This essay examines self-portrayal in fictional and nonfictional written discourse. The essay focuses on various treatments of self-representation in rhetorical and literary critical theory in an effort to overcome the conceptual and terminological confusion that has arisen across time and disciplinary specialties in the discussion of self-portrayal. The essay argues that two common terms for describing self-representation—ethos and persona—are often conflated but that there are good historical and conceptual grounds for maintaining a distinction between them. Such a distinction refines our critical vocabulary for analyzing the multidimensional nature of self-representation in writing.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Abrams, M. H.
(1958). The mirror and the lamp: Romantic theory and the critical tradition. New York: W. W. Norton.
2.
Andersen, K.
, & Clevenger, T., Jr. (1963). A summary of experimental research in ethos. Speech Monographs, 30, 59-78.
3.
Aristotle
. (1925). The Nicomachean ethics (D. Ross, Trans.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
4.
Aristotle
. (1926). The “art” of rhetoric (J. H. Freese, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
5.
Aristotle
. (1954). Rhetoric (W. R. Roberts, Trans.). New York: Random House.
Ball, P. M.
(1964). Sincerity: The rise and fall of a critical term. Modern Language Review, 59, 1-11.
8.
Bitzer, L.
(1968). The rhetorical situation. Philosophy and Rhetoric, 1, 1-14.
9.
Black, E.
(1970). The second persona. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 56, 109-119.
10.
Booth, W. C.
(1961). The rhetoric of fiction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
11.
Brinton, A.
(1983). Quintilian, Plato, and the vir bonus. Philosophy and Rhetoric, 16, 167-184.
12.
Bruffee, K. A.
(1986). Social construction, language, and the authority of knowledge: A bibliographical essay. College English, 48, 773-790.
13.
Campbell, P. N.
(1975). The personae of scientific discourse. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 61, 391-405.
14.
Cherniss, H.
(1943). The biographical fashion in literary criticism. University of California Publications in Classical Philology, 12, 279-291.
15.
Cicero
. (1939). Orator (H. M. Hubbell, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
16.
Cicero
. (1942). De orators (E. W. Sutton & H. Rackham, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
17.
Clifford, J. L.
(1965). The eighteenth century. Modern Language Newsletter, 3, 89-153.
18.
Corbett, E.P.J.
(1981). A rhetorician looks at technical writing. In J. C. Mathes & T. E. Pinelli (Eds.), Technical communication: Perspectives for the eighties (pp. 213-218). Washington, DC: NASA.
19.
Corts, T. E.
(1968). The derivation of ethos. Speech Monographs, 35, 201-202.
20.
Craig, C. P.
(1981). The accusator as amicus: An original Roman tactic of ethical argumentation. Transactions of the American Philological Association, 111, 31-37.
21.
Crutwell, P.
(1959/1960). Makers and persons. Hudson Review, 12, 487-507.
22.
Davie, D.
(1968). On sincerity: From Wordsworth to Ginsberg. Encounter, 31, 61-66.
23.
Ede, L.
(1984). Audience: An introduction to research. College Composition and Communication, 35, 140-154.
24.
Ede, L.
, & Lunsford, A. (1984). Audience addressed/audience invoked: The role of audience in composition theory and pedagogy. College Composition and Communication, 35, 155-171.
25.
Efron, A.
(1966). Untitled statement in The concept of the persona in satire: A symposium. Satire Newsletter, 3, 100-108.
26.
Ehrenpreis, I.
(1963). Personae. In C. Camden (Ed.), Restoration and eighteenth-century literature: Studies in honor of Alan Dugald McKillop (pp. 25-37). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
27.
Elbow, P.
(1987). Closing my eyes as I speak: An argument for ignoring audience. College English, 49, 50-69.
28.
Elliott, R. C.
(1982). The literary persona. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
29.
Enos, R. L.
, & McClaran, J. (1978). Audience and image in Ciceronian Rome: Creation and constraints of the vir bonus personality. Central States Speech Journal, 29, 98-106.
30.
Fahnestock, J.
(1986). Accommodating science: The rhetorical life of scientific facts. Written Communication, 3, 275-296.
31.
Faigley, L.
, Cherry, R. D., Jolliffe, D. A., & Skinner, A. M. (1985). Assessing writers' knowledge and processes of composing. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
32.
Feinberg, L.
(1966). Untitled statement in The concept of the persona in satire: A symposium. Satire Newsletter, 3, 108-111.
33.
Flower, L.
, & Hayes, J. R. (1980). The cognition of discovery: Defining a rhetorical problem. College Composition and Communication, 31, 21-32.
34.
Friedman, N.
(1955). Point of view in fiction: The development of a critical concept. Publications of the Modern Language Association, 70, 1160-1184.
35.
Gerber, J. C.
(1967). Literature: Our untamable discipline. College English, 28, 351-358.
36.
Gibson, W.
(1969). Persona: A style study for readers and writers. New York: Random House.
37.
Gilbert, G. N.
, & Mulkay, M. (1984). Opening Pandora's box: A sociological analysis of scientists' discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
38.
Grant, W. L.
(1943). Cicero on the moral character of the orator. Classical Journal, 38, 472-478.
39.
Halloran, S. M.
(1982). Aristotle's concept of ethos, or if not his somebody else's. Rhetoric Review, 1, 58-63.
