DOCSLIB.ORG

Copyright by Zachary Daniel Sharp 2020

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Copyright by Zachary Daniel Sharp 2020 Copyright by Zachary Daniel Sharp 2020 The Dissertation Committee for Zachary Daniel Sharp Certifies that this is the approved version of the following Dissertation: Rhetoric, Poetics, and the Devotional Lyric in Early Modern England Committee: Davida H. Charney, Supervisor Wayne A. Rebhorn, Co-Supervisor Lawrence D. Green Mark G. Longaker Jeffrey Walker Rhetoric, Poetics, and the Devotional Lyric in Early Modern England by Zachary Daniel Sharp Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin August 2020 Dedication For my parents Acknowledgements In the course of planning and writing this dissertation I have incurred many debts. I thank Frank Whigham for starting me on the path and Wayne Rebhorn for his help along the way. I am also grateful for the privilege of having taken Jeffrey Walker’s course on classical rhetoric (twice) as well as for his encouragement when this project was still in its nascent stages. If it is not immediately obvious, my greatest scholarly debt is to him. I want to thank my friends and colleagues at The University of Texas at Austin, in particular James Garner and Xinyao Xiao, for suggesting improvements to early drafts of these chapters. I have also benefited substantially from the support of the English and Rhetoric departments. I owe much to my teachers and mentors at Trinity University, San Antonio, where I did my undergraduate work: I wish to acknowledge Michael Schreyach, Jeffrey Rufo, and my first teacher of rhetoric, Willis Salomon. Lastly, for her patience, enthusiasm, and dedication, I thank Davida Charney, who, as John Donne would say, taught me to “speake truths, and credibly.” v Abstract Rhetoric, Poetics, and the Devotional Lyric in Early Modern England Zachary Daniel Sharp, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2020 Supervisor: Davida H. Charney Co-Supervisor: Wayne A. Rebhorn Recently, scholars have argued that poetry provided the foundations for the development of rhetoric in antiquity. Lyric poetry in particular functioned as epideictic performance, a public, generalized art able to encompass a range of rhetorical motives. I propose that poetry played a similar role in early modern England, especially in the development of the devotional lyric. This contrasts with the prevailing view, that poetry served a primarily didactic role in the humanistic classroom and, more broadly, acted as a propaedeutic to ethical and philosophical instruction. I argue that these different uses of poetry represent two coevolving traditions centered on two competing ideas about the goal of poetry: “performative” poetics sees poetry as a situationally-defined, rhetorical art of invention; “paideutic” poetics sees poetry as a hermeneutic art that trains ethical and philosophical judgment. I examine how these traditions manifest themselves in Renaissance poetics, particularly in George Puttenham’s Art of English Poesy and in William Scott’s Model of Poesy. The former imagines poetry to be a performative, courtly vi art, where rhetoric and poetry are fundamentally alike; the latter sees poetry as a theoretical art of moral instruction defined by an Aristotelian criterion of mimesis. I argue that these traditions also influence the religious lyrics of George Herbert and John Donne. Herbert and Donne, I suggest, innovate within these two very different paradigms: Herbert treats his lyrics as public, liturgical performances, while Donne sees his as “literary critical” artifacts meant to exercise practical judgment and train aristocratic taste. vii Table of Contents Chapter One: The Epideictic Genres of Lyric: Performative and Paideutic Poetics .......... 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 1 Ancient Theories of Artistic Discourse ..................................................................11 Grammarians and Critics .......................................................................................19 The Lyric as Ritual Discourse ...............................................................................31 Lyric Genres and Epideictic Performativity ...........................................................45 Overview of This Dissertation ...............................................................................51 Chapter Two: “Fitter to Please the Court Than the School”: Performative and Paideutic Rhetoric in Elizabethan Poetics .................................................................56 Introduction ..........................................................................................................56 Thomas Elyot on Rhetoricians and Versifiers ........................................................62 Sidney’s Defence of Poetry ...................................................................................67 Paideutic Poetics: Scott’s Model of Poesy .............................................................71 Performative Poetics: Puttenham’s Art of English Poesy .......................................77 Conclusion ............................................................................................................86 Chapter Three: “Devotion, Not Controversie”: George Herbert’s Temple and Lyric Performativity ..........................................................................................................91 Introduction ..........................................................................................................91 The Temple as Liturgy ......................................................................................... 