What is an essay? If you cannot answer that question concretely and competently, you are lost when it comes to fully grasping writing and literature. Understanding essays and essay writing is critical for students, teachers, writers, and readers of all ages.
I have a different post that outlines what an essay is for teachers to use with students in this modern era. However, if teachers don’t understand the following definitional background information on the essay’s origin, they will only teach part of the truth.
This section comes from an early 20th-century introduction to a book on essays and essay writing. It provides an excellent historical perspective for understanding and defining the essay. Sometimes, someone else has said it perfectly already, and Tanner did just that.
Please note that I have strategically extracted the following text and moderately adapted it for modern audiences. As you will see, Tanner included definitions from Benson (1910), Smith (1863), and others in his introduction.
Please enjoy and absorb the many insights from the following!
The Introduction from Essays and Essay Writing: Based on Atlantic Monthly Models (1917) by William M. Tanner – Selected Text and Moderately Adapted
The First Essayists: Montaigne (1533-1592) and Bacon (1561-1626): The Beginning of the Battle Between the Informal Essay and Formal Essay
From the time of Montaigne and Bacon to the present, the essay has developed along two lines: the formal essay (Bacon) and the informal or familiar essay (Montaigne).
Although no exact definition of the essay can be given, it may be helpful to consider a few of the recognized meanings and some of the definitions that have been proposed.
Definition: Year 1580: Since 1580, when Michel de Montaigne first called his short, informal prose compositions Essais, the word essay has come to include an ever-increasing variety of literary forms. Montaigne, the inventor of the term and the genre, used the word to indicate a trial, attempt, or endeavor. Montaigne felt tentativeness, incompleteness, and lack of elaboration and literary finish to be characteristic of this new literary genre.
Definition: Year 1755: In Doctor Samuel Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language (1755), Johnson retained this idea of incompleteness in his dictionary definition: “A loose sally of the mind; an irregular, undigested piece; not a regular and orderly performance.”
Definition: Year 1910: According to the New English Dictionary (1910), an essay is a composition of moderate length on any particular subject or branch of a subject; a composition more or less elaborate in style, though limited in range.
Definition: Year 1910: Mr. Edmund Gosse, in his article on the essay in the Encyclopedia Britannica (1910), proposed the following: “As a form of literature, the essay is a composition of moderate length, usually in prose, which deals in an easy, cursory way with the external conditions of a subject, and, in strictness, with that subject only as it affects the writer.” In this definition, naturalness, ease in style, and the author’s personality are additional characteristics of the essay. Since the essayist deals with her subject primarily as it affects her, she allows the reader to look at the subject through her temperament and personality. Throughout the entire history of the essay, personality has been a most important characteristic.
Developmental History of the Essay
Here is a quick look at the essay through the centuries:
• 17th Century: The seventeenth-century essay was personal, moral, and reflective.
• 18th Century: That of the eighteenth was social, didactic, and critical.
• 19th Century: The nineteenth-century essay included both the other types, which were greatly expanded and highly perfected by this period’s essayists.
The Familiar Essay
The Thesis Statement: In almost every familiar essay, no matter how short or informally written, there is stated at the beginning or early in the essay some general thesis or central idea that the author uses as the text of her comments. This central idea is the most effective means of giving the essay unity. After setting forth her thesis, which often consists of an abstract statement, the writer usually develops this central idea by introducing concrete details and appropriate references. Her personal experiences, observations, and well-chosen historical and literary allusions provide her with the necessary illustrative material.
For the reader’s convenience, an attempt has been made in the present volume to classify the essays selected into five rather general types. This classification has been made primarily based on the subject matter and the mood of the essayist.
• Essays of Type 1: Personal Experiences, Confessions, and Self-Analyses.
• Essays of Type 2: Reflections and Comments on Life, Human Nature, Customs, and Experience.
• Essays of Type 3: Observations and Discoveries in the Familiar and Commonplace.
• Essays of Type 4: Nature Essays.
• Essays of Type 5: General Observations, Comments, and Opinions of the Author.
A Few More Insights on the Essay
Here are three more passages from Tanner’s introduction. Yes, two are from different authors.
Introduction: Essay and Essay Writing (1917) by William M. Tanner
The familiar essay is a composite fabric woven upon a framework called the theme or unifying idea. The pattern is of the essayist’s own devising. The texture and quality of the resulting fabric depend upon the writer’s personality, attitude toward her subject, and skill in weaving—that is, the writer’s style of expression. The familiar essay and the lyric in poetry are essentially literary organs of personality. In discussing the nature and character of these two forms of literature, it is nearly impossible to consider the subject, the author, and the style separately. The familiar essay is best defined by pointing out the interrelation of these three elements.
On Essays at Large (1910) by Arthur C. Benson
The true essay is a tentative and personal treatment of a subject; it is a kind of improvisation on a delicate theme; a type of soliloquy. The theme itself matters little—the art of it lies in the treatment. And the important thing is that the essay should possess what may be called atmosphere and personality. The mark of the true essay is that the reader’s thinking is all done for him. A thought is expanded in a dozen ways until the most nebulous mind recognizes it. The path winds and suggests itself, like a little leafy lane among fields, with the hamlet chimneys and the spire, which are its leisurely goal.
On the Writing of Essays (1863) by Alexander Smith
As a literary form, the essay resembles the lyric, as it is molded by some central mood—whimsical, serious, or satirical. From the first sentence to the last, the essay grows around this mood as a cocoon grows around a silkworm. Essay writers are libertines and a law unto themselves. A quick ear and eye, an ability to identify the infinite suggestiveness of common things, and a brooding, meditative spirit are all that the essayist requires to start. The essayist is a kind of poet in prose, and if questioned harshly as to her uses, she might be unable to render a better apology for her existence than a flower might. The essayist plays with her subject, now whimsical, now grave, now in a melancholy mood. She lies upon the idle grassy bank letting the world flow past her, and from this thing and the other, she extracts her delight and her moralities.
The essay writer’s main gift is an eye to discover the suggestiveness of common things; to find a sermon in the most unpromising texts. Her discourses are not beholden to their titles. Let her take up the most trivial subject, and it will lead her away to the great questions over which the serious imagination loves to brood—fortune, change, life, death. The world is to the meditative writer what the mulberry plant is to the silkworm. The essay writer has no lack of subject matter. She has the day that is passing overhead. If unsatisfied with that, she has the world’s six thousand years of history to feed upon.
