“I even believe,” sneers the narrator of Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground, “that the best definition of man is this: a creature that walks on two legs and is ungrateful” (1322). I might give a parallel definition of the essay: a literary composition that deals briefly and is informal. The informality of the essay is its distinguishing characteristic, the only factor that separates it from state papers, scholarly reports, and newspaper articles. This informality even puts it in a different category from that of many academic papers. An essay’s informality must be a matter not only of style but of purpose: a paper written for an official or business-like end is not an essay, as colloquial as its language may be.
Three essays may be taken as indicators of how writers have used the essay form1 over the last three centuries. “A Modest Proposal,” is a Neo-classic work by Jonathan Swift, written as a parody of the political pamphlets of the day; Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own” is a feminist social analysis by a modernist writer; and “Those Crazy Ideas” is a simple informative essay by another twentieth-century giant, Isaac Asimov. Swift’s essay and Asimov’s are examples of the formal essay, and Woolf’s is of the informal category. They all display the common elements of any essay, although Woolf’s differs from the other two in focus and structure.
All three selections follow the pattern that Montaigne set when he “invented” the modern essay, over four centuries ago; in the preface to his volume he admits that he “proposed unto [him]selfe no other than a familiar and private end” and that he wrote in “simple and ordinarie fashion, without contention, art or study,” for, he said, “it is myselfe I pourtray” (4). An essay’s fundamental characteristic is personability—it is a little part of the author’s mind. It might protest a great social ill as do Woolf’s and Swift’s, or it may give a bit of friendly advice, as Asimov’s does; but it must do it in a personal way, as if it were merely an amiable bit of conversation among equals. “I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts,” says Swift (489), and Woolf states “I set out in the pursuit of truth” (26). “I am perfectly willing to think about the matter,” Asimov candidly tells the reader, “and share my thoughts with you” (143). When a writing becomes declaratory, it is a proclamation; when moralistic and expository, a sermon; when technical and researched, an academic paper; when overly informative, an article. Only when a writing includes “I” and “you” is it an essay.
The matter of personal pronouns leads to another aspect of the essay’s essential informality—the style is always conversational. It is often said that Bacon was the founder of the formal essay, and Montaigne of the informal. The distinction is valuable, but only when properly understood. Bacon did not abandon the personal tone or conversational language of Montaigne; if he had, he would have been writing treatises and devotionals. A quick perusal of his Essays, Civil and Moral, will reveal fairly frequent use of the generic “we” (truly generic, not the formal “we” of royalty), the generic “you,” and the sincere “I.”
More modern essays do not demonstrate any tendency to grow less casual. Of the thirty-two paragraphs in Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” all but seven contain “I,” “me,” or “my” in their first sentences. Plural first-person pronouns, as well, are not neglected, and the language throughout the work is one of a man who has hit upon a good idea, and wants to share it with his friends. Woolf is even more personal. Most of her essay is narration, rather than analysis, and she does not hesitate to relate her own emotions, such as a lapse of temper—after reading a certain passage, she says, her “heart had leapt,” her “cheeks had burnt,” and she “had flushed with anger” (32). Asimov sets a comfortable tone by short sentences and paragraphs, and by unironically using colloquial words such as “lucky” (150), “crackpot” (151), and “brain-busting” (151). He also employs the colorful though often trite imagery of daily speech; for instance, he says “[t]he question before the house” (143), when he really means “the subject of this essay.”
In the matter of documentation, too, the essay shuns rigidity or special convention. Swift uses statistics, but does not specify their source; he says that the Irish population is “usually reckoned” at 1.5 million (488); and when he says “I calculate” (488), he means, “I make an intuitive estimate.” Woolf quotes Pope and La Bruyère, and paraphrases many other men, without providing any more information on her sources than the authors’ names. Asimov gives a detailed historical anecdote, full of particular names and dates, without referencing any historian. These three writers, of course, merely follow the tradition of Montaigne, who constantly recited passages in Latin with little or no documentation, and who was the supreme master of “dropped” quotations.
The texts in question, however, do not concur in all details, though even their differences typify the essay in general. As mentioned earlier, the distinction between the Baconite school of essays and the Montaignian can be helpful. In this case, formal Swift and Asimov fall under the former, and informal Woolf under the latter. The key points of divergence—again, mentioned above—are focus and structure.
