to the verbal (stylistic) properties of fictional texts and theway and extent to which they participate in the construction of fictional worlds,whereas the second level identifies fictional worlds as specific semiotic entities

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with a specific narrative potential. Needless to say, the very notion of fictionalworlds is based on the possible worlds of logical semantics. The term developedand used in modern logical discourse is not completely applicable to the field offictional worlds. Nevertheless, both concepts share important characteristics. Bothkinds of worlds are semiotic objects made of entities with a specific ontologicalstatus. Narrative semantics thus uses the achievements of logical investigation toestablish a base for fictional reference. Fictional worlds, like possible worlds inmodal logic, are established through semiotic channels. Their ontological status issubstantially different from that of our actual world. The main distinction betweenthe possible worlds of logical systems and fictional worlds consists of two essentialfeatures: fictional worlds are finite and incomplete, whereas possible worlds oflogic are infinite and complete. This opposition derives from their differentbackgrounds: possible worlds are atomically constructed by distinctive logicalprocedures, while fictional worlds are given by already existing fictional texts.^The structured distinction between the two kinds of worlds has been exploredexhaustively, and some scholars have been working on the problem for severalyears. Aside from Dolezel, I have to emphasize names like Umberto Eco, BarbaraPartee, Thomas Pavel, Marie-Laure Ryan, and Ruth Ronen.

I have mentioned that Dolezel's model of narrative semantics consists of twolevels. The first level, which is in general based on text theory, in particular onstylistics, can be viewed as semantics of foundations and formation of fictionalworlds. It is obvious that textual meaning as a whole is a complex structure; generalsemantics has proved the fact sufficiently. The fictional-world structure seems tobe no less complex. The fact that every expression has two semantic components,extensional and intensional meaning, sometimes presented as reference and sense,seems now to be generally accepted. Following this idea, Dolezel points to twocomponents of narrative texts. His fictional worlds are purely semantic entities andthus involve extensional and intensional structures. In short, the extensionalstructures consist of paraphasable semantic elements, the explicitly and implicitlygiven sequences of the narrative's plot, agents, settings, and so on. On the contrary,the intensional structure of a fictional world is firmly connected with the intensionof the text; for this component of the textual meaning the very form of expression,the texture, is of crucial importance. According to Dolezel, intensional functionsarise from the texture and form thus the intensional structure of a fictional world;they are functions "from the fictional text's texture to the fictional world"{Heterocosmica 139).

There are several functions connecting narrative texts to their worlds; Dolezelprecisely elaborates on two of them that seem to be crucial for a fictional-worldintensional structure: authentication function and saturation function. Generallyspeaking, the authentication function is connected with the notion of fictionalexistence, its status and its distribution within the fictional world, whereas thesaturation function controls the fictional world's density, its structuration and itsdistribution. Nevertheless, the intensional functions cannot be investigated

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otherwise than in an indirect way: 'The method of indirect analysis . . . identifiesintensional functions by uncovering the global 'morphology' of texture, itsformative principles, its stylistic regularities. Intensional function is redefined as aglobal regularity of texture that affects the structuring of the fictional world" (139).According to this presumption the only way to grasp the intensional structure offictional worlds is through a thorough stylistic analysis of fictional texts.

