After reading the first section of Grammar the image of the pentad has come into sharper focus, not as a kind of wagon wheel as I had, before now, pictured it, but as Burke prefers it, a thing both more massy and less predictable. The analogy makes more sense in terms of invention and rhetorical inquiry. It we use the pentad heuristically (e.g. as an invention tool), it reflects the relatively quick (and imperceptible) geologic processes happening at the center of the Earth. While the gravitational pull of the spinning planet (a kind of exigency) certainly influences how and why things happen in the molten center, its effects are by not predictable, except through a kind of theory (or grammar). When the pentad is used heuristically, it can help generate ideas about how one can discuss the way lava might flow; it gives rise to possibilities that extend exponentially when combined (alchemically) increase exponentially.

Thank you, JKR, for giving me an example of that which Burke speaks of.

It struck me, while reading Burke's take on transformation (being, as others have quoted before me, "out of a great central moltenness, where all is merged...thrown from a liquid center to the surface, where they have congealed"), that Burke is characterizing the material, that from which distinctions are made, as being the same basic material that can be reformed and reshaped, and that this is not unlike a gestalt image.

When Burke describes how A may become non-A:

But not merely a leap from one state to the other. Rather, we must take A back into the ground of its existence, the logical substance that is its causal ancestor, and on tho a point where it is consubstantial with non-A; then we may return, this time emerging with non-A instead. (xix)

The molten mass is an expanse of lava bubbling up (I'm picturing it much the same way I picture primordial soup) and spitting forth particles that may later be reintegrated into the soup and re-incarnated as new bits of of spewed forth particles (xix). Which is an intriguing way of looking at language.

These particles can be seen as terms which are used in a certain context by a certain critic to mean one thing and which may morph into something else under the gaze/use of another person. Herein, it would seem, lies ambiguity.

Beyond a discussion of ambiguity, another key term surfaces: distinctions.
Burke writes, "Distinctions, we might say, arise out of a great central
moltenness, where all is merged" (xix). As I understand it, every term is part of an amorphous mass until it is thrown out on its own distinct from other terms and possible meanings, singled out by a person who chose to set it apart and who chose to attempt to make it a little less ambiguous.

Burke’s metaphor of “central molteness” is described in the introduction to Grammar of Motives. It describes Dramatistic inquiry as a study that privileges ambiguity over definition ( xix). His later discussion of Spinoza is helpful here in expanding upon how the image of central molteness applies to rhetorical inquiry.

When describing a molten mass Burke writes, "Distinctions, we might say, arise out of a great central moltenness, where all is merged. They have been thrown from a liquid center to the surface, where they have congealed. Let one of these crusted distinctions return to its source, and in this alchemic center it may be remade, again becoming molten liquid, and may enter into new combinations, whereat it may be again thrown forth as a new crust, a different distinction" (xix). Admittedly, when I first began to think how this method reflects Burke's understanding of rhetorical inquiry or invention, I struggled a little. In particular, when I tried to think of ways to introduce Burke's method into the FYC classroom, all I could imagine was one big mess. However, when I focus on the words distinction and difference that Burke uses, I see how his pentadic ratios are the vehicle through which students can come to discern and make distinctions on a particular subject.

Burke’s analogy of the “great central moltenness” (GM xix) out of which distinctions arise brings into light his idea of the function of rhetoric as the use of words to form attitudes or to induce actions. According to Burke, we are moved to action through language, through a dialectical exchange of symbols and through our desire for identification. The scope of the pentad is not merely the naming of elements (symbols) but the analysis of the interplay between the pentadic elements, or of the ratios, which may point us to places of ambiguity. In order to analyze the interplay, we seek vocabularies that “reflect reality faithfully”; however, by selecting certain words we implicitly deflect reality (GM 59).

I think part of the complexity in trying to formulate an interpretive response to Burke’s analogy of “molten mass” is that the analogy itself represents the point Burke is trying to make, that our way of interpreting is dependent upon our scope of interpretation, which can lead to multiplicities of responses when we consider rhetoric. Stated another way, the ambiguity of the statement itself leads one to an interpretation based one’s interpretation of the Burkean concept of rhetoric (which may be why Burke selected the analogy). Because of this, I think my response for today will merely attempt to produce one particular answer to the question – one that may be limited and should only be seen as an interpretation and one I will try to follow up on later.