Since the publication of A Grammar of Motives in 1945 Kenneth Burke has become firmly lodged in the consciousness of an influential group of American writers as a critic almost exquisitely rare, abounding with ideas and enviably in control of the wide range of new knowledge that characterizes the present century. If not widely read—if at times even unreadable—he has had a genuine influence on a few good critics, and, at a more general level, he has become a paradigm of the deliberately serious, a state of affairs to which his unreadability (such as it is) has no doubt contributed. 'Burke's ethical doctrine, the "neo-liberal ideal"', writes a recent and enthusiastic appraiser, 'advanced pan-realism definitely into the realm of the pragmatic'. So we see that Burke is not being taken lightly. (p. 254)

[His] criticism has the support and encouragement of a considerable group—and it is...