Product Code Database
Kenneth Duva Burke (May 5, 1897 – November 19, 1993) was an American literary theory, poet, essayist, and novelist, who wrote on 20th-century philosophy, aesthetics, criticism, and rhetoric.Richard Toye, Rhetoric: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. As a literary theorist, Burke was best known for his analyses based on the nature of knowledge. He was one of the first theorists to stray from more traditional rhetoric and view literature as "symbolic action."
Burke was unorthodox, concerning himself not only with literary texts but also with the elements of the text that interacted with the audience: social, historical, political background, author biography, etc."Kenneth Burke." Encyclopædia Britannica. [1] Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013.
For his career, Burke has been praised by The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism as "one of the most unorthodox, challenging, theoretically sophisticated American-born literary critics of the twentieth century." His work continues to be discussed by rhetoricians and philosophers."Kenneth Burke." Encyclopædia Britannica. [2] Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013.
In 1919, he married Lily Mary Batterham, with whom he had three daughters: the feminist, Marxist anthropologist Eleanor Leacock; musician (Jeanne) Elspeth Chapin Hart; and writer and poet France Burke. He later divorced Lily and, in 1933, married her sister Elizabeth Batterham, with whom he had two sons, Michael and Anthony. Burke served as the editor of the modernist literary magazine The Dial in 1923, and as its music critic from 1927 to 1929. He was an avid pianist. He received the Dial Award in 1928 for distinguished service to American literature. He was the music critic of The Nation from 1934 to 1936, and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1935. Twentieth Century Authors: A Biographical Dictionary of Modern Literature, edited by Stanley Kunitz and Howard Haycraft, New York, The H. W. Wilson Company, 1942.
His work on criticism was a driving force in placing him back in the academic spotlight. As a result, he was able to teach and lecture at various colleges, including Bennington College, while continuing his literary work. Many of Burke's personal papers and correspondence are housed at Pennsylvania State University's Special Collections Library. But despite his stint lecturing at universities, Burke was an autodidact and a self-taught scholar."Letters from Kenneth Burke to William H. Rueckert, 1959-1987", edited by William H. Rueckert, West Lafayette, IN: Parlor Press, 2003.
In later life, his New Jersey farm was a popular summer retreat for his extended family, as reported by his grandson Harry Chapin, a popular singer-songwriter. Burke died of heart failure at his home in Andover, New Jersey, age 96. "KENNETH BURKE, 96 PHILOSOPHER, WRITER ON LANGUAGE", Boston Globe, November 22, 1993. Accessed July 16, 2008. "Kenneth Burke, a philosopher who was influential in American literary circles, has died. He was 96. Mr. Burke died Friday of heart failure at his home in Andover, N.J."
Burke corresponded with a number of literary critics, thinkers, and writers over the years, including William Carlos Williams, Malcolm Cowley, Robert Penn Warren, Allen Tate, Ralph Ellison, Albert Murray, Katherine Anne Porter, Jean Toomer, Hart Crane, and Marianne Moore. "List of Correspondents in Kenneth Burke Papers" , Kenneth Burke Papers, Special Collections Library, Pennsylvania State University. Later thinkers who have acknowledged Burke's influence include Harold Bloom, Stanley Cavell, J. Hillis Miller, Susan Sontag (his student at the University of Chicago), Erving Goffman,Mitchell, J. N. (1978). Social Exchange, Dramaturgy and Ethnomethodology: Toward a Paradigmatic Synthesis. New York: Elsevier. Geoffrey Hartman, Edward Said, René Girard, Fredric Jameson, Michael Calvin McGee, Dell Hymes, and Clifford Geertz. Burke was one of the first prominent American critics to appreciate and articulate the importance of Thomas Mann and André Gide; he produced the first English translation of "Death in Venice", which first appeared in The Dial in 1924. It is now considered much more faithful and explicit than H. T. Lowe-Porter's more famous 1930 translation.
Burke's political engagement is evident— A Grammar of Motives takes as its epigraph ad bellum purificandum ("toward the purification of war").
American literary critic Harold Bloom singled out Burke's Counterstatement and A Rhetoric of Motives for inclusion in his book The Western Canon.
