In August, 1959, an anxious William Rueckert wrote Kenneth Burke to
ask, "When on earth is that perpetually 'forthcoming' A Symbolic of
Motives forthcoming? Will it be soon enough so that I can wait for
it before I complete my book Kenneth Burke and the Drama of Human
Relations]? If the Symbolic is not forthcoming soon, would it be
too much trouble for you to send me a list of exactly what will be
included in the book, and some idea of the structure of the book?"
Burke replied, "Holla If you're uncomfortable, think how
uncomfortable I am. But I'll do the best I can. . . ." In the
course of their long correspondence, the nature of the
Symbolic-Burke's much-anticipated third volume in his Motivorum
trilogy-vexed both men, and they discussed its contents often.
Ultimately, Burke left the job of pulling it all together to
Rueckert. Forty-eight years after they first discussed the
Symbolic, Rueckert has fulfilled his end of the bargain with this
book, Essays Toward a Symbolic of Motives, 1950-1955. ESSAYS TOWARD
A SYMBOLIC OF MOTIVES, 1950--1955 contains the work Burke planned
to include in the third book in his Motivorum trilogy, which began
with A Grammar of Motives (1945) and A Rhetoric of Motives (1950).
In these essays-some of which appear here in print for the first
time-Burke offers his most precise and elaborated account of his
dramatistic poetics, providing readers with representative analyses
of such writers as Aeschylus, Goethe, Hawthorne, Roethke,
Shakespeare, and Whitman. Following Rueckert's Introduction, Burke
lays out his approach in essays that theorize and illustrate the
method, which he considered essential for understanding language as
symbolic action and human relations generally. Burke concludes with
a focused account of humans as symbol-using and misusing animals
and then offers his tour de force reading of Goethe's Faust. About
the Author KENNETH BURKE (1897-1993) is the author of many books,
including the landmark predecessors in the Motivorum trilogy: A
Grammar of Motives (1945) and A Rhetoric of Motives (1950). He has
been hailed as one of the most original thinkers of the twentieth
century and possibly the greatest rhetorician since Cicero. Paul
Jay refers to him as "the most theoretically challenging,
unorthodox, and sophisticated of twentieth-century speculators on
literature and culture." Geoffrey Hartman praises him as "the wild
man of American criticism." According to Scott McLemee, Burke may
have "accidentally create d] cultural studies." About the Editor
William H. Rueckert, the "Dean of Burke Studies," has authored or
edited numerous groundbreaking books and articles on Kenneth Burke,
including the landmark study, Kenneth Burke and the Drama of Human
Relations (1963, 1982). His correspondence with Burke was collected
in Letters from Kenneth Burke to William H. Rueckert, 1959-1987
(Parlor, 2003). His most recent book is Faulkner From
Within-Destructive and Generative Being in the Novels of William
Faulkner (Parlor, 2004).
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