Dolezel's idea of the authentication function was inspired by J. L. Austin'stheory of performative speech acts; these acts can carry a specific illocutionaryforce, meaning that they become a part of the action itself, under specific felicitouscircumstances that depend on the speaker's authority. Dolezel adopts the idea ofperformative speech acts for the purpose of narrative, and he connects it with thefictional existence itself. Fictional existence differs entirely from our actualexistence because fictional entities are brought into existence by fictional texts:"To exist fictionally means to exist in different modes, ranks, and degrees" (147).The status and degree of fictional existence depend completely on theauthentication power: "We conclude then, that the speech acts of fictional personsin the binary type have, potentially, a performative force, but its origin is differentfrom that of the authoritative narrative. The narrator's authority, let us repeat, isgiven by genre convention and is analogous to Austin's performative authority; thefictional persons' authority rests on consensus and coherence and is analogous tothe pragmatic conditions of natural discourse" (150-51).Thus the structure offictional worlds is fundamentally formed by the intensional function ofauthentication: "The two different origins of fictional facts in the dyadicauthentication leave an intensional trace, which splits the factual domain of thefictional world into two subdomains: fully authenticated, by authoritativenarrative, and collectively authenticated, by consensual fictional persons'accounts. As to the virtual domain, the domain of possibles that remainnonauthentic, it divides into private domains, the beliefs, visions, illusions, anderrors of individual fictional persons (Don Quixote's giants, Emma Bovary'sParis)" (151).'' However, apart from the classical (dyadic) narrative modes we canconsider various narrative modes and strategies that challenge this dyadic model,for example, subjectivized £r-form and impersonal /c/i-form. In the case of the twonarrative modes we must employ a different authentication scheme, gradedauthentication: "We have to introduce a generalized, graded authenticationfunction that can express formally the world-constructing force of all availablenarrative modes. The function assigns different grades (degrees) of authenticity tofictional entities, distributed along a scale between 'fully authentic' and'nonauthentic' Consequently, it provides world constituents with different ranksor modes of fictional existence" (152). Detailed analysis of these narrative typesand of the narrative types that subvert authentication (self-voiding narrative, skaz-narrative, self-disclosing narrative, impossible worlds-constructing narrative)belongs to important achievements of Dolezel's book. It must also be emphasizedthat his approach combines a deep study of formal features of narrative modes and

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a functional point of view: narrative modes are speech acts with specific functionswithin narrative structures.

The intensional function of saturation structures fictional worlds in a differentway: it projects the density of the fictional text onto the fictional world bydetermining its saturation. According to this assumption the texture ofthe fictionaltext is of three kinds—explicit, implicit and zero—and this division splits thefictional-world structure into three domains:

The explicit texture constructs the determinate domain, the implicit texture theindeterminate domain, and zero texture the domain of gaps.... The determinate domainrepresents the solid core ofthe fictional world, its determinate facts. Thanks to their triodeof construction—explicit texture—all fictional facts are ofthe same semantic status. Thecore is supplemented by the fuzzy domain of indeterminate facts. Because theindeterminate fictional facts are constructed by implicit texture and have to be recoveredby a relativized procedure of inference, their semantic status cannot be uniform. (182-83)

In Dolezel's conception, gaps are of a special significance: they cannot and they arenot supposed to be filled. Unlike historical narrative, fictional narrative lackscognitive procedures that would be able to fill gaps in fictional worlds, becausethere is nothing that could be inserted into the gaps, no witness, no evidence, nonew discovery. Gaps are just an inevitable part of fictional-world structure. As wecan see, there is still enough room for individual reconstruction of fictionalworlds—the reader's inference of implicit meaning based on specific inferenceprocedures. The development and use of these procedures are idiosyncraticfeatures of the reader's participation in the fictional world creation; theprerequisites of these procedures are the reader's actual and fictionalencyclopedias—they are individually differentiated.

Ofthe two levels of Dolezel's system of narrative semantics, the first is basedon detailed text-linguistic and semantic studies. If we consider the linguistic andliterary theoretical achievements ofthe Prague School, it becomes clear that a largepart of its heritage is reflected in this level of Dolezel's theoretical investigation.The survey ofthe structure of narrative texts and ofthe way the structure ofthe textsinfluences the structure of narrative fictional worlds is thus part and parcel of a newdevelopment in narrative grammar. Dolezel offers his specific project of such agrammar, which is primarily based on the results of the theory of action.

According to Dolezel, fictional worlds are semantic entities of a specialontological status, and they are constituted by the mutual relationships of particularelements. Several elements are usually involved in the structuring of fictionalworlds: natural forces, inanimate objects, persons, their mental lives, actions, andinteractions, and so on. First, some fictional entities are chosen to enter a fictionalworld; second, the macrostructure of the fictional world is governed by globalrestrictions, which are imposed on all elements of a fictional world and constrainthe possible actions and interactions of its persons. Dolezel distinguishes four typesof global modal restrictions: alethic, deontic, axiologic, and epistemic. As a rule,one of the modalities is placed in a dominant position in a particular fictional worldand determines its potential for generating atomic narratives (stories).

