“Throughout the inhabited world, in all times and under every circumstance, myths of man have flourished; and they have been the living inspiration of whatever else may have appeared out of the activities of the human body and mind. It would not be too much to say that myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into the human cultural manifestation.”
–Joseph Campbell

Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, first published in 1949, may be the greatest treatise on mythical archetype ever written. I hesitate to even bother describing the work, as it is known so well. I include this entry only for the sake of completeness, but I will be brief. Campbell’s work is chiefly concerned with symbols and their recurring power over the human experience. To that end, he documents the Monomyth, or the Hero’s Journey, in some seventeen steps, ranging from the Call to Adventure at the start to the Freedom to Live at the end. For Campbell, these patterns resonates with metaphysical truths, but more importantly (at least for my own purposes) he establishes the importance of fluency in the language of symbolism.

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“Truth in art is not the discovery of facts, not an addition to human knowledge in the scientific sense of the word. It is, rather, the exercise of human propriety, the formulation of symbols which rigidify our sense of poise and rhythm. Artistic truth is the externalization of taste.”
–Kenneth Burke

Key Terms: Syllogistic progression, Qualitative progression, Repetitive form, Conventional forms, Minor/incidental forms

In his 1968 work, Counter-Statement, Kenneth Burke offers up an extensive discussion of artistic form, striking key distinctions between information and the form in which that information is produced. In defining form, Burke writes, “Form is the creation of an appetite in the mind of the auditor, and the adequate satisfying of that appetite” (31). He further argues that form orients to the experience of the audience, not the subject (32). Thus, he defines “artistic felicity” as the correct use of form upon the audience, and eloquence is when the form used elevates the information conveyed (37).

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“As [an author] writes, he creates not simply an ideal, impersonal ‘man in general,’ but an implied version of ‘himself’ that is different from the implied authors we meet in other men’s works. To some novelists it has seemed, indeed, that they were discovering or creating themselves as they wrote.”
–Wayne C. Booth

Key Terms: Implied author, Intellectual/cognitive interest, Qualitative interest, Practical interest

Wayne C. Booth takes on a variety of projects in his 1961 text, The Rhetoric of Fiction. Largely, he counters literary myths of the time, such as the notions that objective, impersonal, dramatic narratives are superior. Making the point that despite whatever is currently in vogue there may be many different methods to presenting a story, Booth challenges “rules” of storytelling, from “show, don’t tell” to “novels must be realistic.” He also introduces key concepts that inform my own research, such as the idea of the “implied author” and a discussion of the various “interests” that fiction serves.

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