The Priority of Form: Kenneth Burke and the Rediscovery of Affect and Rhetoric

This essay analyzes the treatment of affect and aesthetic form in the major mid-century works of the prominent literary and rhetorical theorist Kenneth Burke. In engaging Burke’s prescient studies of the intersection of human physiological response with culture and art, this essay demonstrates how Burke’s work remains particularly relevant to the present, a time wherein the dominant texts and media seem more than ever to be dependent on structures of feeling and persuasion mapped by Burke decades ago.