Chart of Burke’s Rhetoric

Chart of Burke’s Rhetoric

summary document prepared by Steven S. Vrooman

rev. Jan 2023

 

Here is the overall diagram of the relationships between the various parts of Burke’s rhetoric we discussed/will discuss in class.

 

* note that methodology is a toolset a rhetorical critic uses. Axiology is the value-driven work the critic is doing to change the world. They connect because no honest critic claims to be value-neutral.

Here’s what the pieces mean:

Overall Concept		Parts of the Tool	Definitions of the Parts	What Do We Do with those Parts First?	What Do We Do with those Parts Second?
The Pentad		Scene	Elements surrounding the rhetorical act.	Ratios (We examine the relationship between those parts to see what sources of power/ tension, etc. are there) to find the: Dominant Term that seems to be the dramatic root of the rhetoric.	Each Dominant Term is associated with a Philosophic School, which have histories and implications: Scene – Materialism Actor – Idealism Act – Realism Purpose – Mysticism Agency - Pragmatism
		Actor	The person conducting the act.
		Act	The rhetorical act itself
		Purpose	The desired outcome of the act.
		Agency	The mechanism/authority by which the actor performs the act
Identification		The Freudian Unconscious	Identification is how a rhetorical actors connect with audience (share “substance”), and it is almost a magical connection floating in between those poles.	The is Burke’s key idea, but there are not clear tools with which to apply it and it remains a bit underdefined. Burkeans (Burke stans) argue that it helps us see complexities other ways of thinking do not.
		The Aristotelean Reasoned
Linguistic Analysis		Metaphor	A metaphor uses a vehicle (ex: hell) to refer to a tenor (ex: this class).	You look at the whole range of metaphors in a text and. . .	. . . look at how they operate using the next tools.
		Cluster	A cluster is a set of words in a rhetorical text whose choice over other potential words seems to have a meaning.	You explore the course and inflections of the clustering choices, draw conclusions, and . . .	. . . explore them using the next tool.
		Casuistry	The way words seem to be stretched beyond normative usage.	This can reveal ways that the rhetoric is pushing or pulling against older norms/pieties/ bureaucracies or, alternatively, resisting change.	The analyst then evaluates the seeming effectiveness of that, which often leads to our next concept . . .
Perspective by Incongruity		Burke calls this “verbal atom cracking.”		We look at 1)       The tension between words in a cluster and 2)       The casuistic stretching accomplished by that tension	Then we look at the ways that seems to create practical tensions by looking to . . .
Dramatistic Frames	Acceptance	Epic	A hero saves us.	We identify the operative frames and/or frames in tension, revealing a deeper structure.	For Burke, there is an axiological need to deconstruct non comic framings.
		Tragic	Evil is destroyed.
		Comic	A fool is educated.
	Rejection	Elegaic	All is unfixably lamentable.
		Satirical	A hero is a fool.
		Burlesque	A fool is un-educable.
Comic Correctives		Burke pulls it all together. What dramatistic identification does a piece of rhetoric embody? Does it work toward perspective by incongruity and comic correctives for the betterment of the world? If not, in what ways can the critic deconstruct those rhetorics?
Special note: Burkeans are notoriously cranky when someone tries to systematize Burke, and if you think about his approach, that makes sense. So don’t count on anyone else who does Burkean stuff agreeing with this! That person and myself are both, in each others’ minds, fools who need some education by comic incongruity.