Lisa Ede suggested in a prior comment that I read The Mythology of Voice for this paper. I skimmed through it, and while I think that it looks interesting, for the sake of savvy, I’ll read it later if this paper becomes a bigger project in the future, but for this paper here and now, I don’t have the time.
[Edit]: a few moments later I realize there is a good discussion of the history of “The Use of Voice in American Writing Instruction” in this book. Yippee!
This is what I have, at this moment, included in my Literature Review, which I am at this moment drafting, from my reading of Bowden:
The discussion of voice as a part of writing and writing instruction arises, according to Darsie Bowden, from the focus on oratory skills in education (40). After American education shifted from an oratorical focus to a focus on writing, the metaphors associated with oratory continued, in the form of “common metaphors includ[ing] vigor, tone, rhythm, harmony, melody, tempo, energy, and euphony,“ (Bowden 41). Textbooks such as Brainerd Kellogg’s A Text-Book on Rhetoric (1892) began to focus on the necessity of having personal attitude and showing one’s identity in one’s own writing (Bowden 42). The early to mid twentieth century continued this stress on personal attitude, but, according to Bowden, “its treatment ranges widely from discussions that separate style from content…to advice to students about using personal attitude in preparing writing (a precursor of the process movement and expressivism)“ (48).
While attitude and tone were frequently discussed, “voice“ wasn’t used as a metaphor (except in reference to active and passive verbs) until the Dartmouth Conference in 1966. It is in the 1960s that “voice“ began to be conflated with aural metaphors such as tone and attitude (Bowden 49-50). In the late 1960s and early 1970s, because of the new focus on student-centered learning and the new progressive movement in education, experts such as Peter Elbow and Ken Macrorie began stressing student authority and encouraging students “to write about what was important to them, often in their own individual style“ (52). Academic discourse, especially student attempts at it, came under fire by Elbow and Macrorie because of “its lifelessness, its lack of spontaneity, dynamism, rhythm, and authenticity“ (53). The 1990s began to see a shift from the view of voice as a singular, “authentic voice“ to a “more socially oriented paradigm that values plurality and multivocality“ (55).
Bowden links the popularity of voice to “its lack of consistency in definition or usage. One of the hallmarks of enduring metaphors is their flexibility; they can be adapted to suit a range of often conflicting purposes“ (55)….
