Abstract

ARGUMENTATION AND ADVOCACY 40 (Fall2003): 118-123 KENNETH BURKE'S CONTINUED RELEVANCE: ARGUMENTS TOWARD A BETTER LIFE Bryan Crable In the wake of Kenneth Burke's death in grave's Kenneth Burke: Rhetoric and Ideology, 1993, a branch of rhetorical scholarship the earliest text considered here, explicitly shifted its focus, away from the Burkean sys­ abjures the introduction of Burke as a whole, leaving such work to others. Instead, By­ tem to consideration of Burke himself. In grave's reading of Burke's work centers Burkean parlance, we might describe this as a move away from Burke's writings, and around a single concept-ideology-and its relationship to rhetoric: "Rhetoric and ide­ toward "KB," the man behind the corpus. ology are not the same thing, but the latter is Consequently, collections of Burke's corre­ not to be understood without the former, spondence have appeared (e.g. Jay; Reuck­ and his demonstration of this is one way in ert, Letters), adding to the portrait provided which Burke is vitally exemplary" (7). by historical scholarship on his writings (e.g. Burke's utility to ideology critique rests on Williams; Reuckert, "Kenneth") and the first two central features of his theory of rhetoric. volume of a biography tracing his life and First, according