Concept

Dramatism

Overview

Dramatism, a rhetorical theory, was developed by Kenneth Burke as a tool for analyzing human relationships through the use of language. Burke viewed dramatism from the lens of logology, which studies how people's ways of speaking shape their attitudes towards the world. According to this theory, the world is a stage where all the people present are actors and their actions parallel a drama. Burke then correlates dramatism with motivation, saying that people are "motivated" to behave in response to certain situations, similar to how actors in a play are motivated to behave or function. Burke discusses two important ideas – that life is drama, and the ultimate motive of rhetoric is the purging of guilt. Burke recognized guilt as the base of human emotions and motivations for action. As cited in "A Note on Burke on "Motive"", the author recognized the importance of "motive" in Burke's work. In "Kenneth Burke's concept of motives in rhetorical theory", the authors mentioned that Burke believes that guilt, "combined with other constructs, describes the totality of the compelling force within an event which explains why the event took place."

Dramatism consists of three broad concepts —the pentad, identification, and the guilt-purification-redemption cycle. The entry then considers five major areas in which scholars in a variety of fields apply dramatism: the dramaturgical self, motivation and drama, social relationships as dramas, organizational dramas, and political dramas.

To understand people's movement and intentions, the theorist sets up the Dramatistic Pentad strategy for viewing life, not as life itself, by comparing each social unit involved in human activities as five elements of drama – act, scene, agent, agency, and purpose, to answer the empirical question of how persons explain their actions, and to find the ultimate motivations of human activities.

"Dramatism is treated as a technique for analyzing language as a mode of action in which specialized nomenclatures are recognized, each with particular ends and insights."

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

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Let anybody put one of Wagner's "plots" under the microscope, and I wager that he will be forced to laugh. Nothing is more enlivening than the dilemma in "Tristan," unless it be that in the "Mastersingers." Wagner is _no_ dramatist; let nobody be deceived on this point. All he did was to love the word "drama"--he always loved fine words. Nevertheless, in his writings the word "drama" is merely a misunderstanding…
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Case of Wagner Complete Works, Volume 8
The author is tied to Dramatism in the knowledge graph; names Dramatism twice.
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The best proof is this: on the stage, and in the public performances, such plays, properly worked out, are seen to be the most truly tragic; and Euripides, even if his elecution be faulty in every other point, is seen to be nevertheless the most tragic certainly of the dramatists. After this comes the construction of Plot which some rank first, one with a double story (like the _Odyssey_) and an opposite issue for…
Aristotle, Aristotle on the art of poetry
The author is tied to Dramatism in the knowledge graph; opens on Dramatism.
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Thus Thales saw the Unity of the "Existent," and when he wanted to communicate this idea he talked of water.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Early Greek Philosophy & Other Essays Collected Works, Volume Two
The author is tied to Dramatism in the knowledge graph; opens on Dramatism.
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