Research On Wayne C. Booth’s Literary Theory

ABSTRACT: Wayne Clayson Booth was one of the most influential American literary critics in the20th century, with his academic achievements mainly focusing on literary theory and rhetoric. Having researched on his works, I find that he put quite a few efforts on ethical concerns, based on which, I start my dissertation from both the perspectives of rhetoric and ethical criticism.The paper is divided into four chapters. Chapter one is set to examine the academic background of Prof. Booth, with particular emphasis on the theoretical turn of the Chicago School. Booth served as a Mormon missionary during his early days, which partially accounted for his preference of distributing moral, didactic concepts. However, the Chicago approach focused on formalism and dismissed biographical, historical, moral, and sociological criticism when Booth was working on his master degree there. Not until the mid-1950s when the Chicago critics adopted pluralistic and rhetoric strategies was Booth able to practice his so-called "extrinsic" criticizing. Besides, theories of Aristotle and Kenneth Burke set good examples for Booth’s research, inspiring him to search for methods of communion based on fictions.The second part of the paper is designed to make explicit the complicated process of authoritative rhetoric in which both the author and reader take important parts. Booth rejected the realistic approach to literary writing that paid no attention to authors’voice or readers’response, asserting that the author could only choose his rhetorical strategy instead of disappearing from the text. So far as he was concerned, fiction was a peculiar rhetoric in the hope of inquiring common value which was helpful to improve communication and such communication involved many selves of an individual. As a result, authors and readers actually participate in some kind of polylogue. With the popularity of irony, readers found it extremely hard to make sense of the textual meaning, toward which Booth provided us with a set of solutions. In this chapter, we are capable of acquiring the significance of the rhetorical approach by means of Booth’s illumination of differences between the rhetoric of fiction and the poetics of fictions.Chapter three sees Booth’s creative ideas on ethical criticism. The relationship between authors and readers is metaphorically described as a friendship, which leads to the transformation of ethical criticism from judging complete texts to evaluating the experiences of reading. At the mean while, Booth recommended a mode of coduction which involved in other readers’judgments for fear of subjectivism. In such a period featuring postmodernism and deconstruction, Booth’s assumptions on the one hand stick to the innate power of texts, on the other hand largely support critical pluralism, which seems to be a paradox. However, Booth’s methodological pluralism is limited by an important concept------understanding, one Booth defined as the goal, process, and result of a successful communication, which means the ultimate purposes of his pluralism are to promote understanding and to build a harmonious community.The final chapter is a conclusion of this dissertation. The rhetorical study of fiction was a consistent process through which Booth effectively fulfilled himself in exploring shared values. His work not only regains the author’s rights in his writings, but ethically demonstrates the value of artistic works, and significance of effective communication.