A Critical Companion to Kenneth Burke’s Permanence and Change

A follow-up work to Kenneth Burke in the 1930s, this first-of-its-kind Burke companion is designed to make this difficult text more meaningful for readers new to Burke as well as a richer resource for experienced scholars. It offers a sustained exploration of the book’s development and argument by: (1) defining P&C as a rhetorical act within its cultural scene; (2) unpacking key terms; (3) explaining the project’s development and publication history; (4) introducing and analyzing a substantial amount of archival material; and (5) discussing its relationship to Burke’s other works and its larger significance to modern rhetoric. I frame Permanence and Change as the first, full-fledged example of New Rhetoric; an important modern rearticulation of epideictic theory; and an early theorization of the social text.