Essay

I

Introduction

Essay, literary composition devoted to the presentation of the writer's own ideas on a topic and generally addressing a particular aspect of the subject. Often brief in scope and informal in style, the essay differs from such formal expository forms as the thesis, dissertation, or treatise.

II

Origin of the Essay Form

Despite possible prototypes in the works of the Latin writers Cicero, Seneca, and Plutarch, the essay is fundamentally an invention of the European Renaissance and particularly of the French writer Michel Eyquem de Montaigne. The development of the form may be considered a result of the Renaissance emphasis on the individual, which fostered exploration of one's inner self in relation to the outside world. Montaigne's Essais (as he called the brief personal meditations in prose that he began to publish in 1580) were created in a time of great intellectual and social reorientation—a time when Europeans were readjusting their visions and values with respect to a vast number of matters, including death and the possibility of an afterlife, travel and exploration, and social relationships. All of these remain major themes of the essay.

III

Anonymity and Pseudonyms

When Renaissance individualism began to decline, essayists very commonly assumed personas, using descriptive pseudonyms, or they remained anonymous. Their themes continued, however, to be determined by personal points of view. A pseudonym often persuaded readers that they shared something in common with the essayist. Thus, not only for his own protection but perhaps also to establish rapport with his audience, the Anglo-Irish satirist Jonathan Swift signed himself “A Drapier” in The Drapier's Letters (1724-1725), and pretended to be an economist in “A Modest Proposal” (1729)—both highly provocative commentaries on conditions in Ireland. The essays of Swift's English contemporaries Joseph Addison and Sir Richard Steele were observations on the social and political scene; the periodical in which they were published was called The Spectator (1711-1712). Charles Lamb, one of the great English masters of the essay form, became “the gentle Elia,” using a name borrowed from a fellow clerk to sign his essays. These graceful reminiscences and musings were published in two collections, in 1823 and 1833. In calling his essays on London life Sketches by Boz (1836)—borrowing his brother's childhood nickname—the English writer Charles Dickens continued the tradition. The English novelist William Makepeace Thackeray signed his own Yellowplush Correspondence (1837-1838)—purporting to be the social and literary observations of a footman—Michael Angelo Titmarsh. Perhaps the most prodigious assumer of personas was the American humorist Samuel Langhorne Clemens (see Twain, Mark), whose social criticism was voiced in essays variously signed Sergeant Fathom, Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass, Satan, or W. Epaminondas Adrastus Blabb.

IV

Various Styles of the Essay

Because the essay allows the full range and expression of personal concerns, its style is not fixed. It is not even confined to prose, as the poems Essay on Criticism (1711) and Essay on Man (1733) by the English writer Alexander Pope illustrate. The essay is a flexible form and can be developed at the writer's will. It may be formal, as in Essays, or Counsels Civil and Moral (1597-1625) of the English philosopher and statesman Sir Francis Bacon, or casually conversational, as in “On the Pleasure of Hating” (1823) by the English critic William Hazlitt. It may be lyrical, as in Maine Woods (1864) by the American philosopher Henry David Thoreau, or oracular, as in the essays of another American transcendentalist, Ralph Waldo Emerson—for example “Fate” (1860). An essay may adopt the form of a letter, embodying whimsical comments on contemporary values, as in the works of the British writers Oliver Goldsmith (Citizen of the World,1762) and C. S. Lewis (Screwtape Letters,1942). Bold contemporary experimenters in the essay form include the American writers Norman Mailer, who developed a style combining biography, cinematic documentary, history, journalism, and fiction in such works as Armies of the Night (1968), reflections on the protests against the Vietnam War (1959-1975); and Tom Wolfe, whose essays (many of them collected in The Purple Decades,1982) are devastatingly witty commentaries on contemporary American trends.

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