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Cervenka's WorldsI will turn now to Cervenka's Fictional Worlds of Lyric Poetry. Its publication wasrather unexpected because Cervenka had primarily been involved in the theoreticalinvestigation of verse and lyric poetry. The book is outstanding for two reasons.First, in the field of literary theory so far there have not been many theoreticalworks dealing with the semantics of fictional worlds ofthe lyric genre. Second, ageneral lack of primary Czech works dealing with fictional-worlds theory stillremains."* Cervenka was known as a scholar whose major contribution to literarytheory was deeply rooted in the structuralist tradition of the Prague School. As wewill see later, Cervenka's roots in the Czech structuralist tradition do not contradicthis involvement in fictional world semantics, although this connection is not amatter of course.

In contrast to Dolezel's book, Cervenka's does not offer the reader a fullydeveloped system of a comprehensive semantics of fictional worlds of lyric poetry.The main contribution of the book consists in the attempt to apply the theoreticalsystem to an analysis ofthe genre of lyric poetry. Thus Cervenka's study overlapsonly a part of Dolezel's book, but this part is an essential base for a comprehensiveanalysis of the fictional worlds of lyric poetry. Cervenka tries to define the verynotion of fictional worlds of lyric poetry. In the case of a lyrical text manyprocedures for establishing fictional worlds differ from the procedures establishingfictional worlds of narrative. Texts of lyric poetry and of narrative function indifferent ways. It is obvious that even the extensional and intensional functionsstructure those fictional worlds in different ways—some of the functions aredifferent and some of them operate differently.

In Cervenka's conception there are two important innovations in standardpossible-worlds fictional semantics: the notion of fictional worlds itself and theirplacements. Above all, Cervenka links,the notion of fictional world to the notion ofthe subject of a lyrical work; he suggests regarding the subject of a poem as afictional world itself: "A fictional world of a lyric poem is represented by itssubject" (23). Two important influences have led Cervenka to draw thisconclusion. First, there is a strong influence of the structural semantics of thePrague School and its notion ofthe "semantic gesture," which is directly connectedwith the notion of the subject of a literary work. Second, Cervenka does notconsider fictional worlds to be the ultimate frameworks for a literary work'sreference: he views fictional worlds as objects of a make-believe game of thework's subject, who is placed above the fictional world.

The subject of a lyrical work has a privileged position in the structure of thework. This implies that we can view the subject from two different perspectives.From the perspective of a creation of a work, the subject of the work (and thisapplies to all literary works) guarantees the unity of the construction of meaning ofthe work. Derived from the idea ofthe "semantic gesture," the work's subject is theultimate base for a unified meaningfulness of the work—unsurprisingly if we takeinto consideration that the meaning of a literary work is firmly connected with its

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originator—through its author. Thus, in a wider sense, the author of a work isrepresented by the work's subject. From another perspective, a work's subjectplays a crucial role in the act of the work's reception: during the act of reading,during the accumulation of the work's meaning, the reader reconstructs ahypothetical originator of the work. The category of the work's originator isnecessary for reader's perception of the work's meaning: "The semantics of a worknecessarily refers to a subject who created the work" (43). Thanks to this category,the reader can rely on a core of meaning he or she uncovers during his or her act ofreading. The reader's belief determines and leads his or her partial interpretationsduring the whole act of reading.

At this point the question about the relation between a work's subject and theauthor must be raised. For the purpose of literary theoretical investigation it isnecessary to distinguish between a work's subject and its author. There is anontological gap between a physical human being, the author of the text, and thesubject of the work's unified meaning, even though the latter is essentiallydependent on the former: "It is necessary to keep in mind the permanent borderbetween the real person of the author, on one hand, and the being set in the reader'scontrolled references, a semiotic construct 'without a body'" (45). As we can see,Cervenka presupposes that the mental construction of a hypothetical originator isan integral part of the reader's reception. On the basis of the ontological differencebetween the real author and a work's subject, we can say that whereas the authorbelongs to our actual world, the subject belongs to a world of a different ontologicalstatus.

