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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72"><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Burkophiles,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'> I think I have found a coincidence that you will find amusing and perhaps instructive. We have been immersed in conversation about Drama’s “problems.” Quite by accident while checking out a question about Shakespeare, I saw a reference to the “problem-plays” of our greatest dramatist. I have to admit that I then Googled the topic to find out that the expression is attributed to “critic F.S. Boas in <i>Shakespeare and his Predecessors</i> (1896), deriving from a type of drama that was popular at the time of Boas’ writing.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'> “In these problem plays the situation faced by the protagonist is put forward by the author as a representative of a contemporary social problem.” It does seem clear to me that most dramas are built around personal problems that the protagonist must face. When that problem is also social in nature our agents are caught up in scenes with different, far more complicated ramifications.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'> I recall that KB himself took pride in having talked or written in the 1930’s about a little fellow in science called “ecology,” making the prediction it would become more important in the future. It is now a social problem made even more salient, among others, by our new Problem.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Reporting from Denver,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Phil<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'> KB [mailto:kb-bounces@kbjournal.org] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Edward C Appel<br><b>Sent:</b> Thursday, January 19, 2017 10:54 AM<br><b>To:</b> kb@kbjournal.org<br><b>Subject:</b> [KB] Conversation Editing Redux 2<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1484766216461_4398"><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'>Burkophiles,</span><span style='font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1484766216461_4398"><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1484766216461_4401"><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'> First off, let’s go to where Burke explicitly, if elliptically (that’s Burke’s style, right?), ties his pentad to the “Trouble” that is inherent in what Burke labels the “Iron Law of History,” humankind’s lamentable addiction to the guilt-sacrifice-redemption cycle. The terms Burke employs here, as implicit in the pentad, are analogous to the word “Trouble,” or can be subsumed under its general heading: “drama,” “conflict,” and “victimage.” “Drama” and “conflict” are inseparably related. Merriam-Webster’s defines “drama” as “a state, situation, or series of events” having a “serious tone” and “involving interesting or intense conflict of forces” (the <i id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1484766216461_4403">Collegiate</i>, Eleventh Edition, p. 378). The simplest definition of “drama” I use in the <i id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1484766216461_4404">Primer</i> is, moral conflict to set right a situation gone wrong, or prevent a situation from going wrong. Symbolizers are always on the edge of full-fledged drama, rule violation, failure to live up to expectations, leading to “conflict.” That’s why there’s surveillance, in the family, in school, in the workplace, in the community, in the Garden of Eden before the Fall---everywhere, even before a big-time violation of the rule or rules that undergird the established hierarchal structure in those venues occurs.</span><span style='font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1484766216461_4401"><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1484766216461_4406"><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'> Here’s how Burke vouchsafes that trajectory from the pentad to the potentially dire “Trouble” given shape by the cycle of terms implicit in the idea of order:</span><span style='font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1484766216461_4406"><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1484766216461_4409"><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'> “There is a gloomy route, of this sort: If ACTION is to be our key term, then DRAMA; for drama is the culminative form of action (this is a variant of the ‘perfection’ principle discussed in the previous chapter [culmination: the climax of the trajectory]. But if DRAMA, then CONFLICT. And if CONFLICT, then VICTIMAGE. Dramatism is always [note: ALWAYS] on the edge of this vexing problem [read: TROUBLE], that comes to a culmination in tragedy, the song of the scapegoat [see Leviticus, Chapter 16, on the function of the “scapegoat” on the Day of Atonement in Ancient Israel, and Burke’s congruent description of that function in “The Dialectic of the Scapegoat,” <i id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1484766216461_4411">Grammar</i>, pp. 406-408]” (“Terministic Screens,” <i id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1484766216461_4412">LASA</i>, pp. 54-55, emphasis in original).</span><span style='font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1484766216461_4409"><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1484766216461_4414"><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'> “Perfection” in Burke is analogous to “entelechy,” “the actualization of form-giving cause as contrasted with potential existence , . . . an inherent regulating and directing force . . . .” Meriam-Webster’s, p. 416. See, also, <i id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1484766216461_4416">DD</i>, Appendix A, pp. 57-58.</span><span style='font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1484766216461_4414"><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1484766216461_4418"><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'> Which is to say, anytime you see an actor performing an action for some purpose, employing certain means or steps or stages in attempting to achieve that end, in response to necessarily scenic or situational pressures, rules, or constraints, look for a troublesome conflict of some kind, actual or potential, driving that action, however overtly or subtly. Warding off possible “trouble” in the form of feared “conflict” and its likely victimizing consequences is as dramatic as acting to overcome them.</span><span style='font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1484766216461_4418"><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1484766216461_4421"><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'> I remember taking college Shakespeare way back when. Professor Bomberger made us diagram selected plays we were not able to get to in class. “Rising action” began with what we were to label the initial “complication.” Call it just as readily the opening “conflict” or “trouble.” No human action in real life, or in literary or theatrical drama, happens without that “gloomy” route, of lesser degree (comedy) or more (say, burlesque, melodrama, or tragedy) lurking as threat up ahead.</span><span style='font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1484766216461_4421"><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1484766216461_4424"><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'> Next: The “Trouble” initiating “drama” (as the end-result of pentadic implications) as “morbid[ity]” or “sickness” requiring “hypochondriasis” as program of intervention and melioration.</span><span style='font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1484766216461_4424"><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1484766216461_4427"><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'> </span><span style='font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1484766216461_4430"><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'> Ed</span><span style='font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1484766216461_4430"><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1484766216461_4433"><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'> </span><span style='font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1484766216461_4436"><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'> P.S. After my first post on this matter, I received a reply from a subscriber. I responded to the post by hitting “reply” rather than “reply all,” thinking that would send the message only to the respondent in question. If that reply went out to all subscribers to the list, I apologize. It contained private information not for general posting. I’ve changed the title of this thread so as to be sure not to repost that private information. </span><span style='font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div></div></body></html>