Kenneth Burke's poetics and the influence of I. A. Richards: A cornerstone for dramatism

Abstract

Current scholarship on the work of Kenneth Burke tends to be less derivative and more analytical of the corpus of his theory on language and human relations. Much of this discussion centers on learning from the choices Burke made, those he asks others to make, and some that his works suggest should be made. Perhaps no part of that analysis is more important than the proposition that attitudes, embedded in language and provoked through rhetoric and poetic, are incipient actions, a theme Burke adopted from I. A. Richards and incorporated into Counter‐Statement. This concept, developed in the 1920s and 1930s, provides a cornerstone for the connection he believes exists between language, thought, and behavior. Remnants of this idea underpin his conception that terministic screens are embedded in idioms and lead to trained incapacity.