This volume explores the fascinating aesthetic and social connection
between drama and rhetoric.

Inasmuch as drama seeks to keep an audience engaged, it takes on rhetorical
qualities; likewise, rhetorical endeavor may employ dramatic appeal. Centuries
ago, Aristotle's companion pieces The Rhetoric and The Poetic
generated crosscurrents of critical thought about rhetorical and dramatic
theory. Recently, such critic-theorists as Kenneth Burke, Ernest Bormann,
Elder Olson, Paul de Man, and others have stirred up these currents...

Distinguished scholars and artists consider the mingling of Eastern and Western cultures and traditions in theatre.

The divergent cultures of East and West had been completely separated from one another for so long that their mutual discovery, beginning a little more than a hundred years ago, has had fascinating and invigorating results, especially in the drama.

This volume gathers papers, discussion notes, and essays on three major topics: Kabuki and the West; Crosscurrents in the Drama: East and West; and Theatrical Influences between East and West: Enrichment through...