The subject of a work is not the only subject "presented" in lyrical poems: alyrical subject is another example of an integral part of a work; it is actually a voicespeaking to other voices or to the reader: "We imagine the lyrical subject as whollyincluded in the fictional world constituted by the work; at the same time, the lyricalsubject embodies the fictional world by itself (50). Nevertheless, a lyrical subjectis a purely internal textual quality; it usually involves parts of narrative fictionalworlds:, Ich- and £r-form narrator's spheres as well as an /c/i-form fictionalcharacter's sphere.

At this point Cervenka puts forward an important suggestion: a lyrical subjectis firmly fixed in the fictional world, is an embodiment of it, whereas a subject ofthe work is situated beyond the borders of this world. The work's subject is not aninternal textual quality, but, as quoted above, the work itself refers to a creativesubject "that cannot be a constituent of the work's fictional world" (43). Thework's subject thus keeps a position external to the fictional world. Where is thenthe work's subject supposed to be situated, if not in its fictional world?

The question about the placement of a work's subject is not, in Czechstructuralist theoretical environment, anything we could consider new: it doesbelong to the basic topics of the Prague School's investigation. The Prague School,from its very beginnings, differentiates between a work's author as apsychophysical human being and a work's subject. No doubt, a subject, considered

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a general text's strategy, is connected with its psychophysical author, but therelationship between the author and the subject remains concealed. Due to the lackof available theoretical tools necessary for investigating the relationship betweentwo entities of a different ontological status, we can only say that one "speaks" inthe real world, the other one "speaks" in a fictional one. The prominent theoreticianof the Prague School, Jan Mukafovsky, already in his study of 1946 shows us theimportance of a theoretical investigation of a work's subject's placement:

A subject is something different from a particular individual: strictly speaking, onecannot speak ahout a perceiving suhject and about a subject-as-originator. From the pointof view of the work itself, under the notion of subject we can understand neither anyparticular mind nor even any actual individual with particular qualities, original orgained, etc. When we stay inside a work, the subject is a mere noetic assumption, animaginary point. In case of a concretization this point can be filled with any individual,no matter if this individual is an originator or a receptor. In any case, this individual is anentity which stays outside the scope of the work. {Studie 1307-08; see also 14-15)

This quotation presents two important theses: (1) a work's subject is a noeticassumption—the work's story has to "belong" to someone; (2) "actual" individualsstay outside works, regardless of what role these individuals play in literarycommunication. If we consider the fact that Mukafovsky in his study of 1946 didnot have at his disposal the modern conceptual tool of the fictional world, we arenot surprised that he places subjects outside their works. On the other hand,Mukafovsky stipulates that the subject differs from the psychophysical author, sowe can assume that a subject is not placed in our actual world either. But to whatdomain does the subject belong?

To answer this question Cervenka uses a theoretical solution suggested byKendall L. Walton, who differentiates between a fictional world constituted by aliterary work and a fictional world that involves the former and uses it as an objectof a game:

There are fictional worlds of games of make-believe, fictional worlds of representationalworks, and fictional worlds of dreams and daydreams. . . .

Among game worlds are the worlds of games in which representational works areprops. If Richard is a viewer contemplating La Grande Jatte, there is the world of hisgame. We must be careful not to confuse this world with the world of La Grande Jatteitself, and in general not to confuse the worlds of games that appreciators play withrepresentational works with the worlds of the works....

But we must insist on distinguishing between the two worlds. If work worlds are notdistinct from game worlds in which the works are props, how are we to decide which ofthe worlds of the various games that different appreciators or appreciators on differentoccasions play with La Grande Jatte is to be identified with the world of Z.a Grande JattelIf this cannot be decided nonarbitrarily, we are forced to regard the world of the paintingas a world over and above those of appreciators' games.

Moreover, although there is considerable overlap between the propositions fictionalin Richard's game and those fictional in La Grande Jatte, some of the former are notamong the latter. It is fictional in Richard's game, I will argue, that he sees a couplestrolling in a park. But this is not fictional in the painting. Richard is not among thecharacters in the painting he is looking at. So the two worlds are distinct.

