Language, Life, Literature, Rhetoric and Composition as Dramatic Action

422 Pages·2014·2.67 MB·English

“I have had the benefit of helpful A
responses on initial drafts from a number p
of knowledgeable scholars. Chief among p
these is Ed Appel . . . .” Clarke Rountree, e
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University of Alabama Huntsville, Judging
the Supreme Court: Constructions of Motives
in Bush vs. Gore.
“A special note of thanks for your
service [to his “honor roll” of 20 Associate
Editors from his large Editorial Board]
as a vintage of these desperate years, and
still extra appreciation to Ed Appel and
Keith Ericson who have written fluent,
rapid, brilliant reviews and who have taken
up difficult manuscripts that made other
reviewers wring their hands.” Andrew King,
Louisiana State University, Editor, Quarterly
Journal of Speech, 1999-2001.
“The article [on the rhetoric of Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.] was a tremendous
help to me as a literary critic. It gave me a
deeper understanding of Dramatistic theory,
and how it relates to discourse. The subject matter was inspirational, in and of
itself, but more so after reading the critique.” Nathan Fisk, Chairman, Ironwood
Public Relations, in “Nate’s Writing Samples.”
Language,
“To what extent does the rhetorical criticism published within these pages
meet the criteria outlined earlier? Some of the articles are exemplars of discovery
research. For example, in ‘Kenneth Burke: Coy Theologian,’ Appel argues that L Life, Literature,
despite Burke’s claim to the contrary, the noted rhetorical critic was at least a a
n
generic theologian. . . . To support his contested claim, Appel uses his encyclopedic
g
knowledge of Burke’s writing plus a command of metaphysical thought.” Em Rhetoric and
u
Griffin, Wheaton College, in the Journal of Communication and Religion.
a
Question: “Are you a theologian?” Answer: “Well, Ed Appel has made a g
powerful argument that I am.” Kenneth Burke, at a gathering of scholars the first e Composition
evening of the Kenneth Burke Conference on Discourse Analysis, Philadelphia, a
PA, March 1984, as reported by Herbert W. Simons, Temple University. s
as Dramatic
Edward C. Appel, Lock Haven University, holds an M.A. in Communication D
(University of Delaware), an M. Div. (Lancaster Theological Seminary), and a Ph.
r
D. in Rhetoric and Communication (Temple University). a
Action
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A A Burkean Primer
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t By: Edward C. Appel
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Language, Life, Literature,
Rhetoric and Composition
as Dramatic Action:
A Burkean Primer
Edward C. Appel
By: OarPress
Copyright© 2012
OarPress
69 Hickory Lane
Leola, PA 17540
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
Email: [email protected]
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012901225
ISBN 978-0-578-08246-2 (paper)
In cooperation with
NeFra Communication
www.nefra.com
To Ruth Anne