101 Performativity in The Country Parson ................................................................. 111 Epideictic Performativity in The Temple ............................................................. 119 “Church-Musick”: The Temple and Public Devotion after the Restoration ........... 133 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 137 viii Chapter Four: John Donne Is Not a Sophist: Paideutic Poetics and Useful Obscurity in the Holy Sonnets ................................................................................................ 141 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 141 “That Mystical Writing of Verse”: Donne and Mysterious Discourse .................. 148 Analytical Rhetoric in the Holy Sonnets .............................................................. 159 Psalmic Interpretation, Coterie Exchange, and Literary Judgment ....................... 168 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 179 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 182 Bibliography ................................................................................................................ 187 ix Chapter One: The Epideictic Genres of Lyric: Performative and Paideutic Poetics INTRODUCTION Roland Greene offers a timely and valuable insight about Renaissance poetics when he observes that “the disparity between the available terms of lyric theory and the actual productions of the genre” in the Renaissance “become arrestingly evident.”1 The Renaissance lyric, according to Greene, is difficult to categorize because in it we find the beginnings of the “modern idea of lyric productions as short, intense, and exquisite redactions of impassioned speech,” an idea of lyric that is only first developed critically in the Romantic period. Renaissance lyric theory, then, becomes a kind of contradiction in terms. As Greene puts it, “where it is assumed that speech can be idealized into poetry and poetry naturalized into speech, a poetics of lyric like those of epic and drama can seem beside the point.” Furthermore, since lyric is a multiform genre—comprised of odes, hymns, and many other generic types—it seems to lack the cohesiveness of other major poetic categories, leading to its theoretical neglect.2 Greene also points out that the lyric’s close proximity to rhetoric results in difficulties categorizing it poetically. This is a crucial observation, as is Greene’s point that there were certain aspects of Renaissance poetics—a focus on narrative and other mimetic genres of poetry—that led to theorists giving lyric comparatively little attention. But Greene falls back on a relatively common, and, I want to claim, mistaken critical tendency. 1 Roland Greene, “The Lyric,” in The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism, Vol. 3: The Renaissance, ed. Glyn P. Norton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 216. 2 Greene, 216. 1 Like many modern critics, he sees the history of poetics as a steady and welcome progression away from rhetoric and toward a greater degree of poetic autonomy. The Renaissance “conflation” of poetry with rhetoric is thus seen to have delayed a fully realized theory of the lyric. For Greene, it is the “lyric subjectivity” of the Renaissance sonnet sequence that comes closest to something more appropriately poetic: the lyric sequence becomes “an occasion for reflection on subjecthood,” and, more importantly, it evokes the “plurivocal,” discursive world of narrative and drama. The sonnet sequence, now better able to conform to mimetic poetic criteria,
Load more

Recommended publications
  • TOWARD a POETICS of NEW MEDIA By
    'A Kind of Thing That Might Be': Toward A Poetics of New Media Item Type text; Electronic Dissertation Authors Thompson, Jason Craig Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 28/09/2021 20:28:02 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/194959 ‘A KIND OF THING THAT MIGHT BE’: TOWARD A POETICS OF NEW MEDIA by Jason Thompson _____________________ Copyright © Jason Thompson 2008 A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY WITH A MAJOR IN RHETORIC, COMPOSITION, AND THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2008 2 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE As members of the Dissertation Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation prepared by Jason Thompson entitled A Kind of Thing that Might Be: Toward a Rhetoric of New Media and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ______________________________________________________________________ Date: 07/07/2008 Ken McAllister _______________________________________________________________________ Date: 07/07/2008 Theresa Enos _______________________________________________________________________ Date: 07/07/2008 John Warnock Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate’s submission of the final copies of the dissertation to the Graduate College. I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement.
