Somatic Style

One of America's greatest minds and finest stylists, Ralph Waldo Emerson, once affirmed: “A man's style is his mind's voice. Wooden minds have wooden voices.”1 If Emerson here defines style through the notion of mind, it is not to deny the somatic dimension of style. Style is essentially embodied, as Emerson's reference to voice clearly implies. Vocalization is clearly a bodily act, involving one's breath, vocal chords, and mouth. Moreover, the materiality of the mind's expression in style is further suggested in Emerson's reference to wooden minds and wooden voices. If we look at the concept of style through etymology, however, we find its somatic roots not in the orality of voice but rather in the bodily gesture of inscription. The word derives from the Latin word stylus, one of whose primary meanings was a sharp instrument used by the Romans for writing and engraving on wax tablets. It thus came, by implication, to convey more generally the method of writing or engraving with any sharp or pointed instrument, such action implying somatic action and skill.