Definition:
A short work of nonfiction, often artfully disordered and highly polished, in which an authorial voice invites an implied reader to accept as authentic a certain textual mode of experience. See also:
- What Is an Essay?
- Familiar Essay
- Critical Essay
- Composition
- 100 Classic Essays
- The Modern Essay, by Virginia Woolf
- The Maypole and the Column, by Maurice Hewlett
Etymology:
From the French, "trial, attempt"Definitions and Observations:
- "A composition, usually in prose . . ., which may be of only a few hundred words (like Bacon's Essays) or of book length (like Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding) and which discusses, formally or informally, a topic or a variety of topics."
(J.A. Cuddon, Dictionary of Literary Terms. Basil, 1991) - "A genuine essay feels less like a monologue than a dialogue between writer and reader. This is a story I need, we conclude after reading the opening paragraph."
(Kathleen Norris, Introduction, The Best American Essays: 2001. Houghton, 2001) - "Essays are how we speak to one another in print--caroming thoughts not merely in order to convey a certain packet of information, but with a special edge or bounce of personal character in a kind of public letter."
(Edward Hoagland, Introduction, The Best American Essays: 1999. Houghton, 1999) - "[W]hat finally distinguishes an essay from an article may just be the author's gumption, the extent to which personal voice, vision, and style are the prime movers and shapers, even though the authorial 'I' may be only a remote energy, nowhere visible but everywhere present."
(Justin Kaplan, Introduction, The Best American Essays: 1990. Ticknor & Fields, 1990) - "The supposed formlessness [of the essay] is more a strategy to disarm the reader with the appearance of unstudied spontaneity than a reality of composition."
(Phillip Lopate, The Art of the Personal Essay. Anchor, 1994)
Pronunciation: ES-ay