    [Show full text]
  • Xerox University Microfilms
    INFORMATION TO USERS This malarial was produced from a microfilm copy of the original document. While the most advanced technological means to photograph and reproduce this document have been used, the quality is heavily dependent upon the quality of the original submitted. The following explanation of techniques is provided to help you understand markings or patterns which may appear on this reproduction. 1. The sign or "target" for pages apparently lacking from the document photographed is "Missing Page(s)". If it was possible to obtain the missing page(s) or section, they are spliced into the film along with adjacent pages. This may have necessitated cutting thru an image and duplicating adjacent pages to insure you complete continuity. 2. When an image on the film is obliterated with a large round black mark, it is an indication that the photographer suspected that the copy may have moved during exposure and thus cause a blurred image. You will find a good image of the page in the adjacent frame. 3. When a map, drawing or chart, etc., was part of the material being photographed the photographer followed a definite method in "sectioning" the material. It is customary to begin photoing at the upper left hand corner of a large sheet and to continue photoing from left to right in equal sections with a small overlap. If necessary, sectioning is continued again - beginning below the first row and continuing on until complete. 4. The majority of users indicate that the textual content is of greatest value, however, a somewhat higher quality reproduction could be made from "photographs" if essential to the understanding of the dissertation.
    [Show full text]
  • Anthropoetics V, 1
    Anthropoetics V, 1 Anthropoetics V, no. 1 Spring / Summer 1999 ISSN 1083-7264 Table of Contents 1. Erik Eisel - "In the Beginning was the Word...": The Question of the Origin of Language in Goethe's Faust 2. William Mishler - The Question of the Origin of Language in René Girard, Eric Gans, and Kenneth Burke 3. Herbert Plutschow - An Anthropological Perspective on the Japanese Tea Ceremony 4. Eric Gans - The Little Bang: The Early Origin of Language 5. Benchmarks Eric Gans / [email protected] Last updated 7/23/99 http://steadr/anthropoetics/0501/ [5/10/2000 10:29:48 AM] Eisel Anthropoetics 5, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 1999) "In the Beginning was the Word...": The Question of the Origin of Language in Goethe's Faust Erik M. Eisel Department of Germanic Languages University of California, Los Angeles Los Angeles CA 90095-1539 [email protected] Beginning with the Age of Goethe, the history of the question of the origin of language follows from the general questions, "What is man?" "What is culture?" and "What is language?"(1) The Berlin Academy of Sciences conjectured in its Preisfrage of 1769 whether human beings, "abandoned to their natural faculties," are capable of inventing language. In response, the first sentence of Johann Gottfried Herder's winning "Essay on the Origin of Language" gives the starting point for new anthropological thinking in the eighteenth century, changing the history of this question: "Already as an animal the human being has language."(2) As Helmut Mueller-Sievers, the author of Self-Generation: Biology, Philosophy, and Literature Around 1800, points out, Herder's rhetorical procedure is an attempt to deny both empirical and divine origins of language while unifying his philosophical project within the domain of language: The quest for a satisfactory explanation for the origin and status of language at the end of the eighteenth century is, historically and structurally, related to the debate about the origin of living beings.
