Burlesque drama as a rhetorical genre: The hudibrastic ridicule of William F. Buckley, Jr.

Abstract

Burlesque rhetoric may emerge when comic social distance fails to effect change, comic role‐players fall short of the mark, or historical shifts in political, social, or scientific orientation occur. The burlesque discourse of William F. Buckley, Jr., a feature of the Old Conservatives' conflict with liberal New‐Dealism, strongly exemplifies the expected response of a dispossessed sectarian elite to an historic breaking of a frame of reference, according to Burke. Central to the restorationist movement that brought Ronald Reagan to power, Buckley's books and essays are often written in “low” burlesque of the hudibrastic kind vis‐a‐vis his liberal opponents. Considered as drama, such discourse features black‐and‐white disorder, a guilt‐mongering logician, distorted clownish opponents, limited scapegoating, and a self‐serving redemption. Buckley's burlesque is seen to mediate tragedy and comedy in that Buckley accepts and rejects his political antagonists at one and the same time. Burke's (1984) classification of literary genres as frames of acceptance (the epic, tragedy, and comedy) and frames of rejection (burlesque, etc.) requires adjustment for rhetorical messages, which center on manner of victimage. In rhetoric, burlesque is best seen as negotiating a compromise between the radical rejection of the goat in tragedy and the chastening acceptance of the bumbler in comedy.