Essay - In detail

 

Essay Writing

An essay is generally a short piece of writing outlining the writer’s perspective or story. It is often considered synonymous with a story or a paper or an article. Essays can be formal as well as informal. Formal essays are generally academic in nature and tackle serious topics. We will be focusing on informal essays which are more personal and often have humorous elements.

Types of Essays

The type of essay will depend on what the writer wants to convey to his reader. There are broadly four types of essays. Let us see.

Narrative Essays: This is when the writer is narrating an incident or story through the essay. So these are in the first person. The aim when writing narrative essays is to involve the reader in them as if they were right there when it was happening. So make them as vivid and real as possible. One way to make this possible is to follow the principle of ‘show, don’t tell’. So you must involve the reader in the story.

Descriptive Essays: Here the writer will describe a place, an object, an event, a fact, or maybe even a memory. But it is not just plainly describing things. The writer must write it in detail

Expository Essays: In such an essay a writer presents a balanced study of a topic. To write such an essay, the writer must have real and extensive knowledge about the subject. There is no scope for the writer’s feelings or emotions in an expository essay. It is completely based on facts, statistics, examples, etc. There are sub-types here like contrast essays, cause and effect essays, etc.

Argumentative Essays: Here the purpose of the essay is to get the reader to your side of the argument. A persuasive essay is not just a presentation of facts but an attempt to convince the reader of the writer’s point of view. Both sides of the argument have to be presented in these essays. But the ultimate aim is to persuade the readers that the writer’s argument carries more weight.

Format of an Essay

Now there is no rigid format for an essay. It is a creative process so it should not be confined within boundaries. However, there is a basic structure that is generally followed while writing essays. So let us take a look at the general structure of an essay.

Introduction

This is the first paragraph of your essay. This is where the writer introduces his topic for the very first time. You can give a very brief synopsis of your essay in the introductory paragraph. Some paragraph writing skills can be a help here. Generally, it is not very long, about 4-6 lines.

 

There is plenty of scopes to get creative in the introduction of essays. This will ensure that you hook the reader, i.e. draw and keep his attention. So to do so you can start with a quote or a proverb. Sometimes you can even start with a definition. Another interesting strategy to engage with your reader is to start with a question.

Body

This is the main crux of your essays. The body is the meat of your essay sandwiched between the introduction and the conclusion. So the most vital content of the essay will be here. This need not be confined to one paragraph. It can extend to two or more paragraphs according to the content.

Usually, we have a lot of information to provide in the body. And the mistake writers generally make is to go about it in a haphazard manner which leaves the reader confused. So it is important to organize your thoughts and content. Write the information in a systematic flow so that the reader can comprehend it. So, for example, you were narrating an incident. The best manner to do this would be to go in chronological order.

Conclusion

This is the last paragraph of the essay. Sometimes a conclusion will just mirror the introductory paragraph but make sure the words and syntax are different. A conclusion is also a great place, to sum up, a story or an argument. You can round up your essay by providing some moral or wrapping up a story. Make sure you complete your essays with the conclusion, leaving no hanging threads.

Tips for Essay Writing

• Give your essays an interesting and appropriate title.

It will help draw the attention of the reader and pique their curiosity

• Keep it between 300-500 words.

 This is the ideal length, you can take creative license to increase or decrease it

• Keep your language simple and crisp.

Unnecessary complicated and difficult words break the flow of the sentence.

• Do not make grammar mistakes, and use correct punctuation and spelling.

If this is not done it will distract the reader from the content

• Before beginning the essay organize your thought and plot a rough draft.

This way you can ensure the story will flow and not be an unorganized mess.

 

FRANCIS BACON AS AN ESSAYIST

Francis Bacon, the father of English essays is the first great English essayist who enjoys a glorious reputation. He remains for the sheer mass and weight of genius. His essays introduce a new form of composition into English literature.

THREE EDITIONS OF BACON'S ESSAYS: Bacon sponsored this new literary form in English with the publication of his ten essays in 1597. It grew to thirty-eight in the edition of 1612. The number reached fifty-eight in the final issue of 1625. These essays are the results of his direct observations of men and matters.

DISPERSED MEDITATIONS: Bacon charged his essays with the serious spirit and stately manners of Seneca. For him his essays were dispersed meditations and receptacle for detached thoughts. He is practical under the influence of Machiavelli. Utilitarianism is obvious in his essays. He shrewdly instructs how to lead a successful life. That's why his essays are called counsels civil and moral.

BACON AND MONTAIGNE: Bacon borrowed the form of essay from Montaigne, the French essayist. Bacon and Montaigne share the form of essay but not its spirit. Montaigne is personal, familiar and prolific. But Bacon is formal, curt and impersonal. Montaigne appeals to the heart but Bacon to the head. Thus these two great essayists present a very sharp and interesting contrast.

