How to write an essay? Genre features

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

The literary narrative genre is perhaps one of the most common these days. We all wrote essays and presentations at school. Today

often schoolchildren and students are offered to write an essay. What is this genre in literature, when did it first appear, what are its distinctive features? Finally, how to write an essay correctly? This is what this article will be about.

In order to better understand the topic, it is necessary to trace the development of the genre. Before writing an essay, you need not only to master the rules of its composition, but also to know what distinguishes it from other works. And also understand how and when it appeared in the literature.

Characteristic

The word "essay" itself is translated as "experience" or "sketch". Such literary works are distinguished, as a rule, by a small volume (from 10 to 20 pages), although examples are known when the size of an essay reached 50 pages. In the content, the author reveals his own, purely individual attitude to the topic covered in the story.

Essay is a literary genreprose writing. It is characterized by maximum proximity to colloquial speech, emphasizing the position of the author, his own experience and reasoning, which can radically differ from the generally accepted understanding of the problem. Perhaps, in no other work the narration is not so paradoxical. However, it is the essay that distinguishes the amazing integrity of the author's thought, which is difficult to preserve in more voluminous texts.

History of Appearance

Frenchman M. Montaigne is considered the "father" of this direction. In domestic literature, works that meet the definition of "essay" can be found among the works of Dostoevsky. Some experts argue that the first works of this type can also be found in the biblical works and moralistic reasoning of Marcus Aurelius, but the genre was fully formed and flourished in the 16th century. Montaigne's work can be called a vivid example or even an instruction on how to write an essay correctly. In his works, the talented French masterfully carried out his own “experiments”, thanks to which he tried to understand himself in this world and this world as a whole through the prism of his own attitude and knowledge. Montaigne demonstrates how powerful storytelling can be. He easily deviates from the main story line, uses metaphors and associations abundantly, which turns his works into magnificent and understandable compositions for most of the inhabitants.

At the end of the 16th century, the Englishman F. Bacon became interested in writing essays. His works were somewhat different from those of Montaigne. The narrative was lesscharacterized by clarity, clarity and focused on one main idea. At the beginning of the 17th century, Milton preferred passionate appeals in his works, which were supposed to arouse in the reader a desire to change the existing system, to start a stormy reform activity. His essays were more like carriers of an idea than an emotional narrative on a particular topic. D alton's writings were also very deep in content. He devoted them to specific ideas, which he stated in a serious language. It is D alton who is considered the "parent" of the critical essay.

At the dawn of the 17th century, the idea of how to write an essay correctly changed somewhat. These pieces

became less serious and shorter. It was then that such a variety arises as a periodically appearing essay. Its author is considered an Englishman Addison, who regularly posted small works in the newspaper. In fact, they were the prototype of a newspaper column. The development of the printing industry and the increase in the number of periodicals has turned the essay into one of the most popular genres.

Modern works of this literary trend differ in mood and manner of narration, they can be philosophical, thoughtful or light and humorous, naive, as if written by a "clumsy scribbler".

Composition structure

Today there are a number of requirements for how to write an essay correctly. One of the main ones is the structure of the work. It should contain such parts as the title page, introduction, body andconclusion. As you can see, the content is subject to rules that can be applied to any narrative text. At the same time, the use of various arguments, value judgments, the widespread use of metaphors and allegories is welcomed. The task of the essay is to help the reader learn about the author's own attitude, understand the logic of his judgments, and appreciate the richness of the writer's personal experience.