A Grammar of Motives

Kenneth Burke

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9780520015449
• eBook ISBN: 9780520341715
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Letteratura
• Subtopic: Critica letteraria inglese

About this book Mr. Burke contributes an introductory and summarizing remark, "What is involved, when we say what people are doing and why they are doing it? An answer to that question is the subject of this book. The book is concerned with the basic forms of thought which, in accordance with the nature of the world as all men necessarily experience it, are exemplified in the attributing of motives. These forms of thought can be embodied profoundly or trivially, truthfully or falsely. They are equally present in systematically elaborated or metaphysical structures, in legal judgments, in poetry and fiction, in political and scientific works, in news and in bits of gossip offered at random."
About this book Mr. Burke contributes an introductory and summarizing remark, "What is involved, when we say what people are doing and why they are doing it? An answer to that question is the subject of this book. The book is concerned with the basic form

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• INTRODUCTION: THE FIVE KEY TERMS OF DRAMATISM
• I CONTAINER AND THING CONTAINED
• II ANTINOMIES OF DEFINITION
• III SCOPE AND REDUCTION
• I SCENE
• II AGENT IN GENERAL
• III ACT
• IV AGENCY AND PURPOSE
• I THE DIALECTIC OF CONSTITUTIONS
• II DIALECTIC IN GENERAL
• SYMBOLIC ACTION IN A POEM BY KEATS
• THE PROBLEM OF THE INTRINSIC
• MOTIVES AND MOTIFS IN THE POETRY OF MARIANNE MOORE
• FOUR MASTER TROPES
• INDEX