From the beginning of the first chapter: THE ENGLISH ESSAY - A Study in Literary Development FOR the last hundred years the essay has rivaled even the novel m the breadth of its appeal and in the variety of the interests it represents. Critics, it is true, ordinarily place its golden age in the past; and they are right in so doing if they judge either by the urbane grace of the periodical essayists or by the profound humanity of a Bacon and a Montaigne. But the essay holds its place to-day far less by virtue of the ...
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From the beginning of the first chapter: THE ENGLISH ESSAY - A Study in Literary Development FOR the last hundred years the essay has rivaled even the novel m the breadth of its appeal and in the variety of the interests it represents. Critics, it is true, ordinarily place its golden age in the past; and they are right in so doing if they judge either by the urbane grace of the periodical essayists or by the profound humanity of a Bacon and a Montaigne. But the essay holds its place to-day far less by virtue of the excellence of any single writer or the distinction of any school than because it has, in the years since the French Revolution, become in a deeper sense than ever before the abstract and brief chronicle of its time. Created in the closing years of the Renaissance by thoughtful observers of hfe and soon pressed into the service of an ever-widening circle of readers, it became, with the diffusion of knowledge and the increase of curiosity in the nineteenth century, a vehicle of expression hardly less universal than fairy-tale and ballad had been in primitive times. It is at present, in fact, the one form of literature which may fairly be considered a useful as well as a fine art. The journalist finds it the most trustworthy of his tools; the teacher chooses it as the type of composition most valuable in training for general efficiency; every worker, however practical his task, is able through it most quickly to socialize his gain in knowledge. And it is because the essay has thus in a very literal sense passed from study and salon to schoolroom and workshop, from the philosopher to the man in the street, that it can vindicate its claim to be called the characteristic literary art of the nineteenth century. For a form of literature, like an idea, belongs only to those who use it, even appreciation of it depending on some degree of actual or potential technical ability. In Elizabethan England the poet tried his skill in a sonnet to be read by his fellow sonneteers, the critic shared his notebook with the cultured fellow critics who made up the circle at once of his acquaintance and of his audience. To-day professional essayists of all sorts write on all subjects of human concern for people of all conditions. Furthermore, the essay has been adopted as a medium of communication by the rank and file of intelligent workers, and thus has been made as never before an integral part of the intellectual and practical life of our time. The ambiguities and contradictions in current conceptions of the essay would at first sight go far to justify the contention of certain critics that any classification of literary genres is impossible. These conceptions, in spite of many superficial differences, fall naturally into two well-marked groups, each emphasizing the qualities peculiar to a certain type of essay, and each supported by the evidence to which it appeals. The commonest definition declares the essay to be "a short dissertation," "a brief treatise," whether or not this statement be modified by any mention of informal and suggestive treatment. This definition is justified by the professedly expository essay, in high vogue throughout the nineteenth century; but it fails utterly when brought to the test of the familiar essay, which, through a long history of transformations, has preserved its tradition unbroken from the time of Montaigne. It is, moreover, to the essay of this latter type that the literary critic is almost infallibly attracted. To him, accordingly, the mark of the essay is not the orderly, though brief, development of its subject, but informality, suggestiveness, and freedom of treatment. Dr. Johnson's much-quoted definition - "A loose sally of the mind; an irregular indigested piece; not a regular and orderly composition.."..
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Add this copy of Social Studies in English Literature to cart. $6.00, Sold by James Cummings Bookseller rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Signal Mountain, TN, UNITED STATES, published 1916 by Houghton.
Edition:
1916, Houghton
Hardcover
Details:
Edition:
First Edition
Publisher:
Houghton
Published:
1916
Language:
English
Alibris ID:
13401333002
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