Description
Book SynopsisMarks the author's breakthrough in criticism from the literary and aesthetic into social theory and the philosophy of history. This title provides his first entry into what he calls his theory of Dramatism; and, an important section on the nature of ritual.
Table of ContentsINTRODUCTION
PART I
ACCEPTANCE AND REJECTION
CHAPTER 1: WILLIAM JAMES, WHITMAN, AND EMERSON
"Acceptance" and "Passivity", Rejection, The Changing Emphasis
of Frames, Sentimental Acceptance in Futurism
CHAPTER II: POETIC CATEGORIES
Tragedy, Comedy, Humor, the Ode, Negative Emphasis: the Elegy,
or Plaint, Satire, Burlesque, The Grotesque, Monasticism
and the Transitional, The Didactic, Didactic "Transcendence" in
Hesiod, Didactic Transcendence in Eliot, Other Instances of Transcendence
CHAPTER III: THE DESTINY OF ACCEPTANCE FRAMES
Discomfitures of Rejection
CHAPTER IV: CONCLUSION
PART II
THE CURVE OF HISTORY
CHAPTER 1: CHRISTIAN EVANGELISM
CHAPTER II: MEDIAEVAL SYNTHESIS
CHAPTER 111: PROTESTANT TRANSITION
CHAPTER IV: NAIVE CAPITALISM
CHAPTER v: EMERGENT COLLECTIVISM
CHAPTER VI: COMIC CORRECTIVES
PART III
ANALYSIS OF SYMBOLIC STRUCTURE
CHAPTER 1: GENERAL NATURE OF RITUAL
The Tracking Down of Symbols, Synthesis and Analysis, Tests
of Selectivity, Analytic "Radiations", Main Components of
Ritual
CHAPTER 11: DICTIONARY OF PIVOTAL TERMS
Alienation, Being Driven Into a Corner, Bridging Device,
Bureaucratization of the Imaginative, Casuistic Stretching,
Clust"rs, Communion, Control, Cues, Discounting, "Earning" One's World,
Efficiency, Essence, Forensic, "Good Life", "Heads I Win, Tails You Lose",
Identity
Identification, Imagery, Legality, Lexicological, NcoMalthusian
Principle, Opportunism, Perspective by Incongruity, Problem of Evil,
Repossess the World, Rituals of Rebirth Salvation Device, Sect,
Secular Prayer--or, extended: Character-building by Secular Prayer,
Stealing Back and Forth of Symbols,Symbolic Mergers, Symbols of Authority,
Transcendence
CONCLUSION
AFTERWORD TO SECOND EDITION
APPENDIX: THE SEVEN OFFICES
AFTERWORD: ATTITUDES TOWARD HISTORY:
IN RETROSPECTIVE PROSPECT
