Quote of the Day (Joseph Epstein, on ‘The Modest Reputation of the Essay’)

“One might, at an early age, wish to be a poet or a dramatist or a novelist or even possibly a critic. One somehow wanders or stumbles into becoming an essayist. But, given the modest reputation of the essay and the way it has tended to be taught in schools, it is quite amazing that anyone should ever again wish to read essays let alone write them.” —American essayist and editor Joseph Epstein, A Literary Education and Other Essays (2014)

Although I don’t think that one develops an interest in the essay from an early age, as one does for the other forms that Epstein cites, I would not attribute this to how it is taught. I think it has ever been thus.

Nearly 40 years ago, one of the best contemporary essayists, Edward Hoagland, told me, when I interviewed him for my college newspaper, that, at least in his case, resort to the essay resulted from “the reformer’s impulse” to set the world right. Even if you qualify it and say one’s own world, that still holds true.

The genre is a meditative one, one to come at the point in a life that calls for self-assessment or self-improvement. Childhood is hardly the time for that.

If one aspect of our age threatens the essay as a genre, it might the tendency toward assertion—i.e., simply stating a position—rather than persuasion—a thorough consideration of counter-arguments and an honest attempt to speak to them. The confessional impulse behind the essay may be stronger than ever, but without this attempt at reader outreach and understanding, I fear for its future ability to engage those who encounter it.