Definition:
In rhetoric, the set of five problem-solving probes (developed by Kenneth Burke) that answer the following questions:
- What was done (act)?
- When and where was it done (scene)?
- Who did it (agent)?
- How was it done (agency)?
- Why was it done (purpose)?
Etymology:
From the Greek, "group of five." In A Grammar of Motives (Berkeley, 1945), American rhetorician Kenneth Burke adopted the term to describe the five key qualities of dramatism (or the dramatistic method or framework).Examples and Observations:
- "Act, Scene, Agent, Agency, Purpose. Although, over the centuries, men have shown great enterprise and inventiveness in pondering matters of human motivation, one can simplify the subject by this pentad of key terms, which are understandable almost at a glance."
(Kenneth Burke, A Grammar of Motives, Berkeley, 1945) - "Burke himself used the pentad on many kinds of discourse, especially poetry and philosophy. He also later added a sixth term, attitude, making the pentad into a hexad. Pentad or hextad, the point is that 'well-rounded statements' about human motivation will make some reference (explicitly or not) to act, acene, agent, agency, purpose, and attitude. . . .
"Burke intended the pentad to be a form of rhetorical analysis, a method readers can use to identify the rhetorical nature of any text, group of texts, or statements that explain or represent human motivation. . . . It is Burke's point that any 'well-rounded' account of human action must include some reference to the five (or six) elements of the pentad. Writers have also found that the pentad is a useful method of generating ideas."
(David Blakesley, The Elements of Dramatism, Longman, 2002)