Contents
Foreword: v
Introduction: ix
Chapter 1: The General, Implicitly Moral Pattern of Verbal Action 1
Wherein we root Burke’s pentad/hexad in the content
parts of speech, and demonstrate the ethical/dramatic implications
of those fundamental grammatical elements.
Chapter 2: The Specific, Explicitly Moral Pattern of Verbal
Action 13
Wherein we introduce Burke’s “Terms for Order,” or
“Guilt-Redemption Cycle,” show the connection between those
terms and the pentad-hexad/content-parts-of-speech, and illustrate
the ubiquity of these dramatic stages in six venues of life.
Chapter 3: A Paradigm for Invention of Discourse and Analysis
of Texts That Combines the Two Patterns 27
Wherein we offer a fusion of Burke’s pentad/hexad and
ii
terms for order as global tool of analysis, and elaborate thereon.
Chapter 4: “Hark Ye yet Again---the Little Lower Layer” I: The
Negativity of Dramatic Action 43
Wherein we delve more deeply into the origins and
dynamics of drama in the life of symbol-users. The quotation
comes from the “Quarterdeck” chapter in Melville’s Moby-Dick,
which plays a prominent part in the chapters on Burke and literary
analysis. The dramatistic approach to language is especially
contrasted with the representationalist, positivist, scientist, or
empiricist positions. Five overt and six covert manifestations of
negative intuition in symbol-use are offered and explored. As
mentioned in the text, this chapter and the two that follow could
be skipped at the discretion of the instructor, with students moving
on directly to the literature section, beginning with Chapter 7.
Chapter 5: “Hark Ye yet Again---the Little Lower Layer” II: The
Theology of Dramatic Action 71
Wherein a case is made for Burke as a “generic”
theologian, what with his “theological motive of perfection”---
terminology taken from The Rhetoric of Religion---as the basis for
the human drama, and both the “glory” and often the “sickness”
the resultant human striving can manifest. Six reasons are offered
in support of this claim on the basis of Burke as a theologian by his
own account. Five implicit arguments are adduced, in addition.
Support for the theological view is garnered from several other
interpreters of Burke, including his close friend and correspondent
Wayne Booth. Burke’s dramatism/logology is characterized as a
quasi-gnostic universalism friendly to process theology. At the
1984 Burke Conference in Philadelphia (sponsored by Temple
University), Burke was asked whether he was a theologian. We
were told Burke’s reply was, “Well, Ed Appel has made a powerful
argument that I am.”
Chapter 6: “Hark Ye yet Again---the Little Lower Layer” III: The
Anthropology of Dramatic Action 87
Wherein we cite and elaborate on fourteen aspects of
human life that illustrate the ubiquity of Burke’s dramatism,
distinguish the actions of symbol-users from the motions of
nonverbal animals, and show how those symbol-modified actions
run counter to the tendency of ethologists and biologists in general
to conflate too readily the human with the nonhuman.
iii
Chapter 7: Application of Our “Fit-All-Finger” Paradigm of
Dramatic Action to Some Well-Know American-English Literary
Texts 113
Wherein we apply the synthetic paradigm explained in
Chapter 3 to Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter and Melville’s Moby-
Dick, the stages of the drama in those standard works boldly
foregrounded.
Chapter 8: From a Burkean Perspective, the “Little Lower Layer”
of Moby-Dick as Dramatic Action I 139
Wherein we explain and illustrate analysis of Moby-
Dick in terms of Burke’s notions of fatalistic foreshadowing,
form (repetitive, syllogistic progressive, qualitative progressive),
eloquence, double-vision, paradoxical ambiguity, and “truth.”
Chapter 9: From a Burkean Perspective, the “little Lower Layer”
of Moby-Dick as Dramatic Action II 155
Wherein we illustrate, in this novel, Burke’s emphasis on
a piece of literature as strategic encompassment of a problematic
environing situation, with extended treatment, and application to
the present day, of Burke’s concept of nature as the “unanswerable
opponent,” prominent in this novel, very definitely of momentous
importance to verbal and nonverbal animal life in the present and
the future.
Chapter 10: Rhetoric as Dramatic Action I 177
Wherein we treat Burke’s antipodal conceptions of
tragedy and comedy, necessary alterations in point of view being
made between imaginative literature and practical persuasion
in the public square. The tragic-frame rhetors exemplified
and probed are Adolf Hitler, Jerry Falwell, and the Rev. Dr.
Wallace E. Fisher, our dissertation subject. Each of these orators
illustrates somewhat unique use of this genre of discourse.
Possible adumbrations of melodrama will be noted. The featured
comic-frame communicator is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Due
consideration is given to changes in nomenclature between classic
social-movement theory and “new” social-movement theory.
Chapter 11: Rhetoric as Dramatic Action II 199
Wherein we deal with an “in-between” category of
political and social discourse, burlesque, again of course, ala
Burke. Our exemplars are William F. Buckley, Jr., and radio
iv
talkshow host Rush Limbaugh, who turns out to be a mixed-genre
rhetor, both a burlesquer and a tragedian. Their seat in life as
explanatory background, as dialectical source of motivation, is
placed front and center.
Chapter 12: Rhetoric as Dramatic Action III 219
Wherein we focus on the “in-between” genre of political
and social discourse, melodrama. Our featured archetype is former
U.S. House Majority Whip Tom DeLay. Major attention is given
here to an “exigence” in generic criticism in the communication
field: Several significant scholars in rhetoric/communication are
employing the term “tragedy” in a manner quite different from that
of most Burkean interpreters and critics. A set of four taxonomies
across rhetorical tragedy, burlesque, melodrama, and comedy is
broached as a “rapprochement” in this implicit dispute.
Chapter 13: Putting One Word, One Thought, after Another,
Burke Style 245
Wherein we build especially on the work of Michael
Hassett and Tilly Warnock, two interpreters of Burke who have
done superbly well in making sense of Burke’s anfractuous style
and its utility in overcoming the pinched and blinkered perspectives
inherent in what Alfred Korzybski would call the “allnesses,” and
Burke calls the “all-or-none[nesses],” of typical composition. We
illustrate “burking oneself” with some of our own postings on
the Burke discussion list. We also grant and illustrate the utility
of conventional “radiation” of thoughts via brainstorming and
free writing, and show how Burke puts his imprimatur on these
approaches, too.
Chapter 14: The Broad Sweep and the Pith and Marrow 265
Wherein we summarize the multiple Burkean ideas---
thirty-four in particular---presented and illustrated in this study, and
home in on what we think readers and students should especially
take away in respect to each of the five topics highlighted in the title
of this volume. We conclude with a whimsical “drama review” of
a book that claims Burke is a Cartesian representationalist.
Appendixes 281
Notes 289
Works Cited 315
Indexes 349
Addenda 367