Kenneth Burke
Kenneth Burke
Kenneth Duva Burkewas an American literary theorist who had a powerful impact on 20th-century philosophy, aesthetics, criticism, and rhetorical theory. As a literary theorist, Burke was best known for his analyses based on the nature of knowledge. Furthermore, he was one of the first individuals to stray away from more traditional rhetoric and view literature as "symbolic action."...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth5 May 1897
CountryUnited States of America
animal men order
Man is/the symbol-using (symbol making, symbol-misusing) animal/inventor of the negative (or moralized by the negative)/separated from his natural condition by instruments of his own making/goaded by the spirit of hierarchy (or moved by the sense of order)/and rotten with perfection.
people progress enlightenment
The progress of human enlightenment can go no further than in picturing people not as vicious, but as mistaken.
way seeing
A way of seeing is also a way of not seeing.
persuasion rhetoric
Wherever there is persuasion, there is rhetoric, and wherever there is rhetoric, there is meaning.
attitude men political
The most characteristic concern of rhetoric [is] the manipulation of men's beliefs for political ends....the basic function of rhetoric [is] the use of words by human agents to form attitudes or to induce actions in other human agents.
fall cutting men
The universe would appear to be something like a piece of cheese; it can be sliced in an infinite number of ways- and when one has chosen his own pattern of slicing, he finds that other men's cuts fall at the wrong places.
mean use essentials
Rhetoric is rooted in an essential function of language itself, a function that is wholly realistic and continually born anew: the use of language as a symbolic means of inducing cooperation in beings that by nature respond to symbols.
stories equipment
Stories are equipment for living.
attitude men ideas
You persuade a man only insofar as you can talk his language by speech, gesture, tonality, order, image, attitude, idea, identifying your ways with his
reflection reality men
Men seek for vocabularies that are reflections of reality. To this end, they must develop vocabularies that are selections of reality. And any selection of reality must, in certain circumstances, function as a deflection of reality.
character events may
We not only interpret the character of events... we may also interpret our interpretations.