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The document discusses the origins and definitions of the essay. It notes that the Frenchman Michel de Montaigne was the first author to describe his work as essays, which he used to characterize his attempts to put his thoughts into writing. The document also discusses Aldous Huxley's guidance on defining the genre of essays, including that essays can explore personal, objective, and abstract topics.

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11 views

4

The document discusses the origins and definitions of the essay. It notes that the Frenchman Michel de Montaigne was the first author to describe his work as essays, which he used to characterize his attempts to put his thoughts into writing. The document also discusses Aldous Huxley's guidance on defining the genre of essays, including that essays can explore personal, objective, and abstract topics.

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sunny
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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The word essay derives from the French infinitive essayer, "to try" or "to

attempt". In English essay first meant "a trial" or "an attempt", and this is still
an alternative meaning. The Frenchman Michel de Montaigne (1533�1592) was the first
author to describe his work as essays; he used the term to characterize these as
"attempts" to put his thoughts into writing.

Subsequently, essay has been defined in a variety of ways. One definition is a


"prose composition with a focused subject of discussion" or a "long, systematic
discourse".[2] It is difficult to define the genre into which essays fall. Aldous
Huxley, a leading essayist, gives guidance on the subject.[3] He notes that "the
essay is a literary device for saying almost everything about almost anything", and
adds that "by tradition, almost by definition, the essay is a short piece".
Furthermore, Huxley argues that "essays belong to a literary species whose extreme
variability can be studied most effectively within a three-poled frame of
reference". These three poles (or worlds in which the essay may exist) are:

The personal and the autobiographical: The essayists that feel most comfortable in
this pole "write fragments of reflective autobiography and look at the world
through the keyhole of anecdote and description".
The objective, the factual, and the concrete particular: The essayists that write
from this pole "do not speak directly of themselves, but turn their attention
outward to some literary or scientific or political theme. Their art consists of
setting forth, passing judgment upon, and drawing general conclusions from the
relevant data".
The abstract-universal: In this pole "we find those essayists who do their work in
the world of high abstractions", who are never personal and who seldom mention the
particular facts of experience.
Huxley adds that the most satisfying essays "...make the best not of one, not of
two, but of all the three worlds in which it is possible for the essay to exist."

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