Style and Voice

[Anonymous No.14843852]

Alright, /lit/. I'm finally taking reading seriously. Can someone explain "style" and "voice" to me in a way that isn't completely abstract and how to "see" them?

[Anonymous No.14844063]

Style is when certain literary tools are used disproportionately. For example: short dialogue scenes or unusually verbose descriptions.

Voice is the motif in conjunction with style. For example: me explaining this to you while consistently using "For example:".
My voice is poorly constructed since my motif is not a 4th wall breaking one.

[Anonymous No.14844136]

>>14844063
Informative and entertaining. Thanks, Anon. lol

[Anonymous No.14844173]

>>14843852
Style is generally understood as the choice of words, devices of language, tone, in general ways of expression and description, that will colour the speaker and/or (more importantly) the object of description in a particular way.

"Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren, who was going nowhere except into Mini Mike’s head, just dropped out of the Democrat Primary...THREE DAYS TOO LATE. She cost Crazy Bernie, at least, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Texas. Probably cost him the nomination!"
Disregarding the difference in the object of description, the above quote is stylistically very different from
"She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!"
which is again different from
"Since the objects of imitation are men in action, and these men must be either of a higher or a lower type (for moral character mainly answers to these divisions, goodness and badness being the distinguishing marks of moral differences), it follows that we must represent men either as better than in real life, or as worse, or as they are."
and it's different from
"The wife had discovered that the husband was carrying on an intrigue with a French girl, who had been a governess in their family, and she had announced to her husband that she could not go on living in the same house with him. This position of affairs had now lasted three days, and not only the husband and wife themselves, but all the members of their family and household, were painfully conscious of it."
Style can be understood as a register (more or less formal) or as an individual writer's style.

Style can be understood more widely, and not only as a matter of the form. It might also encapsulate the content, that which is described and coloured by the form (language and its style). For example, it is characteristic for Shakespeare's style to represent dark historical stories, while it is characteristic for Tolstoy's style to represent the life of Russian upper classes.
A more narrow definition of style would only focus on the elements that make the language dissimilar from the common way we speak, or the elements that make it more emotionally pregnant. In that sense, the second quote up there is the most highly stylized speech, while the third one is going for the least stylized, emotionally indifferent and objective style.
There are actually plenty of ways to define style which aren't really in accordance with each other, but I hope I've given enough definitions and examples to outline what it generally means.

>>14844063
>Voice is the motif in conjunction with style. For example: me explaining this to you while consistently using "For example:".
>My voice is poorly constructed since my motif is not a 4th wall breaking one.
m8 that is absolute gibberish

[Anonymous No.14844234]

>>14844173
I know it's gibberish. That was the point.

[Anonymous No.14844356]

>>14843852
Style is the characteristics that uniquely define a voice. A Portrait of the Artist as A Young Man is a good novel to use as an exercise for identifying these two concepts. When reading the novel see if you can recognise the style changes that clue the reader into the change of voice. The first chapter of Portrait is narrated in Stephens voice from a toddler through a child at Clongowes. But other chapters are narrated from Stephen's voice at different periods in his life. With each voice change, their is a style change.

Read about free indirect discourse. This may help you to understand. Read more modernist texts too. They tend to implement multiple voices from third person narration (ie free indirect discourse).