"Where does the drama get its materials? From the "unending
conversation" that is going on at the point in history when we are born.
Imagine that you enter a parlor. You come late. When you arrive, others
have long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a
discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is
about. In fact, the discussion had already begun long before any of them
got there, so that no one present is qualified to retrace for you all the
steps that had gone before. You listen for a while, until you decide that
you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar.
Someone answers; you answer him; another comes to your defense; another
aligns himself against you, to either the embarrassment or gratification of
your opponent, depending upon the quality of your ally's assistance.
However, the discussion is interminable. The hour grows late, you must
depart. And you do depart, with the discussion still vigorously in
progress."
Burke, Kenneth (1941/1973). The Philosophy of literary form. Berkeley & Los
Angeles: University of California Press. (p. 110-11)