Burke (1897 – 1995)

1. Burke (1897 – 1995) - self-taught after h.s.- prolific writer and critic- major figure in phil. of language- lived on a farm all his life- major literary figure in 20’s and 30’s- inspiration for cult of kb

2. “Imagine that you enter a parlor. You come late. When you arrive, others have long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is about. In fact, the discussion had already begun long before any of them got there, so that no one present is qualified to retrace for you all the steps that had gone before. You listen for a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar. Someone answers; you answer him; another comes to your defense; another aligns himself against you, to either the embarrassment or gratification of your opponent, depending upon the quality of your ally's assistance. However, the discussion is interminable. The hour grows late, you must depart. And you do depart, with the discussion still vigorously in progress.” (1941)

3. key definitions consubstantial: selves or identities are formed through a mixture of substances, (physical objects, occupations, friends, activities, beliefs, values, etc.) Consubstantiation occurs when two entities are united in substance through common ideas, attitudes, possessions or properties. “to identify A with B is to make A consubstantial with B”

4. Identification: Used synonymously with consubstantial. It is the key to persuasion. As we share substances, we come to identify with others. As we speak each other's language, we become consubstantial. Why is identification the key term for persuasion/rhetoric? Because “to begin with ‘identification’ is…to confront the implications of division” “Identification is compensatory to division” (i.e. identification compensates for division, it paves it over) “If men (sic) were not apart from one another, their would be no need for the rhetorician to proclaim their unity”

5. differences between persuasion and identification? persuasion identification typically call to action typically call to attitude seeks to move audience from point seeks to entice audience to a to point b move themselves from point a to point b reason/logic-based psychology-based

6. key statements re: identification “You persuade a man (sic) only insofar as you can talk his language by speech, gesture, tonality, order, image, attitude, idea, identifying your ways with his.” “you give the signs of consubstantiality by deference to an audience’s “opinions” “Longinus refers to that kind of elation wherein the audience feels as though it were not merely receiving, but were itself creatively participating in the poet’s or speaker’s assertion. Could we not say that, in such cases, the audience is exalted by the assertion because it has the feel of collaborating in the assertion?” anadiplosis, anaphora, climax (gradatio), parallelism, http://www.americanrhetoric.com/rhetoricaldevicesinsound.htm