Burke's Emphasis on Form

Burke's emphasis on form coincides seamlessly with his expansive definition of rhetoric.  According to the Foss, Foss, and Trapp text, "Burke defines rhetoric as 'the use of words by human agents to form attitudes or to induce actions in other humans'" (191).  However, rhetoric is "a subset of a larger category, symbolic action, which includes rhetoric, poetics, science, and philosophy" (191).  However, the subcategories at times seem to cross between each other.  For instance, Foss, Foss, and Trapp claim that in addition to "spoken and written discourse" Burke "includes less traditional forms of discourse" within his definition of rhetoric: "works of art," "nonverbal elements," "education," "social etiquette" etc. (194).  Thus, it is reasonable to accept the possibility that "rhetorical form" can be applied, to a larger degree, across the entire category of symbolic action.  As I was reading the section, I couldn't help but think of poetry.  In fact, the three types of form (conventional, repetitive and progressive) all seem to have connections to poetry.  For instance, a sonnet can be viewed as a conventional form because the reader knows what to expect "prior to encountering" the work (196).  However, this is an obvious connection and is, in fact, mentioned later in the section.

The aspect of Burke's argument concerning form which I found most interesting was the idea that "form and content cannot be separated" (195).  This was a new idea to me because, if rhetoric can be internal (i.e. "the self as audience"), then even our most rambling of dialogues is subject to form (197).  This is made doubly fascinating by the fact that we have actually made a literary form out of stream of consciousness, raising the possibility that this was not the creation of a form but rather another instance of art imitating life. 

The two forms of progression, syllogistic and qualitative, are also a continuance of the idea that form and content cannot be separated.  In the Foss, Foss, and Trapp text, the example of formulaic movies as syllogistic is, perhaps, the most useful. Scream is a movie which follows the syllogistic progression form.  However, it is the content itself which is syllogistic because the nature of the movie is formulaic. From the moment that Sidney Prescott is introduced, the audience knows that she will do two things: survive, and eliminate the villain (at least temporarily); this is its content and its syllogism.  Likewise, the qualitative progression movie plot hinges on shock; the Foss, Foss, and Trapp text uses the example of Hitchcock's Vertigo.  Despite the fact that both movies progress in different ways, the end result is the same--a synthesis of form and content.