IMPERSONAL AND OBJECTIVE: Bacon's essays are capsules of impersonal wisdom. They may not give immediate pleasure but give lasting guidance. They are objective and logically constructed. Thus as an essayist Bacon is not friendly, confidential, intimate and familiar with the reader. His essays are for the most part detached and impersonal. This conclusion demands reconsideration. In fact, Bacon's essays bear a close imprint of his personality, though he is not disposed to unbend himself in his works. On this basis Pope's following statement is appreciated:

If parts allure thee, think, how Bacon shined,

The wisest, the brightest and the meanest of mankind.

WIDE RANGE OF TOPICS: Bacon wrote on a wide range of topics. He passes from religion and empire to gardens and buildings. In Montaigne and Lamb, the subject is unimportant but in Bacon subject always is important. He may be unsystematic in his treatment but he never wanders beyond his bounds. He surpassed all his contemporaries in the capacity to utter pregnant thoughts on almost any theme.

THEMES OF BACON'S ESSAYS: The themes of Bacon's essays are various. They range from Goodness to Gardens and from Envy to Masques and Triumphs. The essay 'Of Studies' is about books and reading. Here Bacon explains reasons and purpose of study. At the same time he suggests the modes of selecting the books and manner of study. In 'Of Truth' he says that some men do not care for truth. He mentions its reasons also.

BACON'S STYLE: Bacon employed a unique style. This is important for lucidity, clarity, economy, precision, directness, masculinity and mathematical plainness. His essays seem like a collection of short and pithy maxims with tremendous compression. Each sentence can convey a deep and concentrated meaning. Due to this, Bacon's style is called aphoristic. Bacon considered this style suitable for the spirit of enquiry.

In his early essays the sentences are short, crisp and sententious. There are few connectives. Though there is no continuity, there is a strong sense of rapid movement. As Bacon's essays are argumentative in nature, his style becomes antithetical. With an impartial air, he balances the opposing arguments. There are number of quotations and allusions in his essays.

Bacon's style changed in the later editions. It became more elaborate. Connectives were used frequently and the style became less formal. His images and figures of speech are simple. They clearly state the ideas. Flexibility, wit and fun are also some important features of his style.

In short, Bacon is a very great essayist. To English literature his essays are priceless acquisitions. Legouis has rightly remarked' These essays are the classics of English prose'.

 

Samuel Johnson as an essayist

Samuel Johnson, by the name Dr. Johnson, (born September 18, 1709, Lichfield, Staffordshire, England—died December 13, 1784, London), English critic, biographer, essayist, poet, and lexicographer, regarded as one of the greatest figures of 18th-century life and letters.

 

Johnson once characterized literary biographies as “mournful narratives,” and he believed that he lived “a life radically wretched.” Yet his career can be seen as a literary success story of the sickly boy from the Midlands who by talent, tenacity, and intelligence became the foremost literary figure and the most formidable conversationalist of his time. For future generations, Johnson was synonymous with the later 18th century in England. The disparity between his circumstances and achievement gives his life its special interest.

With The Rambler (1750–52), a twice-weekly periodical, Johnson entered the most successful decade of his career. He wrote over 200 numbers, and stories abound of his finishing an essay while the printer’s boy waited at the door; in his last essay he confessed to “the anxious employment of a periodical writer.” The essays cover a wide range of subjects. A large number of them appropriately stress daily realities; others are devoted to literature, including criticism and the theme of authorship (particularly the early ones, driven by the writer’s consciousness of his own undertaking) and to literary forms, such as the novel and biography, that had not received much examination. Whatever their topic, Johnson intended his essays to “inculcate wisdom or piety” in conformity with Christianity. In tone, these essays are far more serious than those of his most important predecessor, Joseph Addison, published in The Spectator (1711–12; 1714). Johnson himself ranked them highly among his achievements, commenting “My other works are wine and water; but my Rambler is pure wine.” Although The Rambler may have sold only 500 copies an issue on its first appearance—in his last number he claimed he had “never been much a favorite of the public”—it was widely reprinted in provincial newspapers and sold well in later editions.

 

Johnson’s Rambler series also was admired by his wife Elizabeth, who praised its author by saying, “I thought very well of you before this; but I did not imagine you could have written anything equal to this.” She died on March 17, 1752, just three days after the publication of its last number. In her later years “Tetty” frequently lived away from him in Hampstead. Signs of marital tensions may be glimpsed in surviving letters and in Johnson’s prayers, which were published after his death. He wrote a sermon for her funeral that praises her submissive piety—her “exact and regular” devotions—as well as her charitable disposition.

A diary entry suggests that a year after Elizabeth’s death Johnson was seeking a new wife “without any derogation from dear Tetty’s memory.” The one he most probably had in mind was the pious Hill Boothby, to whom he wrote with some frequency in the years immediately following this resolve. Three dozen of her letters to him, rarely quoted by biographers, are in print. The relationship, however, came to an end with her death in 1756.

 

During the course of one year starting in March 1753, Johnson contributed 29 essays to his friend John Hawkesworth’s periodical The Adventurer, written in imitation of The Rambler. Johnson purposely (and ineffectively) lightened his style in order to hide his authorship. He wanted his essays unrecognized, for he had given them to Dr. Richard Bathurst, the friend whom he said he loved more than any other, to sell as his own, but he confessed his part to the persistent Hill Boothby.

 

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