📖 Welcome back, everyone! I’m Dr. Bobby, “The Best Assistant Professor Who Never Was,” and today we’re continuing our deep dive into Kenneth Burke’s A Rhetoric of Motives, specifically his section on Order.

💡 Burke explores how symbols, imagery, and hierarchical structures shape meaning, connecting his rhetorical theories to semiotics, Aristotelian plot structure, and Marxist analysis. We’ll break down his insights on the sign-signifier-signified relationship, narrative motivation, and how social hierarchies influence interpretation, particularly in literature like Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis.

🧐 Topics covered in this episode: ✔️ Burke vs. Semiotics: Does meaning transcend signs? ✔️ Aristotle’s plot structure and chara ...