Kenneth Burke (May 5, 1897–November 19, 1993) was a major American literary theorist and philosopher. Burke's primary interests were in rhetoric and aesthetics. May 5 is the 125th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (126th in leap years). ... 1897 (MDCCCXCVII) was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... November 19 is the 323rd day of the year (324th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1993 (MCMXCIII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1993 Gregorian calendar). ... Literary theory is the theory (or the philosophy) of the interpretation of literature and literary criticism. ... The philosopher Socrates about to take poison hemlock as ordered by the court. ... Rhetoric (from Greek , rhêtôr, orator, teacher) is generally understood to be the art or technique of persuasion through the use of spoken and written language; however, this definition of rhetoric has expanded greatly since rhetoric emerged as a field of study in universities. ... The Parthenons facade showing an interpretation of golden rectangles in its proportions. ...

Early life

He was born on May 5 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA and graduated from Peabody High School, where his friend Malcolm Cowley was also a student. Burke attended Ohio State University for only a semester, then studied at Columbia University in 1916-1917 before dropping out to be a writer, despite hints that he would be asked to join the school's faculty. In Greenwich Village he kept company with avant-garde writers such as Hart Crane, Cowley, Gorham Munson, and later Allen Tate. In later life his New Jersey farm was a popular summer retreat for his extended family, as reported by his grandson Harry Chapin. Nickname: Motto: Benigno Numine (With the Benevolent Deity) Location in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania Coordinates: Country United States Commonwealth Pennsylvania County Allegheny Founded November 25, 1758 Incorporated April 22, 1794 (borough)   March 18, 1816 (city) Government  - Mayor Luke Ravenstahl (D) Area  - City 151. ... Capital Harrisburg Largest city Philadelphia Area  Ranked 33rd  - Total 46,055 sq mi (119,283 km²)  - Width 280 miles (455 km)  - Length 160 miles (255 km)  - % water 2. ... // Peabody High School is a High School in Pittsburgh, PA is located on 515 North Highland Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15206 its principal is Sophia Facaros Special Programs/Services for Students and Community Center for Advanced Studies (CAS); Pittsburgh Scholars Program (PSP); Advanced Placement courses; Public Safety Academy-magnet (training and... Malcolm Cowley, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1963 Malcolm Cowley (1898 – March 27, 1989) was an American novelist, poet, critic, and journalist. ... The Ohio State University (OSU) is a coeducational public research university in the state of Ohio. ... Columbia University is a private research university in the United States. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... A work similar to Marcel Duchamps Fountain Avant garde (written avant-garde) is a French phrase, one of many French phrases used by English speakers. ... Harold Hart Crane (July 21, 1899 in Garrettsville, Ohio, United States – April 27, 1932 at sea) was a U.S. poet. ... Gorham Bert Munson (1896–1969) was an American literary critic. ... John Orley Allen Tate (November 19, 1899 - February 9, 1979) was an American poet, essayist, and social commentator, and Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, 1943 - 1944. ... Harry Forster Chapin (December 7, 1942 – July 16, 1981) was an American singer, songwriter, and humanitarian. ...

Influences

Burke, like many twentieth century theorists and critics, was heavily influenced by the ideas of Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, and Friedrich Nietzsche. He was a lifelong interpreter of Shakespeare, and was also significantly influenced by Thorstein Veblen. 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, Katherine Anne Porter, Jean Toomer, Hart Crane,and Marianne Moore. Later thinkers who have acknowledged Burke's influence include Harold Bloom, Stanley Cavell, Susan Sontag (his student at the University of Chicago), Geoffrey Hartman, Edward Said, Rene Girard, Frederic Jameson, and Clifford Geertz. Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5, 1818, Trier, Germany – March 14, 1883, London) was a German philosopher, political economist, and revolutionary. ... Sigmund Freud (IPA: ), born Sigismund Schlomo Freud (May 6, 1856 – September 23, 1939), was a Jewish-Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who co-founded the psychoanalytic school of psychology. ... Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October 15, 1844 – August 25, 1900) (IPA: ) was a German philosopher. ... Shakespeare redirects here. ... Thorstein Bunde Veblen (born Tosten Bunde Veblen July 30, 1857 – August 3, 1929) was a Norwegian-American sociologist and economist and a founder, along with John R. Commons, of the Institutional economics movement. ... William Carlos Williams Dr. William Carlos Williams (sometimes known as WCW) (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963), was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. ... Malcolm Cowley, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1963 Malcolm Cowley (1898 – March 27, 1989) was an American novelist, poet, critic, and journalist. ... Robert Penn Warren Robert Penn Warren (April 24, 1905 – September 15, 1989) was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic, and was one of the founders of The New Criticism. ... John Orley Allen Tate (November 19, 1899 - February 9, 1979) was an American poet, essayist, and social commentator, and Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, 1943 - 1944. ... Ralph Ellison (March 1, 1913[1] – April 16, 1994) was a scholar and writer. ... Katherine Anne Porter (15 May 1890 – 18 September 1980) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, and political activist. ... Jean Toomer (December 26, 1894–March 30, 1967) was a poet, novelist and an important figure of the Harlem Renaissance. ... Harold Hart Crane (July 21, 1899 in Garrettsville, Ohio, United States – April 27, 1932 at sea) was a U.S. poet. ... Marianne Moore photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1948 Marianne Moore (December 11, 1887 - February 5, 1972) was a Modernist American poet and writer. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Stanley Cavell (born September 1, 1926) of Brookline, Massachusetts is an American philosopher. ... Susan Sontag (January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was a well-known American essayist, novelist, intellectual, filmmaker, and activist. ... Geoffrey H. Hartman (b. ... Edward Wadie Said (Arabic: , transliteration: ) (1 November 1935 – 25 September 2003) was a Palestinian-American literary theorist and outspoken Palestinian activist. ... René Girard is a French philosopher, historian and philologist. ... Fredric Jameson (b. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ...

