What is voice? Is it style or is it content? I've been thinking hard about those two questions for a while now and let me tell you, I'm not much closer to an answer than I was a week ago. I guess if I had to decide I would have to go with style. I mean, think about it. Style is word choice, syntax, grammar, mechanics, etc. And content? Content is just substance, a topic, a subject to be written about, correct? If content was indeed voice, then wouldn't many of us have the same voice? This paper is an excellent example to prove my point. We all have to write about voice, the same topic for each and every one of us. So regardless whether each of us writes about voice being style or content, the substance of our papers is going to be extremely similar. And I don't believe for one second that all of us in this class have the same voice. Style is voice. Style dictates how our words and thoughts come across. That's why even though we all have to write about the same topic, we still maintain our own individual voices.
It just wouldn't make sense to me if voice was content. You can't really express yourself through what you're talking about. I guess your perspective on things is in your content, but perspective and voice are different. I look at style being voice like I look at style in fashion as portraying who we are. Two people could both be wearing a t-shirt and jeans. Simple enough, right? So what they are wearing I look at as the content (the substance). But one person likes their t-shirt tight with their jeans loose, while the other likes the opposite. That's each person's individual style, that's the expression of who each person is. So likewise, two people can write about the same topic. They can both have the same content in each of their papers. But depending on their own individual style, their own word choice, their own grammar, their own syntax, etc., they can have two completely different voices. I'll demonstrate by imitating a section of Frankfurt's On Truth. I'll imitate his content but by changing the style I'll change the section into my own voice.
If there's something that causes you joy, something you can point to and say "that makes me happy", then Spinoza believes you love that thing. That's what he thinks love is. He thinks it's how we respond to the things that cause us joy. So basically he's saying that we can't help loving the things that make us happy, the things that bring us joy. They therefore love what they think helps them be more themselves. I think Spinoza is probably right. I suppose people do tend to love the things that help them discover themselves and help them face life without compromising their beliefs.
Spinoza also seems to be correct when he states "One who loves necessarily strives to have present and preserve the things he loves" (Ethics, part III, proposition II, scholium). The things that a person loves are important to him. His life, along with the things that help him continue to enjoy his individuality, depend on them. So obviously he would want to take care of them and protect them and make sure they are easy to access.
Well I have to say, I don't think I changed my mind. After doing the imitation of Frankfurt, I still feel as though voice is style. The imitation was surprisingly easier to do than I initially thought it would be. It wasn't that hard for me to take the same content and just change up the style a little bit. But then again, I wouldn't say that the imitation was in my voice either. It was just in a different style than Frankfurt's. So I guess this is the point where I contradict myself. In the imitation exercise I changed the style as best I could to fit me better, but because the content wasn't necessarily my opinion or my views, it wasn't truly my voice. Therefore, I guess I would have to say that voice is neither style nor content, but rather a combination of both.
Initially I thought that content was just perspective about a certain topic and that style was the way in which you expressed your voice. But after doing the imitation, I see that half the battle is expressing your own opinions. So through the content you can portray your beliefs and views and through the style you can dictate how you express your own opinions. And through both, you maintain your own individual voice.
I also saw through doing the imitation that voice is not just a combination of content and style. It's not just this half is black and this half is white. There's a gray area in which the content and the style intertwine. I say this because word choice would be considered style. But word choice can also dictate content. If I use two words that are extremely similar and can, in most circumstances, be interchangeable, then most likely the content that I'm talking about with these two words is probably pretty similar as well. However if I choose to use the word melancholy versus the word depressed, the meaning behind these two words while similar can completely change the content of what I'm writing about. What I'm trying to say, is that sometimes style and content can overlap. Word choice can change the meaning of something and therefore change the content. But I suppose if voice is a combination of both, it doesn't matter too much.
I guess I'm still a bit confused on what voice is. I think voice is both style and content, but when trying to explain why, I feel as though I'm just rambling about nothing and that I'm not making much sense. So perhaps I should go back and redo the imitation exercise and pay more attention or maybe the concept of voice is really just that complicated.
Posted by doutrich on December 12, 2008
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