The purpose of an informal essay is scattered. Does Woolf have a thesis? Perhaps, but it is a bit vague. While Asimov speaks of “the question before the house,” Woolf says that “a thousand questions... suggested themselves” (25). Whereas Swift and Asimov have a clear introduction in which they set forth a specific question to answer or proposition to support, Woolf sets out to tell a story of thoughts, admitting that she has no particular conclusion in mind. Swift and Asimov use reasons and examples to explain their points, but Woolf does not explain much at all: she rambles and she reflects. Swift and Asimov have points—Swift lists seven advantages of his plan, and Asimov lists five prerequisites to a crazy idea—but Woolf has only stories.
The topic of points leads to the second variation between the formal and informal essay: structure. Swift’s essay has the following structure: 1) stating the problem, 2) explaining the problem and presenting a plan, 3) explaining the plan, supporting it, and demonstrating additional advantages, 4) answering objections, and 5) concluding. He follows the classical form for a persuasive speech: exordium, narratio, confirmatio, confutatio, and conclusio. Asimov, while less classic, is nonetheless very organized. His essay contains an introduction in which a question is presented, an example to illustrate the question, five answering points in logical succession, and a conclusion which offers some practical application. However, Woolf’s essay, though it may be divided into sections, does not use either the classic rhetorical progression or the modern introduction-body-conclusion form. It contains both discussion and narration mixed together; one could say that it were a story, if only it had less analysis in it. It is informal in the literal sense of the word; it uses no established or even invented form. Of course, Woolf was innovating; but Montaigne also rarely constrained himself to a strict outline—his essays are just collections of thoughts.
Yet the case of “A Room of One’s Own” does arouse an interesting question—what can be considered an essay? If Woolf’s work falls under the category, what does not? While most works clearly are or are not essays, the dividing line is not precise, and many papers are called essays which actually are not. For the answer, it is necessary to look at etymology. Bacon was the first writer to call his works essays, probably in imitation of Montaigne, who used the French form of the word to describe his own papers. The noun “essay” is simply the nominative form of the verb “essay.” Over the years, all literary essays have retained the idea of being “a try”—in other words, a small mental endeavor by the author in some subject. Thus Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” is not the result of research or experiment, but rather of “having turned [his] thoughts for many years upon this important subject” (488), and Woolf says that she “pondered” the topic at hand, “and made it work in and out of [her] daily life” (4). Asimov, as quoted above, offers to think about his topic and share his thoughts. So whether conveyed in expository or narrative form, whether based on much information or little, and whatever the audience and organization, an essay is simply the writer’s thoughts. That is the reason that it is informal—because it does claim to be logically inevitable, comprehensive, or systematic; it claims nothing but to share the writer’s mind.
So, based on these three essays, we find that the genre has both unity and variety. All essays are personal, and reflect the author himself as much as the subject they treat; this is done through an informal style, and uses the facts at hand without any tedious research or documentation. Yet despite this unifying characteristic, essays can be divided into two groups—the formal and the informal. Formal essays are more focused than informal ones, and have a clearer thesis; and they are more structured, usually following conventional patterns, whereas the informal essay can go to the outer borders of the genre, and organize itself however it pleases. And yet those outer borders are real—they are based on the essay’s essential nature, which is what makes it informal in the first place: an essay is merely a written intellectual attempt of the author, a “try,” a simple few pages of thought.
This nature of the essay makes it one of the most pleasant kinds of literature to read. It maintains the intellectual stimulus of a treatise, while encroaching on the humanness of fiction. However ungrateful humans may be, an essay is certainly something that deserves their gratitude.
The phrase “essay form” may seem ironic in light of the preceding statement. Of course I do not use the word “informal” literally, but merely to indicate easygoing, familiar writing.
Asimov, Isaac. "Thos Crazy Ideas." Inquiry. Ed. Bloom, White, Borrowman. 2nd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2004. 142-151.
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. Notes from the Underground. The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Ed. Sarah Lawall. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2002. 1307-1379.
Montaigne, Michel Eyquem de. “The Author to the Reader.” Trans. John Florio. The Harvard Classics: the Five-Foot Shelf of Books. Ed. Charles W. Eliot, LL.D. Vol 32. New York: P. F. Collier & Son, 1938. 50 vols. 4.
Swift, Jonathan. “A Modest Proposal.” Gulliver’s Travels and Other Writings. Ed.Miriam Kosh Starkman. New York: Bantam, 1981. 487-495.
Woolf, Virginia. “A Room of One’s Own.” New York: The Fountain Press, 1929.