At the ideological front

Abstract

In an effort to understand the critical culture of the 1930s and Kenneth Burke's place in it, this essay explores the meaning of the thirties, the role the American Communist Party played during this period, popular front politics, and the lens of McCarthyism through which these issues have been refracted. Burke's book Permanence and Change was first published in 1935. Reissued in 1954, it reflects deletions that reveal the impress of ideological struggles, struggles that influence not only Burke but also our own view of ourselves as scholars, scientists, and critics and the course of American history. Burke's contribution to rhetorical theory, situated in a historical context, reveals strategies and tactics of one who has, throughout his life, moved in and about the ideological front. Although this conclusion is borne out by situating Burke in a historical context and takes us beyond Burkeanism, as a methodological stance, it takes on meaning in the here and now of our own work.