(Walton 58-59)

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At first glance, the notion of the worlds-of-game is quite similar to the notion offictional worlds used by narrative semantics of fictional worlds. In this case,Cervenka brings up an additional fictional world to accommodate elements of themeaning-constitution of a literary work that, according to him, do not belong to thefictional world itself—they are thus accommodated in a superior fictional world-of-game that keeps the work's fictional worlds as an object of the play: "Exactlyhere, not in the spectral domain ofthe fictional world of a work, but in the domainof dealing with the world, at the border between the realm of extratextual andintratextual, we find a place to locate the work's subject as a carrier of the creativeactivities leading to the origin of the work" (43). Cervenka calls the domain "asphere of play and contemplation, of playful contemplation, of contemplated play"(43).

ComparisonAs we can see, there are several distinctions between Dolezel's and Cervenka'sconceptions. The first difference is in the basic notion of fictional world. Accordingto Dolezel, who employs the term for analyzing narrative works, it is an entity thatfunctions as the ultimate frame of semantic reference of a literary work; all thesemantic qualities of the work's text participate in its structure. For Cervenka, thefictional world of a lyrical work is equal to the work's subject. However, when weconsider the difference between narrative and lyric poetry, both conceptions can beviewed as similar, at least to some extent. A lyrical subject, being the horizon fora lyrical text's reference, is apparently part and parcel of a literary work of lyricpoetry and corresponds to particular constituents of narrative fictional worlds. Thework's subject is a term equally applicable to both, narrative and lyric poetry, andrefers to the general meaning-unifying factor. Second, for Dolezel all the elementsof a work's meaning-construction refer to one particular framework, and theystructure this framework on different levels and in different ways. Unlike Dolezel,Cervenka multiplies the number of referential realms and thus multiplies thenumber of fictional worlds of lyric poetry; he differentiates between the fictionalworld of a work and the fictional world of a game, which is superior to the former.Obviously, the crucial point ofthe two theoretical approaches lies right here.

My purpose here is not to resolve the crucial disagreement between twoprominent theoreticians in a way that one would be declared true while the otherone false. We cannot do so because they hold different positions in their theoreticalconceptions. However, one can always raise the question whether, for example,Dolezel's system has been elaborated with sufficient validity and depth or whether,in the case of Cervenka's project, one could not have applied the so-called principleof Ockham's Razor. But I will ask another, purely pragmatic question: Which,approach is more suitable and more efficient for an empirical study of literature? Iwill try to show that, in spite of the evident differences between the twoconceptions, they both hold the same promise for further empirical literaryinvestigations.

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Dolezel's notion of fictional worlds provides us with a rare comprehensivesystem of all levels ofthe fictional text's reference. All the meaning-constitutingproperties of a fictional text participate in structure of a fictional world. FollowingCervenka's differentiation between a fictional world-of-work and a fictionalworld-of-game, we see that the two kinds of worlds overlap: the subject of a literarywork is already involved in the structure of his world. If we agree with thesuggestion that a work's subject is an ultimate guarantee of its semantic unity, itseems that nothing can prevent us from accepting the idea that the unity is a part ofthe global world structure. This idea does not seem to contradict Cervenka'ssuggestion that a work's subject is an entity dependent on the psychophysicalauthor who crossed the ontological boundary of the real (actual) and became a partof the fictional. In this case, Cervenka places the unity of the work's meaning in awider context of the author-work, relationship. Nevertheless, it seems to be verydifficult to separate a work's subject from the world's structure and to state whatparticular features of a literary text refer to the subject, to an entity being situatedsomewhere beyond a particular fictional world. Cervenka explains his reasons forseparating the worlds of works from worlds of game and placing the work's subjectin between them: "The semantics of an artwork necessarily refers to a subject whocreated the work and thus cannot be a part of its fictional world. Also therelationship between a fictional world and the actual world, which, after all, alsorefers to the originator of the work, has a highly significant indexical value;nevertheless, neither is this relationship naturally is a part of the fictional world"(43).

