Rhetoric Review Oct 2004

" One little fellow named Ecology": Ecological Rhetoric in Kenneth Burke's Attitudes toward History

Marika A. Seigel

Abstract

While it has become increasingly commonplace to claim Kenneth Burke as a proto-ecocritic, the question of how his thinking and criticism was influenced by the science of ecology has not been addressed. This article places Attitudes toward History, the work in which Burke first mentions ecology by name, back within ecological conversations of the mid 1930s and argues not only that the science of ecology was fairly well known to Burke and his contemporaries but that ecological rhetoric saturates Attitudes toward History; in particular, it underlies Burke's critique of efficiency and his idea of the "comic frame."

Journal
Rhetoric Review
Published
2004-10-01
DOI
10.1207/s15327981rr2304_6
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Open Access
Closed
Topics
modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism
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Citation Context

Cited by in this index (4)

  1. Adams (2017)
    Agitation with—and of—Burke's Comic Theory
    Philosophy & Rhetoric
  2. Ortoleva (2013)
    Let's Not Forget Ecological Literacy
    Literacy in Composition Studies
  3. Moran et al. (2012)
    A Bibliography of Works Published in the History of Professional Communication …
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  4. Jack (2008)
    Kenneth Burke's Constabulary Rhetoric: Sociorhetorical Critique inAttitudes Tow…
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly

References (27) · 1 in this index

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