{"id":68,"date":"2017-09-04T06:14:56","date_gmt":"2017-09-04T06:14:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/?page_id=68"},"modified":"2017-09-19T14:41:41","modified_gmt":"2017-09-19T14:41:41","slug":"development-tradition-of-the-essay","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/development-tradition-of-the-essay\/","title":{"rendered":"Development & Tradition of the Essay"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/p>\n

Development & Tradition of the Essay<\/h1>\n

Objective<\/h4>\n

In this section, the historical development of the essay will be discussed.<\/p>\n

The essay, a term first coined in the sixteenth century, is a brief prose composition that presents ideas and opinions about a single topic. The word essay comes from the French word essai, which means “an attempt.”<\/p>\n

The following table describes different types of essays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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Types of Essays<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

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Type of Essay<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Description<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Expository <\/strong><\/td>\nAn essay that presents information and explains ideas<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Descriptive <\/strong><\/td>\nAn essay describing actual people, places, or things<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Familiar <\/strong><\/td>\nAn essay that deals lightly, perhaps humorously, with personal matters or opinions<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Formal <\/strong><\/td>\nAn essay that addresses a subject seriously and with formal diction and logical organization<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Informal <\/strong><\/td>\nA loosely organized essay with informal diction and a less serious tone or purpose than a formal essay<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Narrative <\/strong><\/td>\nAn essay that tells a story with great attention to ideas<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Periodical <\/strong><\/td>\nA brief essay written for publication that uses humor and satire and follows an informal style<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Personal <\/strong><\/td>\nAn informal essay usually about the writer\u2019s life or another personal subject<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Persuasive <\/strong><\/td>\nAn essay which attempts to persuade the reader that a particular point of view is correct<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

In 1580, French philosopher Michel de Montaigne originated the essay genre when he published his multivolume work titled Essays. Montaigne wrote familiar essays<\/strong><\/abbr> on topics such as death, friendship, virtue, education, politics, friendship, and human nature. The importance of Essays rests with Montaigne\u2019s originality; he focused on human nature rather than academic learning and theories.<\/p>\n

In 1597, Francis Bacon, an English philosopher and statesman, published Essays and Counsels, a collection of brief formal essays<\/strong><\/abbr>. The publication was so popular that larger editions were issued in 1612 and 1625. Bacon was the first English writer to use the essay genre developed by Montaigne, but Bacon shaped the literary form to suit his own style. While Montaigne\u2019s essays are personal, Bacon’s essays are logical, brief, and practical.<\/p>\n

Eighteenth-century readers enjoyed periodical essays <\/strong><\/abbr>in publications such as the Tatler and the Spectator, which were England\u2019s first major literary magazines. These journals included formal essays, but it was the satiric humor of the periodical essays that proved especially popular with the masses.<\/p>\n

Colonial Americans read persuasive essays <\/strong><\/abbr>such as Thomas Paine\u2019s Common Sense, which helped spark the American Revolution.<\/p>\n

Romantic writers of the nineteenth century found the essay genre appealing because they expressed personal feelings. Prominent essayists of this time included William Hazlitt and Charles Lamb. Known and respected for offering a subjective opinion in his essays, Hazlitt wrote about economics, politics, painting, the theater, and literature.<\/p>\n

During the 1820s, Hazlitt\u2019s close friend Charles Lamb wrote familiar essays<\/strong><\/abbr>, which he submitted to the newly created London Magazine. Master of the familiar essay, Lamb entertained his readers and established himself as a great nineteenth-century essayist.<\/p>\n

American Ralph Waldo Emerson\u2019s formal essay Nature, written in 1836, presents the principle ideas of transcendentalism. Within the next ten years, Emerson published two collections of essays, including the well-known Self-Reliance, an essay instructing readers to trust their own judgment above that of all others.<\/p>\n

Noted novelists and short story writers such as Ralph Ellison, George Orwell, James Thurber, Aldous Huxley, and E. B. White all contributed essays during the twentieth century.<\/p>\n

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Question<\/h4>\n

Which type of essay addresses a subject with a serious tone?<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Informal essay<\/li>\n
  2. Periodical essay<\/li>\n
  3. Personal essay<\/li>\n
  4. Formal essay<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Reveal Answer <\/a><\/p>\n

    The answer is D. Formal essays, like the ones written by Francis Bacon, are logical, structured, and serious.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

    <\/p>\n

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    \u2b05 Previous Lesson\u00a0Workshop Index\u00a0Next Lesson \u27a1 Development & Tradition of the Essay Objective In this section, the historical development of the essay will be discussed. The essay, a term first coined in the sixteenth century, is a brief prose composition that presents ideas and opinions about a single topic. The word essay comes from the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-68","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/68","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/68\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":446,"href":"https:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/68\/revisions\/446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}