Welcome to the Pluralistic World of Wayne Booth
“There is pleasure from learning the simple truth, and there is a pleasure from learning that the truth is not simple.”
― Wayne C. Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction
Wayne Clayson Booth (1921 - 2005) is one of the most consistently interesting, but also one of the most consistently underestimated, critics of the latter 20th C. A rhetor and rhetorician, a philosopher, pluralist, literary critic, editor, and English professor, his driving theme was the rhetorical resources that encourage, obstruct, or refine agreement: and, therefore, belief, knowledge, and action.
In this site we overview a range of his books, engage his issues, and seek agreement about the value of his critical pluralism, not only for understanding texts, but also for understanding each other.
News
- June 29, 2016Wayne Booth's Obituaries
While this is not "news" per se, this is a good place to post Booth's obituary from the University of Chicago, where he taught for his entire career, a rather in-depth overview of his life in The Guardian, and a link to his Wikipedia page.