Who invented personal essay

It is the language of conversation transferred to a book. Cut these words, and they would bleed; they are vascular and alive. One has the same pleasure in it that he feels in listening to the necessary speech of men about their work, when any unusual circumstance gives momentary importance to the dialogue.

For blacksmiths and teamsters do not trip in their speech; it is a shower of bullets. Virginia Woolf compared reading Montaigne to looking at a portrait and seeing your own image. This is all tall praise, indeed, for a writer who seemed to do exactly the opposite of what was required to achieve literary fame. Born in , Montaigne came from a wealthy family and held important government positions, including work as an adviser to three French kings.

He studied law and served as a magistrate and mayor of Bordeaux. When Montaigne retreated to his country estate at age thirty-eight, instead of writing about his life at the center of power, he wrote mostly about what he saw from his tower library.

The fruits of that period of relative seclusion secured his place in posterity. Instead of penning an epic poem, a historical narrative, or an imposing treatise on government, a project for which he was eminently qualified, Montaigne decided to simply follow his thoughts wherever they led. Topics include everything from sadness to sleep, lying to Cicero, and drunkenness to the pleasure of books. Montaigne even includes a lengthy essay on thumbs, of all things. Like many educated men of the Renaissance, Montaigne looked to Greek and Latin classics for inspiration.

In his writings, Montaigne quotes the Greek commentator Plutarch so often that the ancient historian and moralist presides over the essays like a favored uncle at the dinner table. But while Montaigne, ever the lawyer, leans on precedent when useful in making his case, he also embraces the Renaissance enthusiasm for close personal observation as an avenue to truth. A quick look through the essays turns up one gem after another.

I regret that the royal custom of changing napkins, together with the plates, after every course, is not more widespread. To destroy a man we use a large field in open daylight. But to make a man we sneak into as dark and secluded a corner as we can.

They seem so drawn from life that they look effortless. Montaigne would have liked that. Much like the novel, which was being cultivated in places like Japan much earlier than in England and Europe, essays existed and were known as zuihitsu, a word meaning fragmented ideas. A word somewhat incongruous to the aim of an essay which attempts to bring order to thoughts and ideas. Kenko spoke of his essay writings in a very similar way to Michel de Montaigne, classing them as nonsensical thoughts that were written during idle hours.

One more interesting thing to note is that in a stark difference from the overwhelming patriarchy in writing in Europe, Japan was filled with female writers who enjoyed creating essays. However, this rich history of female Asian work has been somewhat erased by Chinese-influenced writing by male writers who were much more revered at the time.

Here is a brief list of some of the most popular essay forms today:. I am a professional writer and a blogger from Sydney, Australia. I enjoy doing writing pieces on the topics of education, essay writing, and college life. I always search for topics that will be helpful for students. My free time I spend with my family and friends, doing active sports, and traveling to different beautiful places in order to get ideas and inspiration for my creative writing experience and share it with my readers.

I am always looking for new creative ideas for my stories. This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. The difference between a short story, say, and an autobiographical essay lies less in the narrative structure or the nature of the material than in the narrator's implied contract with the reader about the kind of truth being offered.

Under the terms of this contract, the essayist presents experience as it actually occurred -- as it occurred, that is, in the version by the essayist. The narrator of an essay, the editor George Dillon says, "attempts to convince the reader that its model of experience of the world is valid. In other words, the reader of an essay is called on to join in the making of meaning. And it's up to the reader to decide whether to play along.

Viewed in this way, the drama of an essay might lie in the conflict between the conceptions of self and world that the reader brings to a text and the conceptions that the essayist tries to arouse. With these thoughts in mind, the essay might be defined as 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. But it's still a greased pig. Sometimes the best way to learn exactly what an essay is -- is to read some great ones.

You'll find more than of them in this collection of Classic British and American Essays and Speeches. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content. Create a personalised content profile.

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Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Share Flipboard Email. Richard Nordquist. English and Rhetoric Professor. Richard Nordquist is professor emeritus of rhetoric and English at Georgia Southern University and the author of several university-level grammar and composition textbooks.