Essayists on the Essay

by Klaus, Carl H.; Stuckey-french, Ned

• ISBN13: 9781609380762
• ISBN10: 1609380762
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-03-15
• Publisher: Univ of Iowa Pr

Summary

The first historically and internationally comprehensive collection of its kind, Essayists on the Essayis a path-breaking work that is nothing less than a richly varied sourcebook for anyone interested in the theory, practice, and art of the essay. This unique work includes a selection of fifty distinctive pieces by American, Canadian, English, European, and South American essayists from Montaigne to the present-many of which have not previously been anthologized or translated-as well as a detailed bibliographical and thematic guide to hundreds of additional works about the essay. From a buoyant introduction that provides a sweeping historical and analytic overview of essayists' thinking about their genre-a collective poetics of the essay-to the detailed headnotes offering pointed information about both the essayists themselves and the anthologized selections, to the richly detailed bibliographic sections, Essayists on the Essayis essential to anyone who cares about the form. This collection provides teachers, scholars, essayists, and readers with the materials they need to take a fresh look at this important but often overlooked form that has for too long been relegated to the role of service genre-used primarily to write about other more "literary" genres or to teach young people how to write. Here, in a single celebratory volume, are four centuries of commentary and theory reminding us of the essay's storied history, its international appeal, and its relationship not just with poetry and fiction but also with radio, film, video, and new media.

Author Biography

Carl H. Klaus, founding director of Iowa's Nonfiction Writing Program, is professor emeritus at the University of Iowa and coeditor (with Patricia Hampl) of Sightline Books: The Iowa Series in Literary Nonfiction. His widely praised nonfiction includes most recently The Made-Up Self: Impersonation in the Personal Essay (Iowa, 2010). Ned Stuckey-French is assistant professor in the department of English at Florida State University. He is author of The American Essay in the American Century. His reviews and critical work have appeared in journals such as American Literature, the CEA Critic, middlebrow, and the Iowa Review. He is the book review editor for Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. xi
Toward a Collective Poetics of the Essay	p. xv
From "Of Practice," "Of Repentance," and "Of Vanity"-1580	p. 1
From "Of Essays and Books"-1600-1601	p. 7
From The Praficience and Advancement of Learning-1605	p. 9
From the Spectator-1712	p. 11
From the Rambler-1751	p. 13
From "On the Periodical Essayists"-1815	p. 15
From an Unpublished Review of HazlittÆs Table Talk-1821	p. 19
From "Montaigne, or the Skeptic"-1850	p. 23
From "On the "Writing of Essays"-1863	p. 25
From "Dialectic"-1893	p. 29
From "The Passing of the Essay"-1894	p. 32
From "Editors Easy Chair"-1901	p. 36
From "To the Reader"-1914	p. 38
From "The Art of the Essayist"-1922	p. 40
From "The Modern Essay"-19x5	p. 44
"An Essay on Virginia"-1915	p. 48
"An Essay upon Essays upon Essays"-1929	p. 51
From The Man without Qualities-1930	p. 55
ôThe Essayö-1932	p. 57
From "An Essay on Essays"-1935	p. 61
From "The Essay"-1938	p. 65
From "In Defense of the Essay"-1946	p. 68
From "On the Essay and Its Prose"-1947	p. 71
From "On the Essay"-1954	p. 75
From "The Essay in Our America"-1956	p. 78
From "The Essay as Form"-1958	p. 82
From the Preface to Collected Essays-1960	p. 88
"An Essay on the Essay"-1965	p. 91
"Ramblings on the Essay"-1972	p. 94
"The Limits of the Essay"-1976	p. 99
"What I Think, What I Am"-1976	p. 101
From the Foreword to Essays of E. B. White-1977	p. 104
From "Emerson and the Essay"-1982	p. 106
From "Can One Define the Essay?"-1983	p. 110
"Little Essayistic"-1983	p. 116
From the Introduction to The Best American Essays-1986	p. 120
From "Alfonso Reyes' Wheelbarrow"-1988	p. 125
From "The Singular First Person"-1988	p. 129
"What Happened to the Personal Essay?"-1989	p. 132
From the Introduction to Tuxedo Junction-1989	p. 142
Introduction to The Best American Essays-1992.	p. 147
From "Essaying the Feminine"-1994	p. 153
From "f-Words: An Essay on the Essay"-1996	p. 158
"She: Portrait of the Essay as a Warm Body"-1998	p. 162
From The Situation and the Story-2001	p. 170
From "2003" in The Next American Essay-2003	p. 172
From "The Age of the Essay"-2004	p. 174
From "The Essay as Hack"-2008	p. 177
"On the Origin of the Video Essay"-2011	p. 180
"Essay on the Radio Essay"-2011	p. 185
Bibliography, compiled by Ned Stuckey-French	p. 193
Thematic Guide to Entries in the Bibliography, compiled by Ned Stuckey-French	p. 207
Permissions	p. 213
Index	p. 217
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