Kenneth Burke--Literature as Equipment for Living

Stories can be seen as a kind of "naming."

Proverbs seek to chart 'type' situations."

This charting of "type" situations is done "because of its bearing on human welfare." This naming acts as a kind of behavioral guide.

Complex and sophisticated works of art could be considered proverbs writ large.

Madame Bovary "is the strategic naming of a situation. It singles out a pattern of experience that is sufficiently representative of our social structure for people to 'need a word for it.'"

Sociological criticism seeks to codify the various "naming" strategies which have appeared in art.

Its aim would be to discern the general behind the particular, while formulating a strategy of strategies.

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                For Burke, stories can be seen as a kind of "naming." People often find themselves in situations that recur so frequently that they feel the need to "have a word for it." Burke focuses at first on the role of proverbs: "Social structures give rise to 'type' situaltions . . . many proverbs seek to chart, in more or less homey and picturesque ways, these 'type' situations." Burke says that this naming, this charting of "type" situations is done "because of its bearing on human welfare." This naming acts as a kind of behavioral guide, giving the hearers of such proverbs guidance on what to expect in certain situations.
        Burke then extends the "naming" activity of proverbs into a way of looking at literature. "Could the most complex and sophisticated works of art legitimately be considered somewhat as 'proverbs writ large?'" Burke then goes on to suggest that these complex works of art can be looked at as if they were "designed to organize and command the army of one's thoughts and images, and to so organize them that one 'imposes upon the enemy the time and place and conditions for fighting prefered by oneself.'"
        A novel like Madame Bovary "is the strategic naming of a situation. It singles out a pattern of experience that is sufficiently representative of our social structure . . . for people to 'need a word for it.'"
        The kind of "naming-of-type-situations" criticism here outlined Burke calls "sociological criticism." It seeks to codify the various "naming" strategies which have appeared in art, many of which would be "'timeless,' for many of the 'typical, recurrent situations' are not peculiar to our own civilization at all." Its aim would be "to discern the 'general behind the particular,'" and would treat its categories as active rather than inert methods of analysis. These categories would be more concerened with an analysis of what works of art do than with what they are. They would consider art as "strategies for selecting enemies and allies, for socializing losses, for warding off evil eye, for purification, propitiation, and desanctification, consolation and veangeance, admonition and exhortation, implicit commands or instructions of one sort or another." Art forms would be looked at with an eye to their "typical ingredients" and their relation to "typical situations." The intention would be one of "formulating a 'strategy of strategies."