A Grammar of Motives and A Rhetoric of Motives were Burke's great successes, and the third volume in his Motivorum trilogy was highly anticipated. That is, for nearly 50 years. Here Rueckert builds from his expertise as Burke's correspondent and biographer (and his well-earned status as the dean of Burke studies) to offer the work Burke intended to include in the third book along with other essays never before published. Here Burke, hailed as one of the most original thinkers of the twentieth century and the "accidental originator" of cultural studies, devises basic requirements for a dramatistic poetics, applies it to dramatic analyses of such works as the Orestes trilogy and Othello, and then works his way to a brilliant analysis of Goethe's Faust. Annotation 2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
