Essays Toward a Symbolic of Motives, 1950–1955. Kenneth Burke
out of such sheer “exercising” of the medium’s resources there can unfold, at least in glimpses, deftly “perverse” moments that lead toward a profoundly humane pity.
Doctor Nagel’s essay on “Symbolism and Science” divides his terms into three classes: “descriptive symbols,” “auxiliary symbols,” and “maxims.” Do we not here find the three “offices,” but transformed to fit the specific needs of his field? The “descriptive” symbols would correspond to the external or scenic reference of the first office. Since he defines an “auxiliary symbol” as one “whose primary function is to serve as a connection between other symbols,” he would here seem to be discussing the sheerly internal aspect of a symbolism, the inter-connective devices whereby it can be spun out of itself. This would fit perfectly with the second office, once its scope had been expanded to include the appeal of symbolic internality as such (an “aesthetic” appeal that Doctor Nagel has also mentioned, though in a somewhat different placement). And since “maxims” are said to “formulate instructions or resolutions as to how to employ symbols,” here would be the hortatory function of the third office.
All three, we repeat, have been transformed to meet the specific requirements of the subject-matter. Thus we are most decidedly not saying that a scientific “maxim” would be “nothing but” what Cicero meant by devices for “moving” an audience. On the contrary! But it seems that, mutatis mutandis, the principles of the three “offices” still figure here. (Logic, as the orderly generalizing of observed “facts,” would lean toward the office of docere; insofar as logic appeals by reason of our delight in the sheer exercising of its own internal resources, it would lean toward the office of delectare; and the office of movere, of persuasion, would be provided by the “cogency” of the maxims in guiding the reader to the desired conclusions.)
But though we have considered an utterance in terms of external reference (“objective reality”), internal development (consistency), and effect upon the auditor (persuasion), there is a fourth “office” still to be taken care of. We refer to the utterance as “portraiture,” as the “self-expression” of an agent, as an act characteristic of the poet’s “personality” whether or not he so wills it. Aristotle deals with this problem from the purely rhetorical point of view when discussing devices whereby the speaker can deliberately promote an audience’s confidence in him simply as a person, regardless of the cause that is being advocated or of the speaker’s true nature. And Cicero impinges upon this fourth consideration in the very form of his formula, which concerns the three offices of the orator.
A poetic symbolism, when appreciated in its internality, is received as a kind of symbolic action undertaken in and for itself, a “free exercise” implicitly guided by the developmental principles which it embodies. In this respect it differs from the “reconnaissance,” or preparation for action, which is the indicative function of scientific utterance, and from the inducement to action which is the persuasive function of rhetorical utterance. But in its role as self-portraiture, poetic symbolism obligates us to a different kind of search.
The “weighting” of words arises from extra-poetic situations in the social order. A relative fixity of conditions in the social order (what Malinowski would have called the “context of situation”) makes it possible for a person to learn what Bentham would call the “censorial” nature of terms (“appellatives”). One learns it by hearing the terms used in contexts that imply moral judgments. However, one may next “play with” such terms, experimentally giving them a range of meanings that do not fit their orthodox use as sheer instruments of “social control.” That is, by setting up special conditions within a given work of art one might, without “demoralization,” even bring things to a point where, in effect, terms for the loathsome could be applied to a most admirable person and vice versa.
Some critics might grow morally indignant. In effect, they would be saying that the simple rhetorical usefulness of the term was being endangered by such “free” poetic exercising. If the term was weighted for practical ends, and if such orthodox rhetorical weighting is poetically undone, then a tiny verbal revolution has taken place. And a vigilant orthodoxy might choose to be outraged at this implied threat to the given social order. 8
There are other possibilities, of course. For instance, a more liberal-minded critic might hold that, even as a means of social control, the weighting of words in poetry should not be too strict, too much like the manifestation of a sheerly mechanical conditioning. Such a critic might hold that in the long run art better serves even a purely pragmatic function, as an instrument of social cohesion, when it can admit to contemplation a very wide range of meanings.
The liberal critic might also point to the fact that, in the given work, a special set of conditions was more or less clearly posited. In this respect he might point out that the transformations of the terms were controlled, as in the dialectic of a properly controlled dialogue. (If they really were!) In any case, here would seem to be the situation, as regards the “portraiture” (be it voluntary or involuntary) in a work of art:
Human personality is not just “pure.” It is formed with reference to social roles. Accordingly, the “personality” in a work of art impinges upon the social situation in general. Intrinsic analysis leads us to study the work of art as a kind of act in and for itself. But a concern with the “personality” of a work involves us in the study of the work as the act of an agent in a scene.
Of what sort, then, is the agent? And of what sort is his scene? Otherwise put: What is his biography? And where is it placed in history?
Obviously, there is a great range of answers possible to such questions. We can conceive of biography in the most minute sense: detailed information regarding some particular taxpayer at some particular time and place. Or, at the other extreme, we can think of the given work’s “personality” as the snapshot of some one posture that is at least momentarily typical of “mankind” in general. And the intermediate views are many, if not infinite. Is there, then, a special argument for a single emphasis among the lot?
Probably not, “in general.” As many angles as there are, or can be, are “right.” For there is a sense in which every perspective upon existence, as viewed from some individual existing spot, is “justified” by being what it is. And there might properly be even more biographies than there were people. But when we narrow our considerations to the special terms of a symbolism seminar, do not the conditions of our inquiry itself point toward the criterion we are looking for? That is: Should we not consider the “personality” of a poem in terms of the symbolic ingredients in personality?
Personality so viewed is a kind of “congealed conduct.” Insofar as an act is representative (or “symbolic”) of an agent, that act is the manifestation of some underlying “moral principle” in the agent. Insofar as the act does not represent some underlying principle of the agent’s character, some fixed trait of his personality, then it is not truly characteristic of him. Then it is not so much an act as an accident (so far as its relation to the agent is concerned, though it may be consistent with some motive supplied by the scene).
But surely poetic structures that are developed as the distillations, or summings-up, of long or intense personal experience and of exceptional technical concentration should be studied as “acts,” not as “accidents.” And, symbol-wise, our general approach to the “personality” of any particular symbolic structure would be through considerations of the fact that man is an essentially symbol-using species.
Thus as regards the “personality” of an art work, its “fourth office,” we in a symbolism seminar should approach our problems through a central concern with the characteristics of a society of typically symbol-using organisms (their typical resources and embarrassments). 9
The writer of this paper believes that such an approach centers in the symbolizing of guilt, redemption, hierarchy, mortification, victimage, “catharsis.” And for reasons discussed elsewhere (notably in an essay, “A Dramatistic View of the Origins of Language,” now appearing serially in The Quarterly Journal of Speech), he would lay special stress upon the role of negativity in language. For he believes that negativity is a peculiarly linguistic invention; and that “Personality” or “Character,”