WIDELY HAILED as one of America's greatest rhetorical theorists, Kenneth Burke (1897-1993) ranged freely across many fields of knowledge, investigating the ways language, literature, and ideas relate to one another and to the social and political aspects of life. Skeptical of disciplinary boundaries, Burke garnered both praise and censure for his eclecticism. While several intellectual movements - including the New Critics - have claimed him as a member, Burke himself strongly resisted such affiliations. In a comprehensive examination of Burke's achievements, Ross Wolin sifts through the...