Is it what one says or the way one says it that makes voice voice? Well, right now I’m going to say that voice is substance. After all, isn’t what you say at least as important as how you say it? Yes, personality is often important and even vital to the voice of a text, but it is absolutely crucial that first and foremost a writer says what he or she intends to say while focusing on the content of that writing.
Let’s look at academic discourse as an example. For me personally, reading literary theory and criticism was more than a chore. Many of these literary theorists attempted to add some kind of voice (usually in the form of large and mystifyingly intense words). The writings of the majority of these people, more often than not, only served to confuse me beyond the point of sanity. It was only in class when those readings were broken down that I understood the actual intentions of the writers. To put it another way, I began to understand what they were saying, but I could not begin to grasp the way they demonstrated their points or the reasons they had for writing in such a way. In other words, I could not even get past how these writers were writing. It became a serious chore to try to decipher what would have been clearer if they had just said what they were trying to say.
The voice of many texts attempted to establish the beliefs and ideas of the writers and upon discussion of the texts, the true voice of the authors was revealed. I began to see a voice of sorts in what they were saying when I realized that once all of the flashy language and the large and complicated words were taken away, the heart of their ideas was exposed. It was then that I also understood that through this realization of voice as substance, the style of the authors mattered much less.
If these authors had just gotten their points across in ways that were accessible, there would have been no need for the multiple rereadings of several paragraphs. Oftentimes, particularly in literary theory and criticism, what is being said can be buried by style; when voice is substance, it can be much more easily read and the material can be more effortlessly absorbed. After all, getting something across effectively is much more important than making sure something sounds cool.
To make the argument that voice is substance a bit more clear I will imitate a portion of Harry G. Frankfurt’s On Truth. At this point of Frankfurt’s book, he argues that joy basically equals love. To do the same, I will take a piece of Frankfurt’s writing and, using my ideas and his style, I will show how what is being said is much more important than how I say it.
If one understands joy and realizes that joy is the thing outside of him or herself- in other words, if one sees another person or an object as the source of his or her joy- Spinoza says that the person in question loves that thing. Spinoza comprehends love as our reactions to the cause of our joy. According to Spinoza, then, one must love anything that is accepted, to them, as a cause of joy. That person consistently loves the thing they think assists a continuation to turn into him or herself. It seems that Spinoza is headed in the wrong direction. Several classic examples of love show basically a different model than what Spinoza describes: many people love something that does not necessarily give them joy, make them happy, or bring them a sense of accomplishment.
In addition to this, Spinoza attaches an examination of love that seems inexact: “A person who loves unavoidably endeavors to keep that which he loves.” In other words, Spinoza says that the things people love are clearly and inevitably important to them. Their lives, and the achievements and delights of individual legitimacy, depend on these things. Consequently, he argues, that person logically attempts to guard these things to make certain they are easily accessible to him.
What then is it that the substance of the text tells the reader? It says that Spinoza believes that love is caused by joy.
For the sake of this paper, I chose to say that voice has more to do with substance than with style, but I think it’s actually much more complicated than that. After having completed the imitation exercise, voice seems more complex; sure, my imitation was an attempt at using Frankfurt’s style to make my own points, but I felt my own methods creeping in. I twisted Frankfurt’s words into my own and I still feel like I used some techniques and word choices that define who I am as a writer.
In the end, I think that in attempting to take on Frankfurt in his style but with my ideas, I ended up seeing just how necessary style can be. Substance alone doesn’t make a great read, but at the same time something that is written purely stylistically can be confusing. The marriage of those two elements of voice and finding the right balance between the two seems to be the best solution.
Take films, music, and books for example. In film, it is important for a director to get his or her point across while at the same time making the film he or she envisioned. In music, a songwriter must be able to address a subject while approaching the song with a sense of him or herself. In books, motifs and themes often represent the core of what the writer wants to get across to an audience while the way that person write keeps readers entertained. All of these examples are a combination of substance and style, both of which are important in order to provide entertainment and understanding and not just one or the other.
I still do believe that substance is much more crucial to a voice, but after having completed the imitation of Frankfurt, it is much easier to see that style can play a huge role in what voice is. I understand now that people may want to read something filled with substance and no voice even less than they would want to read something full of style that doesn’t make much sense. After all, it’s not like many people are excited about sitting down to read a book full of straight up fact where the only voice is one that is constantly saying, “I know more about this than you do; learn that what I say is all truthful information.”
After having seen the effects of style and substance individually, it is easy to see that the combination of the two is what can make a piece of writing truly shine and stand out from the rest. For example, I simply could not read many literary theorists due what seemed to me to be an overuse of style. On the other hand, a piece of writing with nothing but substance, while it does demonstrate easily what it wants to get across, can become boring and hard to read. It is only when style and substance are united that a writer’s voice can come out.
Posted by holt8617 on December 5, 2008
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