Critical Responses to Kenneth Burke: 1924-1966

Critical Responses to Kenneth Burke was first published in 1969.This volume provides an extensive, representative collection of significant critical pieces about Kenneth Burke's work. There are 67 selections by 56 contributors, arranged chronologically according to the order of publication or writing which have appeared from 1924 through 1966. Among the selections are reviews, essay-reviews, essays, excerpts from books, and some previously unpublished material. Collectively, they chart Burke's development and assess his achievements as a contemporary American man of letters.Each selection is followed by a note in which Professor Rueckert identifies the contributor and comments on the content of the criticism. Through these notes he also provides a running commentary on the course of Burkeian criticism. As he points out in the preface, like any collection which includes works by so many different activated minds, covers so long and vital a period of time, and is devoted to so interesting a figure as Burke, the chronology of responses takes on an integrity of its own which is both of and beyond Burke. Out of the dialogue with Burke there develops a larger dialectic which is central to and continuous in the intellectual and moral life of American in our time.In addition to the critical selections and editor's notes, there are a checklist of Burke's writings and a selected bibliography of works about Burke.The book will be of special interest and value in a number of fields where Burke's influence has been significant, among them, sociology, modern rhetoric, theater, education, literary criticism, and verbal analysis.