    [Show full text]
  • TOTE Criticism: Speech Communication: Unions
    DOCUMENT RESUME ED 199 609 CS 205 688 TITLE Rhetoric and Public Address: Abstracts of Doctoral Dissertations Pliblished in "Dissertation Abstracts International," January through June 1980 (Vol. (10 Nos. 7 through 12). INSTITUTION ERIC Clearinghouse.on Reading and Communication Skills, Urbana, Ill. 0_ PUB DATE 80 TOTE 13p.: Pages may be marginally legible. EDRS PRICE MF01/PC01 Plus Postage). DESCRIPTORS Annotated Bibliographies,: Churches; *Communication Research: Connected Discourse; Content Analysis; *Discourse Analysis: *Doctoral Dissertations: Organizational Communication: *Persuasive Discourse: Political Science; Politics; *Public Speaking: Religibus Organizations: *Rhetoric; *Rhetorical Criticism: Speech Communication: Unions; Womens Studies ABSTRACT This collection of abstracts is-part of a continuing . 'series'providing information on recent doctorgl dissertations.The'20 titles deal with-A variety oftopics, including the following: (1) the campaign communication during the Carter-Pordtelevision debates: (2) apprehensiveness and performance inpublic speaking; (3)a history and criticism 9f-the Vietnam antivar;movement:((4). a case study of institutional rhetoric and radical :Change (thecontemporary Roman Catholic Church in America):(5) synthesizing methodologies' used,:in the study of political communication during the 1976United States presidential election campaign:(6) the audience effects of (7) rhetorical vision and black social reality: 4 apoliogetic discourse: (8),a case study of organizational apologia. (theAmerican Federation of Labor, 1945-1956): and rhetorical analysesof the speeches/discourses of (9) Dorothy bay for the Catholic Worker movement, (10) British Conservative Party leader MargaretThatcher., (11) Charles Betts Galloway,(12) Carl Schurz,(13) Cleveland mayoral Candidate Arnold Pinkney,(14) Richard Nixon on Vietnam, (15) United States Senator Wayne Morse on Vietnam, (16) Supreme Court Justice Wilgam 0. Douglas on the First Amendment, (17)'U.
    [Show full text]
  • The Five Key Terms of Dramatism
    INTRODUCTION: THE FIVE KEY TERMS OF DRAMATISM 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 ac- cordance 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 metaphysical structures, in legal judgments, in poetry and fiction, in political and scientific works, in news and in bits of gossip offered at random. We shall use five terms as generating principle of our investigation. They are: Act, Scene, Agent, Agency, Purpose. In a rounded state- ment about motives, you must have some word that names the act (names what took place, in thought or deed), and another that names the scene (the background of the act, the situation in which it oc- curred) ; also, you must indicate what person or kind of person {agent) performed the act, what means or instruments he used {agency), and the purpose. Men may violently disagree about the purposes behind a given act, or about the character of the person who did it, or how he did it, or in what kind of situation he acted; or they may even insist upon totally different words to name the act itself. But be that as it may, any complete statement about motives will offer some kind of an- swers to these five questions: what was done (act), when or where it was done (scene), who did it (agent), how he did it (agency), and why (purpose).
    [Show full text]
  • Copyright by Arthur Alvin Vanderveen, Jr. 2002
    Copyright by Arthur Alvin VanderVeen, Jr. 2002 The Dissertation Committee for Arthur Alvin VanderVeen, Jr. certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Other Minds, Other Worlds: Pragmatism, Hermeneutics, and Constructive Modernism, 1890-1942 Committee: _________________________________ Warwick Wadlington, Co-Supervisor _________________________________ Phillip Barrish, Co-Supervisor _________________________________ Katherine Arens _________________________________ Evan Carton _________________________________ Brian Bremen Other Minds, Other Worlds: Pragmatism, Hermeneutics, and Constructive Modernism, 1890-1942 by Arthur Alvin VanderVeen Jr., B.A., M.Div., M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin December 2002 “The more we see, the more we think; while the more we think, the more we see in our immediate experience, and the greater grows the detail, and the more significant the articulateness of our perception.” William James Acknowledgments For their support, I would like to acknowledge the University of Texas at Austin Graduate School for a University Fellowship, the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation for an Ernest Hemingway Research Grant, and the Mellon Foundation for a Summer Seminar Grant. I cannot claim that this support speeded the completion of this project, but it did allow me to pursue my research interests more broadly and deeply than I would otherwise have been able. I extend my sincerest thanks to Warwick Wadlington, whose appreciation for the particularity and fullness of the world has taught me to avoid simple binaries and remain open to the disturbing details that lead to new insights.