Beyond his contemporary influences, Burke took Aristotle's teachings into account while developing his theories on rhetoric. A significant source of his ideas is Aristotle's Rhetoric. Drawing from it, Burke oriented his writing about language specifically to its social context. Similarly, he studied language as involving more than logical discourse and grammatical structure because he believed the social context of language cannot be reduced to principles of pure reason.
Burke draws a line between a Platonic and a more contemporary view of rhetoric, described as "old rhetoric" and "new rhetoric" respectively. The former is defined by persuasion by any means, while the latter is concerned with "identification." Burke's use of the word refers to the process by which a speaker associates themself with certain groups, such as a target audience. His idea of identification is similar to ethos in classical rhetoric, but it also explains the use of logos and pathos in an effort to create a lasting impression on the auditors. It is characterized by "identifying" with a speaker's rhetoric insofar as their words represent a world that seems to be that in which we live. (2025). 9780312472399, Bedford/St. Martin's. ISBN 9780312472399 This theory differs from ethos most significantly in Burke's conception of artistic communication that he believes is defined by eloquence, which is "simply the end of art and therefore its essence." The use of rhetoric conveys aesthetic and social competence, which is why a text can rarely be reduced to purely scientific or political implications, according to Burke. Rhetoric forms our social identity by a series of events usually based on linguistics, but more generally by the use of any symbolic figures. He uses the metaphor of a drama to articulate this point, where interdependent characters speak and communicate with each other while allowing the others to do the same. Burke also describes identification as a function of persuasive appeal.Hanson, Gregory. "Kenneth Burke's Rhetorical Theory within the Construction of the Enthnography of Speaking."
Burke defined rhetoric as the "use of words by human agents to form attitudes or to induce actions in other human agents."Burke, Kenneth. A Rhetoric of Motives (1950), p. 41. His definition builds on the preexisting ideas of how people understand the meaning of rhetoric. Burke describes rhetoric as using words to move people or encourage action. Furthermore, he described rhetoric as almost synonymous with persuasion ( A Rhetoric of Motives, 1950). Burke argued that rhetoric works to bring about change in people. This change can be evident through attitude, motives, or intentions, but it can also be physical. Calling for help is an act of rhetoric. Rhetoric is symbolic action that calls people to physical action. Ultimately, rhetoric and persuasion are interchangeable, according to Burke. Other scholars have similar definitions. Aristotle argued that rhetoric was a tool for persuading people (but also for gaining information) if the speaker knew how. One way in which Aristotle formed his arguments was through syllogism. Another example of how rhetoric was used to persuade was deliberative discourse. Here, politicians and lawyers used speech to pass or reject policies. Sally Gearhart states that rhetoric uses persuasion to induce change. Although she argues that persuasion is violent and harmful, she uses it as a tool herself to bring about change.
Burke defined the rhetorical function of language as "a symbolic means of inducing cooperation in beings that by nature respond to symbols." His definition of humanity states that "man" is "the symbol using, making, and mis-using animal, inventor of the negative, separated from his natural condition by instruments of his own making, goaded by the spirit of hierarchy, and rotten with perfection."Burke, Kenneth. "Definition of Man." The Hudson Review 16 4 (1963/1964): 491-514Coe, Richard M. "Defining Rhetoric—and Us: A Meditation on Burke's Definition." Composition Theory for the Postmodern Classroom. Eds. Olson, Gary A. and Sidney I. Dobrin. Albany: SUNY Press, 1994. 332-44. For Burke, some of the most significant problems in human behavior result from instances of symbols using human beings rather than human beings using symbols.
Burke proposed that when we attribute motives to others, we tend to rely on ratios between five elements: act, scene, agent, agency, and purpose. This has become known as the dramatistic pentad. The pentad is grounded in his dramatistic method, which considers human communication as a form of action. Dramatism "invites one to consider the matter of motives in a perspective that, being developed from the analysis of drama, treats language and thought primarily as modes of action" ( Grammar of Motives, xxii). Burke pursued literary criticism not as a formalistic enterprise but rather as an enterprise with significant sociological impact; he saw literature as "equipment for living," offering folk wisdom and common sense to people and thus guiding the way they lived their lives.
