Abstract

Fame's essentially literary nature is evident even in the single basic prerequisite that for fame to exist, audiences must respond to a narrative either by or about an individual with enthusiasm or abhorrence strong enough to share that response with others. Nonetheless, fame has been colored by its classical characterization as a fickle, uncontrollable goddess, whose whims rapaciously ruin or fortunately further an individual, suggesting that the making of fame is not the responsibility of the one upon which it is bestowed. Political leaders, however, understand its literary foundation, even if “literature” per se is not how they would characterize their own attempts to author fame. To demonstrate their use of literary structures, rather than focus on embellishment or genres such as biographies, I adapt Roman Jakobson's six-node communication model for poetic language to the political arena and exemplify through four modern and contemporary leaders: Barack Obama, Angela Merkel, George Bush, and Willy Brandt.