Introduction to Essays | UPSC Mains Essay Preparation PDF Download

Introduction

• An essay is a written piece that often reflects the author's perspective and can encompass various elements such as literary analysis, political statements, arguments, daily life observations, recollections, and reflections.
• The definition of an essay is somewhat ambiguous, overlapping with both articles and short stories. While contemporary essays are typically in prose, there are instances of works in verse, like Alexander Pope's "An Essay on Criticism" and "An Essay on Man."
• Despite the expectation of brevity in essays, there are exceptions such as John Locke's extensive "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding" and Thomas Malthus's voluminous "An Essay on the Principle of Population."
• In modern education systems, essays play a significant role, particularly in countries like the United States and Canada. Structured essay writing is taught to secondary students to enhance their writing skills. Admission essays are commonly used by universities for applicant selection, and they are also employed during final exams in humanities and social sciences to assess students' performance.
• The concept of essays has expanded beyond traditional writing to other media forms. A film essay, for instance, adopts documentary filmmaking styles to explore the development of an idea or theme. Similarly, a photographic essay may feature a series of related photographs with or without accompanying text or captions.

Definition

Defining an essay can be approached in various ways, and one such definition is a 'prose composition with a focused subject of discussion' or a 'long, systematic discourse.' However, categorizing essays within a specific genre is challenging. Aldous Huxley, a prominent essayist, offered insights on this matter, stating that the essay, much like the novel, serves as a literary tool to explore almost anything about almost any topic. Traditionally, essays are considered short pieces, making it difficult to thoroughly explore all aspects of a subject within the confines of a single essay. Huxley emphasized that a collection of essays has the capacity to cover a broad range of topics with almost as much depth as a lengthy novel, citing Montaigne's Third Book as an example.

He argued on essays on many occasions that ‘essays belong to a literary species whose extreme variability can be studied most effectively within a three-poled frame of reference’.
There are three poles of Huxley, which are as follows: 

1. Personal and the autobiographical essays: These are ‘fragments of reflective autobiography’ to ‘look at the world through the keyhole of anecdote and description’.
2. Objective and factual: In these essays, the authors ‘do not speak directly of themselves, but turn their attention outward to some literary or scientific or political theme’.
3. Abstract-universal: These essays ‘make the best of all the three worlds in which it is possible for the essay to exist’.

The word essay is derived from the French infinitive essayer, which means ‘to try’ or ‘to attempt’. In English, an essay first meant ‘an attempt’ or ‘a trial’, and this meaning is still an alternative meaning to an essay. The first author who described his work in essays was Frenchman Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592). He used the term ‘attempts’ to characterise these to put his thoughts into writing, and the essays he was writing grew out of his common-placing. Montaigne was inspired by the works of Plutarch, Jacques Amyot has recently published his translation of Oeuvres Morales (Moral works) into French, so he began to compose his essays in 1592; the first edition, entitled Essais, was published in two volumes in 1580. For the rest of his life, he continued to revise previously published essays and to compose new ones. The essays of Francis Bacon, published in the form of book in the years 1597, 1612, and 1625, were the first works in English that narrated themselves as essays.

Historical Perspective

• European Essayists:
  • Robert Burton (1577–1640) and Sir Thomas Browne (1605–1682) were recognized as English essayists.
  • In Italy, Baldassare Castiglione wrote about courtly manners in his essay 'Il libro del cortegiano.'
  • The Jesuit Baltasar Gracián in the seventeenth century focused on the theme of wisdom.
• Age of Enlightenment Polemicists:
  • Polemicists during the Age of Enlightenment, such as Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, and Samuel Johnson, used essays as a favored tool to persuade readers.
  • Essays played a significant role in the rise of periodical literature during this period.
• Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries:
  • Edmund Burke and Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote essays for the general public in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
  • In the early nineteenth century, notable essayists like Charles Lamb, William Hazlitt, Leigh Hunt, and Thomas de Quincey produced numerous essays on diverse subjects.
• Twentieth Century:
  • In the twentieth century, essayists like T. S. Eliot used essays to explain new movements in art and culture.
  • Essays were employed for both strident political themes and lighter subjects, with Robert Louis Stevenson and Willa Cather being examples.
  • Literary criticism essays were written by authors like Edmund Wilson, Virginia Woolf, and Charles du Bos.
• Japanese Essays:
  • In Japan, essays, along with novels, existed centuries before their development in Europe under the genre known as zuihitsu.
  • Zuihitsu consists of loosely connected essays and fragmented ideas and has been present in Japanese literature since its early stages.
  • Some notable examples include 'The Pillow Book' (c. 1000) by court lady Sei Shônagon and 'Tsurezuregusa' (1330) by Japanese Buddhist monk Yoshida Kenkô.
  • Unlike Europe, women in Japan traditionally wrote essays, albeit in a formal manner, while in China, male writers were more influential and prized.

Essay Writing: An Educational Tool

• Role of Essays in Research Education:
  • Essays play a significant role in assessing the understanding and mastery of research materials for university research students.
  • Formal education in many countries, including the United States, incorporates essays as a major component.
• Structured Essay Teaching in Secondary Education:
  • Structured essay formats are taught in secondary education to enhance students' writing skills.
  • Universities use essays as a tool for applicant selection.
• Assessment in Secondary and Tertiary Education:
  • Essays are employed to evaluate students' comprehension and mastery of course material in both secondary and tertiary education.
  • Students are assigned topics and required to comment, explain, or assess them through essays.
• Duration and Formality in University Essays:
  • University courses may require students to work on essays over weeks or months.
  • Academic essays, especially in the humanities and social sciences, are more formal than literary ones.
• Features of Academic Essays:
  • Academic essays allow writers to present their views logically and factually.
  • The use of the first person is often discouraged.
  • Longer academic essays, ranging from 2,000 to 5,000 words, may include a literature review at the beginning.
• Referencing and Scholarly Principles:
  • Academic institutions require references for facts, quotations, and other materials used in essays.
  • This practice enables other scholars to assess the evidence supporting the argument and its quality.
• Testing Students' Abilities:
  • Academic essay tests evaluate students' ability to articulate thoughts efficiently and demonstrate intellectual capabilities.
• Distinction Between Research and Discussion Papers:
  • Research papers aim to explore a wide range of sources on a given topic, being longer and more inclusive.
  • Discussion papers, while also including research, are shorter, more selective, and emphasize analytical and critical approaches.
• Challenges of Plagiarism:
  • Students sometimes submit purchased essays from paper mills or essay mills as their own work.
  • Essay mills act as ghost-writers, selling pre-written essays to students and universities.
  • Plagiarism, considered academic dishonesty, is a global challenge for universities.
• Prevention of Plagiarism:
  • Universities combat plagiarism by using Internet plagiarism detection software to examine papers suspected to be from essay mills.