40.
Highet, G.
(1974). Masks and faces in satire. Hermes, 102, 321-337.
41.
Hoetker, J.
, & Brossell, G. (1986). A procedure for writing content-fair essay examination topics for large-scale writing assessments. College Composition and Communication, 37, 328-335.
42.
Jaeger, W.
(1945). Paideia: The ideals of Greek culture (Vol. 1, 2nd ed.) (G. Highet, Trans.). New York: Oxford University Press.
43.
Johnson, N.
(1984). Ethos and the aims of rhetoric. In R. J. Connors, L. S. Ede, & A. A. Lunsford (Eds.), Essays on classical rhetoric and modern discourse (pp. 98-114). Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
44.
Kinneavy, J. L.
(1971). A theory of discourse. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
45.
Kroll, B.
(1984). Writing for readers: Three perspectives on audience. College Composition and Communication, 35, 172-185.
46.
Leff, M. C.
(1978). In search of Ariadne's thread: A review of the recent literature on rhetorical theory. Central States Speech Journal, 29, 73-91.
47.
Lloyd-Jones, R.
(1977). Primary trait scoring. In C. R. Cooper & L. Odell (Eds.), Evaluating writing (pp. 33-66). Urbana: National Council of Teachers of English.
48.
Long, R. C.
(1980). Writer-audience relationships: Analysis or invention?College Composition and Communication, 31, 221-226.
49.
Mack, M.
(1982). The muse of satire. In M. Mack (Ed.), Collected in himself: Essays critical, biographical, and bibliographical on Pope and some of his contemporaries (pp. 55-64). Newark: University of Delaware Press.
50.
MacKendrick, P.
(1948). Cicero's ideal orator: Truth and propaganda. Classical Journal, 43, 339-347.
51.
McCroskey, J.
, & Young, T. J. (1981). Ethos and credibility: The construct and its measurement after three decades. Central States Speech Journal, 32, 24-34.
52.
McKeon, Z. K.
(1982). Novels and arguments: Inventing rhetorical criticism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
53.
Mellon, J. C.
(1975). National assessment and the teaching of English. Urbana: National Council of Teachers of English.
54.
Miller, A. B.
(1974). Aristotle on habit (εθος) and character (ηθος): Implications for the Rhetoric. Speech Monographs, 41, 309-316.
55.
Miller, C. R.
(1979). A humanistic rationale for technical writing. College English, 40, 610-617.
56.
Minot, W.
(1981). Response to Russell C. Long, “Writer-audience relationships: Analysis or invention?”College Composition and Communication, 32, 335-337.
57.
Myers, G.
(1985). The social construction of two biologists' proposals. Written Communication, 2, 219-245.
58.
Odell, L.
, & Goswami, D. (1982). Writing in a non-academic setting. Research in the Teaching of English, 16, 201-223.
59.
Odell, L.
, Goswami, D., Herrington, A., & Quick, D. (1983). Studying writing in non-academic settings. In P. V. Anderson, R. J. Brockmann, & C. R. Miller (Eds.), New essays in technical and scientific communication (pp. 17-40). Farmingdale, NY: Baywood.
60.
Ong, W. J.
(1975). The writer's audience is always a fiction. Publications of the Modern Language Association, 90, 9-21.
61.
Overington, M. A.
(1977). The scientific community as audience: Toward a rhetorical analysis of science. Philosophy and Rhetoric, 10, 143-164.
62.
Park, D. B.
(1986). Analyzing audience. College Composition and Communication, 37, 478-488.
63.
Park, D. B.
(1982). The meanings of “audience.”College English, 44, 247-257.
64.
Romilly, J. de
. (1958). Eunoia in Isocrates or the political importance of creating good will. Journal of Hellenic Studies, 78, 92-101.
65.
Rosenthal, P. I.
(1966). The concept of ethos and the structure of persuasion. Speech Monographs, 33, 114-126.
66.
Roth, R. G.
(1987). The evolving audience: Alternatives to audience accommodation. College Composition and Communication, 38, 47-55.
67.
Sattler, W. M. (1941). Conceptions of ethos in rhetoric. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Northwestern University.
68.
Sattler, W. M.
(1947). Conceptions of ethos in ancient rhetoric. Speech Monographs, 14, 55-65.
69.
Self, L.
(1979). Rhetoric and phronesis: The Aristotelian ideal. Philosophy and Rhetoric, 12, 130-145.
70.
Tillyard, E.M.W.
, & Lewis, C. S. (1939). The personal heresy: A controversy. London: Oxford University Press.
71.
Toulmin, S.
(1972). Human understanding. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
72.
Trilling, L.
(1972). Sincerity and authenticity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
73.
Vatz, R. E.
(1973). The myth of the rhetorical situation. Philosophy and Rhetoric, 6, 154-161.
74.
Wimsatt, W. K., Jr.
, & Beardsley, M. C. (1967). The intentional fallacy. In The verbal icon. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press.
75.
Wright, G. T.
(1960). The poet in the poem: The personae of Eliot, Yeats, and Pound. Berkeley: University of California Press.
76.
Yoos, G.
(1979). A revision of the concept of ethical appeal. Philosophy and Rhetoric, 12, 41-58.
77.
Ziman, J.
(1968). Public knowledge: The social dimension of science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
