Abstract
Always attuned to the dialectical relationship between literary productions and their sociohistorical contexts, the writings of Kenneth Burke refuse to essentialize literary discourse by making it a unique kind of language. This article maintains that Burke’s theory of literature and language as symbolic action is capable of encompassing both these intrinsic and extrinsic aspects without being reducible to either of them. Dramatism is his name for the theory, and its strength derives from its recognition of the necessarily ambiguous transaction between the system of signs and the frame of reference. Nevertheless, there is an essentializing tendency in Burke’s thought. Logology, a perspective on language that achieves fruition in The Rhetoric of Religion (1961), is symptomatic of this tendency. I argue that there is a perceptible discontinuity between the dramatistic idea that literature and language are to be considered as symbolic action and the logological idea that words about God bear a strong resemblance to words about words. Logology— words about words—discovers in theology—words about God—the perfectionism implicit in all discourse. I conclude, however, that despite his flirtation with linguistic essentialism, Burke never loses sight of the fact that words are first and foremost agents of power, that they are value-laden, ideologically motivated, and morally and emotionally weighted instruments of persuasion, performance, representation and purpose. As a form of symbolic action in the world, literature is inextricably linked to society and history—it is not a privileged form of language that exists in its own separate and autonomous sphere.
Highlights
Always attuned to the dialectical relationship between literary productions and their sociohistorical contexts, the writings of Kenneth Burke refuse to essentialize literary discourse by making it a unique kind of language
What Burke constructs is a theory of literature and language capable of encompassing both these intrinsic and extrinsic aspects without being reducible to either of them. Dramatism is his name for the theory, and its strength derives from its recognition of the necessarily ambiguous transaction between the system of signs and the frame of reference
Grammar and Rhetoric In A Grammar of Motives (1945) and A Rhetoric of Motives (1950), Burke elaborates the dream/prayer/chart triad of The Philosophy of Literary Form into a more sophisticated scheme: grammar, rhetoric, and symbolic
Summary
Аннотация: Кеннет Берк, всегда чуткий к диалектическим отношениям между литературными произведениями и их социально-историческими контекстами, в своих сочинениях отказался от взгляда на литературный дискурс как некую готовую данность, увидев в ней особый тип языка. Основной тезис настоящей статьи заключается в том, что взгляд Берка на литературу и язык как символическое действие способен охватить как внутренне присущие им, так и внешние аспекты, не сводя суть дискурса ни к тем, ни к другим. И все же в мышлении Берка присутствует тенденция к эссенциализму. Прослеживается явное противоречие между теорией драматизма, согласно которой литературу и язык надлежит рассматривать как символические действия, и тезисом логологии о том, что слова о Боге в значительной мере близки к словам о словах. Логология – слова о словах – видит в теологии – словах о Боге – совершенство, присущее дискурсу в целом. Ключевые слова: драматизм, модель «ситуация – стратегия», триада «сон – молитва – план», пентада драматизма, грамматика/риторика/символика, парадокс субстанции, терминистические экраны, психоз иерархии, мотив энтелехии, логология
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