It is obvious that Cervenka is inspired by and follows the example given byWalton (quoted above). On the other hand, it seems that they are of differentopinions when considering reasons to multiply fictional worlds: they refer todifferent aspects of the process in which a work functions as a specific object ofcommunication. Walton seems to be more concerned with the work's perceptionand thus refers to different readers' realization of a fictional world creation. I thinkthat it is possible to say that Walton refers to different concretizations in differentperception acts of a work. His model receptor (appreciator) is not and cannot besituated in the fictional world of a work, because this world is just an object of hisperception. From my point of view, Walton only describes the basic fact ofperception of a literary work using different words. However, Cervenka is moreconcerned with the opposite side of the literary communication process, with thework's creation. Cervenka insists that the relationship between an author and his orher work, which obviously does not belong to the work's fictional world and whichresembles the relationship between Richard and Le Grande Jatte, is a part of thework's, meaning constitution and is embodied in the subject ofthe work. We cansee that there is no such element in the work's reception that could be reciprocal tothe work's subject of creation. The work's recipient does not influence the workitself at all; he or she participates only in a particular concretization of the work. Awork's creator, who belongs to the real world, turns into the work's subject in the

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world of the work. Both the originator as well as the participator have to approachthe work's fictional world as something that is situated beyond them and that canbe viewed as an ohject of a game.

The subject of a work, which is, according to Cervenka, placed between thefictional world of a game and the fictional world of a work, seems to occupy thisparticular space to create a link between the semantics of fictional worlds and theprocess of literary communication. A subject placed between the two worlds thusbecomes ontologically ambiguous: it belongs neither to the fictional world nor tothe real one. Needless to say, Cervenka's incorporation of lyrical structures infictional-world semantics contributes not only to a better understanding of therelation between the classical structuralist approach and possible-world semanticsbut also to a deeper comprehension of the way lyric poetry is involved in the wholephenomenon of literature.

Which conception provides us with a more efficient system for a deep andexhaustive analysis of literary artworks? I hope that this study has indicated ananswer to the question by dealing with both conceptions, showing theirbackgrounds, presumptions, strategies, aims, and purposes. In general the choiceof one of these conceptions is a matter of preference and opinion, as both of themrepresent the leading trends in contemporary theorizing about fictional worlds; toprefer one to the other means to follow one's own intuition rather than to be moreor less rational.

Notes' Mukafovsky, in his 1925 study of the Czech author Bozena Nemcova, speaks

of "the plot environment" {Studie II240), a term that can be viewed as antecedentto the teun fictional world; in his 1939 study of Karel Capek, Mukafovsky refersto a "narrated reality" {Studie 7/463). In a famous and controversial aesthetic studyfrom 1936, he explains that literary works can produce an alternative reality for thereader {Studie 1132). Vodicka then directly refers to "a fictional world" when hespeaks about genres and literary types (484).

^ Reading them means viewing the fictional worlds.

' For fictional worlds see also Pavel; Ronen; and Ryan.

•* The most important exception is the work of Zuska.

Works CitedCervenka, Miroslav. Fikcni svety lyriky [Fictional Worlds of Lyric Poetry]. Praha:

Paseka, 2003.

Dolezel, Lubomir. Heterocosmica: Fiction and Possible Words. Baltimore: JohnsHopkins UP, 1998.

. Occidental Poetics: Tradition and Progress. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P,1990.

Mukafovsky, Jan. Studie I. Brno: Host, 2000.

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. Studie IL Brno: Host, 2001.

Pavel, Thomas G. Fictional Worlds. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1986.

Ronen, Ruth. Possible Worlds in Literary Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge UP,1994.

Ryan, Marie-Laure. Possible Worlds, Artificial Intelligence, and NarrativeTheory. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1991.

Vodicka, Felix. Pocdtky krdsne prdzy novoceske: pfispdvek k literdrnim dejindmdoby Jungmanovy. Praha: H&H, 1994.

. Struktura vyvoje. Praha: Dauphin, 1998.

Walton, Kendall L. Mimesis as Make-Believe: On the Foundations of theRepresentational Arts. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1990.

Zuska, Vlastimil. (jas v moznych sv&ech obrazu: pfispS vek k ontologiivytvarneho umdeckeho dila a procesujeho recepce. Prague: U Karlova, 1994.