Kenneth Burke - Rhetoric and Ideology (Electronic book text)

Kenneth Burke is a lucid introduction to a major twentieth-century thinker whose ideas have influenced a wide range of diciplines including literary theory, philosophy, politics and anthropology. The study focuses on the centre point in Burke's thought - found in his pre-occupation with the relationship between between language, ideology and action. Stephen Bygrave traces Burke's rhetorical strategies' and argues that they form a bridge between action' and symbolic action'. By considering Burke as a reader and writer of narratives and systems, he examines the inadequaces of earlier readings of Burke and enfolds Burke's thought within current debates on cultural theory. The book offers a new way of reading Burke's work, as well as introducing students of literature and cultural studies to the impressive range of his ideas.