Rhetoric as celebration: Form, identification, and spirit in the letters of Kenneth Burke and William Carlos Williams

Natalie L Sydorenko, Purdue University

Abstract

This dissertation examines the use and expands the understanding of celebratory rhetoric in interpersonal communication. Epideictic rhetoric, concerned with the present, is an important and regular activity that occurs in interpersonal communication, thus heightening the potential for spiritual exchange. The term “spiritual” may mean a recognition of and connection to the Divine, God, or a Universal Energy that guides our actions and interactions with all things. It may also mean a connection forged purely in the linguistic sense, wherein our words and symbols bring us together and allow us to transcend difference through loving, empathic, and compassionate acts. Or, it may imply both, depending on the term’s meaning for any given person. In this dissertation, spirit and Spirit are used to embrace both understandings of the term. As conceived in this dissertation, rhetoric as celebration is an action and an experience—a conscious act involving form, identification and spirit—that happens interpersonally when we share our storied lives with one another. To examine how rhetoric functions in this way, the decades-long written correspondence between Williams Carlos Williams and Kenneth Burke served as the case study for analyzing the rhetorical act of sharing stories between two persons. By participating in an other’s form, agreeing to be induced by and collaborating with the other’s story as it unfolds, we come to identify with each other in such a way that the spirit animating our humanity is revealed to us. Becoming consubstantial through rhetoric allows for the making of meaning where empathy is achieved. The Burke/Williams friendship captures this moment where they commune and become consubstantial, illustrating how rhetoric functions as celebration. The results of the analysis yielded a refinement and redefining of celebratory rhetoric in light of Burke’s theories of “form” and “identification” as they operate in a personal context and in concert with a recognition of and appreciation for the spirit that flows between persons and animates their communication.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Dutta, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Biographies|Communication|American literature|Spirituality|Rhetoric

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