[KB] Burke archive question

[Wess, Robert Victor]

Burkeans:

I sketch below reasons to think there may be in Burke's archive a paper in which Burke responds to McKeon. Please let me know if you know anything about this possibility.

Burke and McKeon appeared together in 1968 at a conference in Brockport. Their papers both appear in Perspectives in Education, Religion, and the Arts, ed. Howard E. Kiefer and Milton K Munitz. McKeon, "Philosophy of Communications and the Arts" (329-50); Burke, "Poetics and Communication" (401-18).

When they appear together at the University of Chicago a few years later, McKeon mentions this earlier conference and indicates that Burke responded to his paper. While "Poetics and Communication" has references to McKeon, there are two reasons to think it is not Burke's direct response.

First, on p. 415 in "Poetics and Communication," Burke refers to "my `Response' to McKeon's paper" as if it were a separate text.

Second, he talks about this conference in a 4/28/68 letter to Rueckert. He says that "On Thursday I make a brief Response to Dick McKeon's paper" and that "On Friday (since McKeon's key term was `communication') I peddle my proposal for a supplementary term, `consummation.'" This "peddl[ing]" is what occurs in "Poetics and Communication."

So maybe the response he gave on Thursday survives in the archive.

Bob

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