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Essay, An Analytic, Interpretative, or Critical Literary Composition Usually Much Shorter

The essay is a shorter, less formal literary composition that often reflects personal viewpoints, with its modern form being perfected by Michel de Montaigne in the late 16th century. Montaigne's 'Essais' emphasized personal thoughts and self-discovery, influencing later writers like Robert Burton and André Gide. In the 17th century, essays began to focus on social manners and the cultivation of politeness, significantly impacting the behavior of the cultured classes across Europe.

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106 views1 page

Essay, An Analytic, Interpretative, or Critical Literary Composition Usually Much Shorter

The essay is a shorter, less formal literary composition that often reflects personal viewpoints, with its modern form being perfected by Michel de Montaigne in the late 16th century. Montaigne's 'Essais' emphasized personal thoughts and self-discovery, influencing later writers like Robert Burton and André Gide. In the 17th century, essays began to focus on social manners and the cultivation of politeness, significantly impacting the behavior of the cultured classes across Europe.

Uploaded by

Jm Sormila
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Essay, an analytic, interpretative, or critical literary composition usually much shorter

and less systematic and formal than a dissertation or thesis and usually dealing with its
subject from a limited and often personal point of view. Some early treatises—such as
those of Cicero on the pleasantness of old age or on the art of “divination,” Seneca on
anger or clemency, and Plutarch on the passing of oracles—presage to a certain
degree the form and tone of the essay, but not until the late 16th century was the
flexible and deliberately nonchalant and versatile form of the essay perfected by the
French writer Michel de Montaigne. Choosing the name essai to emphasize that his
compositions were attempts or endeavours, a groping toward the expression of his
personal thoughts and experiences, Montaigne used the essay as a means of self-
discovery. His Essais, published in their final form in 1588, are still considered among
the finest of their kind. Later writers who most nearly recall the charm of Montaigne
include, in England, Robert Burton, though his whimsicality is more erudite, Sir Thomas
Browne, and Laurence Sterne, and in France, with more self-consciousness and pose,
André Gide and Jean Cocteau.

At the beginning of the 17th century, social manners, the cultivation of politeness, and
the training of an accomplished gentleman became the theme of many essayists. This
theme was first exploited by the Italian Baldassare Castiglione in his Il libro del
cortegiano (1528; The Book of the Courtier). The influence of the essay and of genres
allied to it, such as maxims, portraits, and sketches, proved second to none in molding
the behavior of the cultured classes, first in Italy, then in France, and, through French
influence, in most of Europe in the 17th century. Among those who pursued this theme
was the 17th-century Spanish Jesuit Baltasar Gracián in his essays on the art of worldly
wisdom.

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