BOOTH, WAYNE C.

born Feb. 22, 1921, American Fork, Utah, U.S. in full Wayne Clayson Booth American critic and teacher associated with the Chicago school of literary criticism. Booth attended Brigham Young University, Salt Lake City, Utah (B.A., 1944), and the University of Chicago (M.A., 1947; Ph.D., 1950), where he became devoted to Neo-Aristotelian critical methods while studying with R.S. Crane. He taught at Haverford College, Haverford, Pa., and Earlham College, Richmond, Ind., and then at the University of Chicago until his retirement in 1992. In his influential first book, The Rhetoric of Fiction (1961; rev. ed., 1983), Booth argued that as a technique rhetoric can enhance communication between author and reader, not merely manipulate the reader's response, and he also offered a critical methodology. In 1974 he produced Modern Dogma and the Rhetoric of Assent, a plea for reasoned assent in the educational community that was prompted by events on the Chicago campus. In addition to further works of criticism, Booth cofounded (1974) and coedited from 1974 to 1985 the quarterly Critical Inquiry. His other books include Now Don't Try to Reason with Me: Essays and Ironies for a Credulous Age (1970), A Rhetoric of Irony (1974), and Critical Understanding: The Powers and Limits of Pluralism (1979).