Reading Sonic Culture in Emerson’s “Self-Reliance”

In “Self-Reliance,” Emerson alludes to the voice almost 80 times, mentioning it in over half of the essay’s paragraphs. Unpacking these references, one finds an implicit rhetorical theory of sound and voice drawn from assumptions of nineteenth-century Americans’ conceptions of sound. Emerson’s sonic allusions reveal a conceptualization of the essence and rhetorical nature of voice that helps explain Emerson’s notion of self-reliance and oratorical exchanges.