First published in abbreviated form in The Rhetoric of Religion (1961), and then expanded in later versions in The Hudson Review (Winter, 1963-64), Language as Symbolic Action (1966), and a 1989 CCCCs presentation, Kenneth Burke's "Definition of Human" encapsulates many of the key tenets of Dramatism, his theory and philosophy of language. In its final form, the definition reads:
Being bodies that learn language
thereby becoming wordlings
humans are
the symbol-making, symbol-using, symbol-misusing animal
inventor of the negative
separated from our natural condition
by instruments of our own making
goaded by the spirit of hierarchy
acquiring foreknowledge of death
and rotten with perfection (qtd. in Coe 332-333).The following image map is based on a plaque that KB kept in his office. Click on an image to see it in detail and to read an analysis/interpretation of the particular clause in Burke's definition.
Credits
These pages were created by Jerry Ross, Southern Illinois University, Department of English, in August, 1997, and are updated as time permits. I am responsible for all content contained herein. Please email me if you have any comments or suggestions.
The images of Kenneth Burke at the top of this page were photographed by Don Birks, and prepared for the web by Richard Thames. The image map of Burke's "Definition of Human" was scanned by Jerry Ross from KB: A Conversation with Kenneth Burke Dir. Harry Chapin and Dylan Skolnick. Olde Crow Productions, 1992. All rights are reserved.
Works Cited
Burke, Kenneth. "Definition of Man" Language as Symbolic
Action. Berkeley: U of California P, 1966. 3-24.
---. "Introduction: The Five Key Terms of Dramatism." A Grammar of Motives. Berkeley: U of California P, 1969. xv-xxiii.
---. "Terministic Screens" Language as Symbolic Action. Berkeley: U of California P, 1966. 44-62.
Coe, Richard M. "Defining Rhetoric--and Us: A Meditation on Burke's Definitions" Composition Theory for the Postmodern Classroom. Ed. Gary A. Olson and Sidney I. Dobrin. Albany: SUNY P, 1994. 332-44.
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