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Preface

In editing Kenneth Burke’s literary reviews, we tried to make very few changes to the source texts. For archival purposes, these reviews are best presented with as little alteration as possible to preserve most completely Burke’s original work. The toughest decision to make was deciding what counted as a literary review. Since Burke routinely centers discussions around the analysis of texts, it is often difficult to distinguish literary criticism from metacriticism. Relying on the criteria and catalogs created by William Rueckert and extended by Richard Thames, David Blakesley, and Clark Rountree for the bibliographies now available online at KB Journal, reviews were determined to be those pieces that evaluated a specific text or texts and were identified by the publication itself as literary reviews.

Once collected, these reviews presented only minor editing complications. Because Burke is notorious for playing with usage for effect, his style is often unconventional. It would sacrifice some of his meaning and intent to alter clever italicizations or punctuation that does not conform to style guides; however, these reviews were also subject to the specific conventions of journals and history, such as spelling and citation style. Those anomalies that seemed to be the result of editorial decisions or contemporary conventions were normalized, but those deemed Burkeian were left intact. As a result, only minor changes were necessary, such as spelling “colour” as “color” or changing the notation of Waldo Frank’s novel “Dark Mother” to Dark Mother.

Issues of organization were more complex. While there are several ways to present these reviews, we have decided to group them thematically to maximize their accessibility. Thematic organization will allow readers to notice trends and connections between reviews on similar topics. The categories for organization are fairly basic (e.g., fiction, poetry, sociology), and the scope of these categories is narrow enough to provide insight but broad enough to avoid specialization. Because Burke can easily turn a review of a novel into an essay on economics, the reviews are placed in categories based on the subject of the book under review. We readily admit, however, that this categorization does not reflect, to borrow again from Burke, how God himself divided-up the world. For instance, "Puritans Defended" here falls under "History"; it could just as easily have been placed under "Religion." We have self-consciously opted for, out of necessity, the Philosophy of the Bin. We recognize, as well, that the bins we have created do not necessarily contain all of Burke's collected literary reviews, and that some would count what we have discounted. Additionally, because of financial issues surrounding the permissions for Burke's reviews published in the New York Herald Tribune Books, those reviews do not appear in this collection. See Appendix A for an extended, critical discussion of those now excised reviews. We aimed to produce as complete and accessible a collection as various recalcitrants allowed. Within categories, reviews are grouped chronologically by journal. For example, all reviews from the journal with the earliest review are listed first, followed by those from the journal with the second earliest review. Additionally, alternative tables of content have been provided—one organized by journal, another by strict chronology—to allow readers to approach the reviews from different angles.

In compiling these literary reviews we have been aided mightily by the time and talents of others. David Blakesley has shepherded this project with the patience of a saint and guidance of a consummate educator. The Burke Literary Trust has likewise aided the project both by granting us permission to reprint Burke's work and by expressing genuine interest in the project. Many others have likewise provided support and guidance along the way. Thomas M. Rivers reviewed several versions of the introduction, as did Irwin Weiser. Jack Selzer and Robert Wess pointed the way to previously "lost" reviews. Debra Hawhee provided encouragement early on, as did the Kenneth Burke Society, which graciously awarded us the title of Emerging Burke Scholars for our work on this collection. We also want to thank these professional writing majors at Purdue University for their copyediting work on the manuscript: Kate Bouwens, Summer Carder, Alexandra Cash, Jessica Clements, Shawn Dildine, Daniel Elliott, Ryan Gardner, MacKenzie Greenwell, Kate Jackett, Mikel Livingston, Kaye Maloney, Suzie Mason, Caroline Mochel, Jennifer Norman, Holly Pierson, Patrick Qi, Francesca San Pedro, Samantha Schneider, Kristen Short, and Margaret Zahm.

We would like to thank many times over Joseph Sellers, the talented artist who produced the most excellent cover of this book. With very little direction, Joseph produced a design perfectly suited to the themes and historical contexts of many of Burke's literary reviews.

Finally, we wish to thank Jodi Rasche Rivers and Anna Lowe Weber for their love, support, and patience during the project.