A Rhetoric of Motives.

Part I "The Range of Rhetoric" sets up the key Burkeian concepts of Identification and Consubstantiality. Part II "Traditional Principles of Rhetoric" reworks those concepts into Burkes framework, using diverse texts from Dante and Machiavelli to Carlyle and Rochefoucauld to support the analysis. Part III on "Order" develops positive, dialectical and ultimate terms to establish the idea of forms that are paradigmatic of the rhetorical process as well as those that are better termed caricatures. Students of rhetoric and social theory should certainly read "A Grammar of Motives" before making their way through this volume, although a thorough appreciation of Burke would require starting with his pre-war "trilogy" of "Counter-Statement," "Permanence and Change," and "Attitudes Towards History." That middle volume is especially important in light of Burkes argument in "A Rhetoric of Motives."

Burke never wrote "A Symbolic of Motives," which was to complete the trilogy. Both "Language As Symbolic Action" and "A Rhetoric of Religion" are sometimes represented as the third volume in some embryonic form, which is about as valid as such considerations can go. My argument would be that Burkes earlier works are much better sources of enlightenment and inspiration than either of those particular volumes.