Burke resisted being pigeonholed as a follower of any philosophical or political school of thought, and had a notable and very public break with the Marxists who dominated the literary criticism set in the 1930s. The political and social power of symbols was central to Burke's scholarship throughout his career. His political engagement is evident, for example, at the outset of A Grammar of Motives in its epigraph, ad bellum purificandum -- toward the purification of war, with "pure" war implying its elimination. Burke felt that the study of rhetoric would help human beings understand "what is involved when we say what people are doing and why they are doing it." Burke called such analysis "dramatism" and believed that such an approach to language analysis and use could help us understand the basis of conflict, the virtues and dangers of cooperation, and the opportunities of identification and consubstantiality. Marxism takes its name from the praxis (the synthesis of philosophy and political action) of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ... Dramatism, introduced by rhetorician Kenneth Burke, made its way into the field of communication in the early 1950s is a method for understanding the social uses of language and how to encounter the social and symbolic world as a drama (Brock, Burke, Burgess, Parke, and Simons 1985). ...

Philosophy

Burke defined the rhetorical function of language as "the use of language as a symbolic means of inducing cooperation in beings that by nature respond to symbols." He defined "man" as "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." For Burke, some of the most significant problems in human behavior resulted from instances of symbols using human beings rather than human beings using symbols.

In Burke's philosophy, social interaction and communication should be understood in terms of a pentad, which includes act, scene, agent, agency, and purpose. He proposed that most social interaction and communication can be approached as a form of drama whose outcomes are determined by ratios between these five pentadic elements. This has become known as the "dramatistic pentad." The pentad is grounded in his dramatistic method, which sees the relationship between life and theater as literal rather than metaphorical: for Burke, all the world really is a stage. 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.

Another key concept for Burke is the terministic screen -- a set of symbols that becomes a kind of screen or grid of intelligibility through which the world makes sense to us. Here Burke offers rhetorical theorists and critics a way of understanding the relationship between language and ideology. Language, Burke thought, doesn't simply "reflect" reality; it also helps select reality as well as deflect reality.

Later works

He also wrote a novel, Towards a Better Life, and the song "One Light in a Dark Valley" (later recorded by his grandson Harry Chapin).[1] Harry Forster Chapin (December 7, 1942 – July 16, 1981) was an American singer, songwriter, and humanitarian. ...

His scholarly work has inspired many academics. After dropping out of college, he spent much of his twenties working as a critic and as an editor for The Dial. The January 1920 issue of the Dial. ...

His work on criticism was a driving force for placing him back into the university spotlight. As a result, he was able to teach and lecture at various colleges, including Bennington College, while continuing his literary work. Many of Kenneth Burke's personal papers and correspondence are housed at Pennsylvania State University's Special Collections Library. Bennington College is a liberal arts college located in Bennington, Vermont. ... The Pennsylvania State University (commonly known as Penn State) is a state-related, land-grant university. ...

Principal works

• Counter-Statement (1931)
• Permanence and Change (1935)
• Attitudes Toward History (1937)
• Philosophy of Literary Form (1939)
• A Grammar of Motives (1945)
• A Rhetoric of Motives (1950)
• The Rhetoric of Religion (1961)
• Language as Symbolic Action (1966)
• Dramatism and Development (1972)
• Here and Elsewhere (2005)
• Essays Toward a Symbolic of Motives (2006)
• Kenneth Burke on Shakespeare (2007)

• Full bibliography of Burke's writings

Year 1931 (MCMXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1931 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1935 (MCMXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar). ... 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... Year 1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1945and died 2007 (MCMXLV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar). ... Year 1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1961 calendar). ... 1966 (MCMLXVI) was a common year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1966 calendar). ... Year 1972 (MCMLXXII) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ...

External links

• The Virtual Burkeian Parlor and the Kenneth Burke Discussion List
• KB Journal
• Article on Burke's legacy
• Introduction to Burke
• The Kenneth Burke Society
• The Rhetorician Resource's Kenneth Burke page