Pollution initially constitutes actions that result in the creation of Guilt. The creation of Guilt occurs upon the rejection of a hierarchy. Challenges to relationships, changes in power, and appropriateness of behaviors to change are each contributing factors toward the formation of Guilt.Rybacki, Karyn & Rybacki, Donald. Communication Criticism: Approaches and Genres. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1991. Print. It is appropriate to draw parallels between the creation of Guilt and original sin. Original sin constitutes "an offense that cannot be avoided or a condition in which all people share".Foss, Sonja K., Foss, Karen A., and Trapp, Robert. Contemporary Perspectives on Rhetoric. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, Inc., 2014. Print. Guilt represents the initial action that strips a situation of its perceived purity. The establishment of Guilt necessarily leads to the need to undergo purification to cleanse the individual affected by its recognition. Purification is thus accomplished through two forms of "ritual purification." Mortification and victimage represent the available avenues of purification.
Stratification within society created by hierarchies allows for marginalization within societies. Marginalization thus is a leading factor in the creation of Guilt, and leads to the need for mortification. Burke wrote, "In an emphatic way, mortification is the exercising of oneself in 'virtue'; it is a systematic way of saying no to Disorder, or obediently saying yes to Order".Burke, Kenneth. The Rhetoric of Religion. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961. Print. Mortification allows self-sacrifice, which enables one to rid oneself of impurities. Purification will only be reached if it is equal to one's degree of guilt. If mortification cannot be reached, one will ultimately be forced to project "his conflict upon a scapegoat, by 'passing the buck,' by seeking a sacrificial vessel upon which he can vent, as from without, a turmoil that is actually within".Burke, Kennth. A Rhetoric of Motives. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969. Print. Sacrificial vessels allow for the extermination of one's Guilt while enabling one to remain virtuous. Victimage is the second form of ritual purification. Burke highlights society's need to rectify division within its ranks. He wrote, "People so dislike the idea of division, their dislike can easily be turned against the man or group who would so much as name it, let alone proposing to act upon it".Burke, Kenneth. "The Rhetoric of Hitler's "Battle." Readings in Rhetorical Criticism. Ed. Carl R. Burgchardt. State College: STRATA Publishing, Inc. 2010. 238-253. Victimage allows the creation of a scapegoat that serves as a depository of impurities in order to protect against entities that are alien to a particular society. The scapegoat takes on the sins of the impure, thus allowing redemption for the Guilty party. Through the course of these actions the scapegoat is harnessed with the sins of the Guilty.
Redemption is reached through one of two options. Tragic redemption revolves around the idea that guilt combines with the principles of perfection and substitution in order that victimage can be utilized. This can be viewed as the "guilty is removed from the rhetorical community through either scapegoating or mortification".Borchers, Timothy. Rhetorical Theory: An Introduction. Long Grove: Waveland Press, 2006. Comic enlightenment is the second form of redemption. This option allows the sins of the guilty to be adopted by Society as a whole, ultimately making Society guilty by association.
Burke's exploration of identification within rhetoric heavily influenced modern rhetorical theory. He revolutionized rhetoric in the West with his exploration of identification, arguing that rhetoric is not only about "rational argument plus emotion", but also that it involves people connecting to language and one another at the same time. Burke’s theory of identification was complicated by his critical interest in music, prompting a shift toward distinguishing between form and information in sonic identification.
Burke's poetry (which has drawn little critical attention and seldom been anthologized) appears in three collections: Book of Moments (1955), Collected Poems 1915–1967 (1968), and the posthumously published Late Poems: 1968-1993 Attitudinizings Verse-wise, While Fending for One's Selph, and in a Style Somewhat Artificially Colloquial (2005). His fiction is collected in Here & Elsewhere: The Collected Fiction of Kenneth Burke (2005).
His other principal works are
He also wrote the song "One Light in a Dark Valley," later recorded by his grandson Harry Chapin.[10]
Burke's most notable correspondence is collected here:
|
|