    [Show full text]
  • An Art of Translation: Churchill's Uses of Eighteenth-Century British History
    An Art of Translation: Churchill’s Uses of Eighteenth-Century British History Charles-Edouard Levillain To cite this version: Charles-Edouard Levillain. An Art of Translation: Churchill’s Uses of Eighteenth-Century British His- tory. XVII-XVIII Revue de la Société d’études anglo-américaines des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles , Société d’études anglo-américaines des dix-septième et dix-huitième siècles, Lille, 2020, 10.4000/1718.3779. hal-03251134 HAL Id: hal-03251134 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03251134 Submitted on 6 Jun 2021 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. XVII-XVIII Revue de la Société d’études anglo-américaines des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles 76 | 2019 Crimes et criminels An Art of Translation: Churchill’s Uses of Eighteenth-Century British History Charles-Édouard Levillain Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/1718/3779 DOI: 10.4000/1718.3779 ISSN: 2117-590X Publisher Société d'études anglo-américaines des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles Electronic reference Charles-Édouard Levillain, « An Art of Translation: Churchill’s Uses of Eighteenth-Century British History », XVII-XVIII [Online], 76 | 2019, Online since 31 December 2019, connection on 07 January 2020.
    [Show full text]
  • Occult Invention: the Rebirth of Rhetorical Heuresis
    OCCULT INVENTION: THE REBIRTH OF RHETORICAL HEURESIS IN EARLY MODERN BRITISH LITERATURE FROM CHAPMAN TO SWIFT by MICHAEL CHARLES MCCANN A DISSERTATION Presented to the Comparative Literature Program and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy September 2011 DISSERTATION APPROVAL PAGE Student: Michael Charles McCann Title: Occult Invention: The Rebirth of Rhetorical Heuresis in Early Modern British Literature from Chapman to Swift This dissertation has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in the Comparative Literature Program by: Dianne Dugaw Co-Chairperson John T. Gage Co-Chairperson Kenneth Calhoon Member Steven Shankman Member Jeffrey Librett Outside Member and Kimberly Andrews Espy Vice President for Research and Innovation/Dean of the Graduate School Original approval signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Graduate School. Degree awarded September 2011. ii © 2011 Michael Charles McCann iii DISSERTATION ABSTRACT Michael C. McCann Doctor of Philosophy Comparative Literature Program September 2011 Title: Occult Invention: The Rebirth of Rhetorical Heuresis in Early Modern British Literature from Chapman to Swift Approved: _______________________________________________ Dianne Dugaw Approved: _______________________________________________ John T. Gage The twentieth-century project of American rhetorician Kenneth Burke, grounded in a magic-based theory of language, reveals a path to the origins of what I am going to call occult invention. The occult, which I define as a symbol set of natural terms derived from supernatural terms, employs a method of heuresis based on a metaphor-like process I call analogic extension.
    [Show full text]
  • REVELATORY VERNACULAR RHETORIC on the INTERNET By
    PASSAGES DIVINELY LIT: REVELATORY VERNACULAR RHETORIC ON THE INTERNET By ROBERT GLENN HOWARD A DISSERTATION Presented to the Department of English and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2001 ii "Passages Divinely Lit: Revelatory Vernacular Rhetoric on the Internet," a dissertation prepared by Robert Glenn Howard in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in the Department of English. This dissertation has been approved and accepted by: Dr. Daniel Wojcik, Chair of the Examining Committee Date Committee in charge: Dr. Daniel Wojcik, Chair Dr. James Crosswhite Dr. David Frank Dr. John Gage Dr. Sharon Sherman Accepted by: Dean of the Graduate School iii © 2001 Robert Glenn Howard iv An Abstract of the Dissertation of Robert Glenn Howard for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English to be taken August 2001 Title: PASSAGES DIVINELY LIT: REVELATORY VERNACULAR RHETORIC ON THE INTERNET Approved: Dr. Daniel Wojcik Since the advent of the public World-Wide-Web in 1992, networked computer communication has rapidly become integral to the daily lives of many North Americans. Many researchers in the humanities and social sciences debate the potential power and nature of the effects of these new forms of communication. Some scholars see dangers in the changing forms of "media literacy," but others see the Internet engendering new levels of democratic debate at grassroots and personal levels. However, much of this research still lacks the basic methodological rigor necessary to make reasonable claims about actual individual human communicative behavior on the Internet.
