Wayne Clayson Booth (February 22, 1921 – October 10, 2005) was an American literary critic. He was the George M. Pullman Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in English Language & Literature and the College at the University of Chicago. His work followed largely from the Chicago school of literary criticism. February 22 is the 53rd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1921 (MCMXXI) was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... October 10 is the 283rd day of the year (284th in Leap years). ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Literary criticism is the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. ... George Mortimer Pullman (March 3, 1831 – October 19, 1897) was an American inventor and industrialist. ... A professor is a senior teacher and researcher, usually in a college or university. ... The University of Chicago is a private university located principally in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. ... The Chicago school of literary criticism, also known as Neo-Aristotelianism, was developed in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s at the University of Chicago. ...

He was born in American Fork, Utah and educated at Brigham Young University and the University of Chicago. He taught English at Haverford College and Earlham College before moving back to University of Chicago. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Brigham Young University, often referred to as BYU, is the flagship university of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). ... Haverford College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college located in Haverford, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia. ... Earlham College is a national, selective Quaker liberal arts college in Richmond, Indiana. ... The University of Chicago is a private university located principally in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. ...

His major work was The Rhetoric of Fiction. In this book, Booth argues that all narrative is a form of rhetoric. The speaker in narrative is the author or, more specifically, the implied author. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Rhetoric (from Greek ρήτωρ, rhêtôr, orator, teacher) is the art or technique of persuasion, usually through the use of language. ... The implied author is a concept of literary criticism developed in the twentieth century. ...

The implied author is a compromise between old-fashioned biographical criticism, and the new critics who argued that one can only talk about what the text says. Booth argued that it is impossible to talk about a text without talking about an author, because the existence of the text already implies the existence of an author. Booth recognizes, however, that it may be that this author differs from the actual author. New Criticism was the dominant trend in English and American literary criticism of the early twentieth century, from the 1920s to the early 1960s. ...

Booth also notes, however, that this author is distinct from the narrator of the text. He uses the examples of stories with an unreliable narrator to prove this point, observing that, in these stories, the whole point of the story is lost if one confuses narrator and author. The Narrator is the entity within a story that tells the story to the reader. ... In literature and film, an unreliable narrator (a term coined by Wayne C. Booth in his 1961 book The Rhetoric of Fiction[1]) is a literary device in which the credibility of the narrator, either first-person or third-person, is seriously compromised. ...

A later work is Modern Dogma and the Rhetoric of Assent, in which he addresses the question of what circumstances should cause one to change one's mind, discussing what happens in situations where two diametrically opposed systems of belief are in argument. His central example is an incident at the University of Chicago, in which students and administration were engaged in fierce argument that eventually degenerated to each side simply reprinting the other side's arguments without comment, believing that they were so self-evidently absurd as to undermine themselves.

Another book of note is 1974's The Rhetoric of Irony, in which Booth examines the long tradition of irony and its use in literature. It is probably his second most popular work after The Rhetoric of Fiction.

He also wrote The Company We Keep: An Ethics of Fiction, a sequel of sorts to The Rhetoric of Fiction, in which he makes a case for ethical judgments made on a work of fiction.

In common with most Chicago school critics, Booth has been attacked for making overly broad claims about the nature of humanity and for marginalizing cultures in the process. The Chicago school of literary criticism, also known as Neo-Aristotelianism, was developed in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s at the University of Chicago. ... Humanity refers to the human race or mankind as a whole, to that which is characteristically human, or to that which distinguishes human beings from other animals or from other animal species primal nature. ...

The University of Chicago Wayne C. Booth Graduate Student Prize for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching was established in 1991 in honor of Booth.

Works

• Rhetoric of Fiction (1961)
• Boring from Within: The Art of the Freshman Essay (c. 1963) pamphlet
• Now Don't Try to Reason with Me : Essays and Ironies for a Credulous Age (1970)
• Autobiography of Relva Booth Ross (1971)
• Booth Family History (1971)
• A Rhetoric of Irony (1974)
• Knowledge Most Worth Having (1974) editor
• Modern Dogma & the Rhetoric of Assent (1974) Ward-Phillips Lectures in English Language and Literature
• Critical Understanding : The Powers and Limits of Pluralism (1979)
• The Harper and Row Rhetoric: Writing As Thinking, Thinking As Writing (1987) with Marshall W. Gregory
• The Company We Keep: An Ethics of Fiction (1988)
• The Harper & Row Reader : Liberal Education Through Reading & Writing (1988) with Marshall W.Gregory
• The Vocation of a Teacher : Rhetorical Occasions, 1967-1988 (1988)
• The Art of Deliberalizing: A Handbook for True Professionals (1990)
• The Art of Growing Older: Writers on Living and Aging (1992) editor
• The Craft of Research (1995) with Gregory Colomb and Joseph Williams
• Literature as Exploration (1996) with Louise M. Rosenblatt
• For the Love of It : Amateuring & Its Rivals (1999)
• Rhetoric of Rhetoric: The Quest for Effective Communication (2004) Blackwell Manifesto
• My Many Selves: The Quest for a Plausible Harmony (2006)

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External links

• Report of Death
• Obituaries on University of Chicago