An essay is “a short literary composition on a single subject, usually presenting the personal view of the author.”
More importantly, it is an attempt at saying something true, a tentative exploration that allows one to study himself, to discover what is believed, thought, or known about any subject. Additionally, it affords one the opportunity to do this while providing the reader with interesting connections and engaging insights to ideas in a way that is hopefully delightful, persuasive, and compelling.
The literary essay as we know it first made its debut during the late Renaissance/early-modern period, largely invented by Michel de Montaigne. At the very least, he is responsible for popularizing and validating it as a legitimate and desirable form of philosophizing—thinking well in the pursuit of wisdom.
Born on February 28, 1533, Montaigne came to be one of the most significant and influential philosophers of his day. A student and practitioner of law, Montaigne retired to a life of leisure in 1572, and devoted himself to reading and writing.
As a man of his age, Montaigne was a skeptic; he saw “his age as one of dissimulation, corruption, violence, and hypocrisy…” and the human creature as weak and inconsistent, writing in one of his first essays, that mankind is “a marvelously vain, diverse, and undulating thing.”
The Encyclopedia Britannica says this of Montaigne’s skepticism:
Montaigne’s skepticism does not…preclude a belief in the existence of truth but rather constitutes a defense against the danger of locating truth in false, unexamined, and externally imposed notions. His skepticism, combined with his desire for truth, drives him to the rejection of commonly accepted ideas and to a profound distrust of generalizations and abstractions; it also shows him the way to an exploration of the only realm that promises certainty: that of concrete phenomena and primarily the basic phenomenon of his own body-and-mind self.
His own Essays being numerous and comprised of expanded reflections and discussions on everything from “war-horses and cannibals, poetry and politics, sex and religion, love and friendship, ecstasy and experience,” one can see how the essay got its start. Given his penchant for seeking truth beyond “commonly accepted ideas” and possessing a “profound distrust of generalizations and abstractions,” the essay is “not a transmission of proven knowledge or of confident opinion but a project of trial and error, of tentative exploration.”
The word essay has an interesting etymological history that further sheds some light on how it can be understood in both Montaigne’s day as well as our own as an attempt at saying something true.
Our contemporary English word appears to be a compound construction derived from the French “assay”(v.)—circa 1300 “to try, endeavor, strive; test the quality of,” which itself is from Anglo-French assaier, which, in turn, comes from Old French assai, variant of essai “trial”—and the word-forming element, “ex-” (as in examine), which in English usually means “out of, from.”
As a noun, essay (n.) means,
1590s, “trial, attempt, endeavor,” also “short, discursive literary composition” (first attested in writings of Francis Bacon, probably in imitation of Montaigne), from French essai “trial, attempt, essay” (in Old French from 12c.), from Late Latin exagium “a weighing, a weight,” from Latin exigere “drive out; require, exact; examine, try, test,” from ex “out” (see ex-) + agere “to set in motion, drive” (from PIE root *ag- “to drive, draw out or forth, move”) apparently meaning here “to weigh.” The suggestion is of unpolished writing.
As a verb, essay (v.) also means,
“to put to proof, test the mettle of,” late 15c., from French essaier, from essai “trial, attempt” (see essay (n.)). This sense has mostly gone with the divergent spelling assay. Meaning “to attempt” is from 1640s. Related: Essayed; essaying.
Since the essay has become the standard literary form in academia, it is paramount for students who hope to succeed academically to master the academic essay. But over my own 27-year tenure as a teacher, it is also the one area where I see students struggle the most.
That’s why each summer, I will be offering an eight-week course called Master the Academic Essay for junior high and high school students who struggle to write school papers.
If your child has already mastered the skills necessary to write high school and college papers, successfully, then you won’t need this class. But if writing assignments mean staring at a blank page or screen with copious amounts of anxiety, you may want to consider this practical and valuable summer course.
It’s a slow-paced approach that won’t be intrusive on your summer break and it will equip students with all the tools they will need to successfully write essays in any context. Because I work closely with each student, individually, seating is limited (as of this post, there are only 5 of the available 10 seats left) and registration closes June 8th.
Learn more and register here.
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