    [Show full text]
  • Breaking the Magic Spell: Radical Theories of Folk and Fairy Tales
    University of Kentucky UKnowledge Folklore Anthropology 7-5-2002 Breaking the Magic Spell: Radical Theories of Folk and Fairy Tales Jack Zipes Click here to let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Thanks to the University of Kentucky Libraries and the University Press of Kentucky, this book is freely available to current faculty, students, and staff at the University of Kentucky. Find other University of Kentucky Books at uknowledge.uky.edu/upk. For more information, please contact UKnowledge at [email protected]. Recommended Citation Zipes, Jack, "Breaking the Magic Spell: Radical Theories of Folk and Fairy Tales" (2002). Folklore. 15. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_folklore/15 Breaking the Magic Spell Publication of this volume was made possible in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Copyright O 1979 by Jack Zipes Published 2002 by The University Press of Kentucky Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth, serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University. All rights reserved. - Editorial and Sales Ofices: The University Press of Kentucky 663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008 www.kentuckypress.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Zipes, Jack Breaking the magic spell. 1. Tales, European-History and criticism. 2. Literature and society. I. Title ISBN-10: 0-8131-9030-4 (paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-8131-9030-3 This book is printed on acid-free recycled paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials.
    [Show full text]
  • Pentadic Ratios in Burke's Theory of Dramatism Dramatism Kenneth Burke
    Ross 1 Pentadic Ratios in Burke’s Theory of Dramatism Dramatism Kenneth Burke (1945) introduced his theory of “dramatism” in his book A Grammar of Motives, saying,“[I]t invites one to consider the matter of motives in a perspective that, being developed from the analysis of drama, treats language and thought primarily as modes of action” (p. xxii). Burke (1978) later explains that the term “dramatism” stems from the idea that language is viewed “primarily as a mode of action rather than as a mode of knowledge, though the two emphases are by no means mutually exclusive” (p. 330). His belief that humans are symbol-users and that symbolic action is both public and unavoidable (Burke, 1978; Kneupper, 1979) led to the creation of dramatism. Dramatistic theory takes into account the nature of language and symbolism. The theory expands on ideas of “identification,” guilt, tropes and figures, and Burke’s “pentad” of terms for analysis, in addition to much more throughout his work. Burke’s theories emerged as a fusion of Freudian psychology and Marxist ideologies (Smith, 2009). Dramatism acts as a method and meta-method, in that the questions raised by a dramatistic inquiry question both the action and analyze the effect of the explanation of action (Overington, 1977). Dramatism, therefore, is a “logic of inquiry” for examining rhetoric, with a fundamental emphasis on motive: “the language of motives, motives in language, language as motive” (Overington, 1977, p. 133). The various aspects of dramatism offer ways to view the world generally and analyze public discourse and action specifically.
    [Show full text]
  • Algernon Charles Swinburne, Walter Pater, and Secular Aesthetics
    1 ‘Life as the End of Life’: Algernon Charles Swinburne, Walter Pater, and Secular Aesthetics Sara Lyons Submitted for Ph.D. Examination 2 ABSTRACT This thesis elucidates the relationship between the emergence of literary aestheticism and ambiguities in the status and meaning of religious doubt in late Victorian Britain. Aestheticism has often been understood as a branch of a larger, epochal crisis of religious faith: a creed of ‘art-for-art’s-sake’ and a cult of beauty are thought to have emerged to occupy the vacuum created by the departure of God, or at least by the attenuation of traditional forms of belief. However, the model of secularisation implicit in this account is now often challenged by historians, sociologists, and literary critics, and it fails to capture what was at stake in Swinburne and Pater’s efforts to reconceptualise aesthetic experience. I suggest affinities between their shared insistence that art be understood as an independent, disinterested realm, a creed beyond creeds, and secularisation understood as the emptying of religion from political and social spheres. Secondly, I analyse how Swinburne and Pater use the apparently neutral space created by their relegation of religion to imagine the secular in far more radical terms than conventional Victorian models of religious doubt allowed. Their varieties of aestheticism often posit secularism not as a disillusioning effect of modern rationality but as a primordial enchantment with the sensuous and earthly, prior to a ‘fall’ into religious transcendence. I explore their tendency to identify this ideal of the secular with aesthetic value, as well as the paradoxes produced by their efforts to efface the distinctions between the religious and the aesthetic.
    [Show full text]