The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present, ed. Phillip Lopate, 1994.
June 2026 — ???
This is the 27th book we’ve tackled for the Essays Project. This is a giant anthology which should keep us going through the summer – and given anticipated travel likely well into next year. While we had considered being more eclectic, and curating batches of essays from various authors, after one trial (Johnson, EP#26) it seemed easier to return to a published anthology which both eases the burden of selection, and guarantees us paper pages upon which to make notes. So here we gol
Introduction
An excellent introduction that takes on the task of trying to distinguish the personal essay from other sorts of essays, and from seemingly similar writing such as memoir and autobiography. Among Lopate’s claims about what distinguishes the personal essay from other forms of essay:
- Sets up a dialog with the reader based on identification, understanding, testiness, and companionship
- Contains self-revelation, personal experiences and tastes, and can affect a confidential manner
- Less formal in that it may have a rambling structure, relaxed diction, freshness of form, and makes no claims to completeness or definitive treatment. Digressions are OK.
- Depends more on style and personality than flawless reasoning
- May be conversational, with throat clearing, or putting objections in the mouth of the reader
- Struggle for honesty; vulnerability; self-revelation; self-doubt and self-questioning; admission of uncertainty, lapses, errors, defects, shortcomings. Interrogation of one’s own ignorance. Amused self-observation.
- The narrator must be reliable
- Contrariness: Stand a platitude on its head. Implicate first oneself, then the reader.
- Unashamed subjectiveness; “skeptical yet gyroscopically poised.”
And this taste for the miniature becomes a strong suit of the form: the ability to turn anything close at hand (Charles Lamb’s ears, Virginia Woolf’s moth, Samuel Johnson’s boarding house) into a grand meditational adventure.
—The Art of the Personal Essay, p xxviii (in Introduction by Phillip Lopate)
Forerunners
Seneca: On Noise; Asthma; Scipio’s Villa; Slaves
As Lopate says in the introduction, one of his goals is to bring in writings that, while not essays by his definition, have some of the central characteristics he sees in the personal essay. Seneca, followed by Plutarch, are the two [western] classical antecedents.
Seneca seems particularly apt in that, unlike most classical authors, his personality comes through: we come to get a sense of the man through his writing about other things. Other essay-like characteristics include a focus on the mundane (how people behave in a bath house), and moving from the particular to the universal (from asthma to death), and a bit of impish humor at the end (where after all this complaining and discussion of the noise, he admits he is about to move elsewhere.
Plutarch: Consolation to His Wife
The Plutarch entry, cast as another predecessor to the essay, seems less apt than Seneca’s work, because it is a letter to his wife rather than writing addressed to a larger audience. As a consequence, the familiarity of his voice, and the emotional quality of his writing (also a consequence of the topic), seem to me to spring from the particular circumstances, rather than the sort of impulses that motivate personal essayists,
… reading break …
These next three pieces are not essays, in my view, but indicate that the impulse that shaped essays arose independently of western thought.
Sei Shonagan: “Hateful Things”
Sei Shonagan is a court lady in 10th Century Japan. She comes across as a snob: opinionated, mannered, petty, spiteful.
This forerunner of the essay is essentially a list of everything she hates, ranging from the minute (a mosquito’s buzz in the bedroom at night) to boorish ill-mannered people. Mildly amusing, and the list tells us a good deal about her and the times and situation in which she lives.
This piece illustrates Lopate’s “unashamed subjectiveness” and “self-revelation,” and the essay’s “taste for the miniature” (e.g. the mosquito’s whine). The list form of this essay also anticipates modern essays that cast themselves as lists (which I don’t care for)
Kenko: Essays in Idleness
Kenko was some kind of court functionary in 13th-14th C Japan, with a reputation as a poet.
The piece is composed of a series of unconnected (as far as I can see) passages about places, scenes, thoughts and so forth. Though as the editor selected the passages to include, perhaps there would be more connection if we could see it all.
It is true it had an informal tone, and treated with every day life. And that it looks closely at small things. And that it, perhaps, in its fragmentary, drifting form illustrates the approach of keeping things open and incomplete.
That said, I did not find this writing very interesting. Lacks the wit, verve, and humor of Shonagan.
Ou-Yang Hsiu: Pleasure Boat Studio
An 11th C Chinese Sung dynasty classical poet ranked as one of the 8 masters of classical Chinese prose. He was a member of the imperial court, and held various offices throughout his life.
He has named his office in the Palace Pleasure Boat Studio, and this piece explains why. He explains that the rooms that make up his office are arranged in a single row, and so the space is long and narrow like a boat. He also notes that after he was exiled he lived on a boat and sailed rivers, and comments that the real purpose of a boat is to deliver people from danger, and not pleasure. But at the same time he notes that some have found pleasure in living on boats, even though he has no time for such diversions. So I suppose his naming his office “Pleasure Boat” is ironic, though perhaps he also likes the connotation of delivering him from danger.
But it doesn’t really make sense to me. Not a vey thrilling piece in my view.
In terms of Lopate’s characteristics of personal essays, this shows contrariness, self-deprecation, and the conversational gesture of speaking to the reader: “Is there anything wrong with that?”
… reading break …
Fountainhead (Montaigne)
Introduction
- Lopate suggests M may have been the greatest essayist who ever lived.
- His family on both sides was wealthy; they were minor land owning nobility
- Notes that he was raised speaking only Latin for the first years of his life, which (not mentioned here) also means he had almost no interaction with his parents or anyone except his tutor.
- M studied law and practiced as a magistrate
- He cast his essays as self-study, a portrait of himself in words.
- His first book, written from 1572-1574, was short and filled with quotations and not especially personal—but it was a success and gave him more confidence.
- M felt there was a basic unity to human experience. He regarded humanity as constantly in flux, and vain, ashamed and contradictory. But he embedded these views in a frame of forgiveness.
- “His own sentences were sinewy, dry, yet succulent: they explode like pomegranate seeds on the tongue.”
- He wrote in the vernacular, not Latin
…the spirit of humanism was in the air, via Erasmus and others, and the classical Greek and Roman authors were being used as a Trojan borse to open the gates to a freer, more speculative and self-analytical mentality (Socrates’ “Know thyself’). Rabelais great, bawdy novel, Gargantua and Pantagruel, likewise gave Montaigne license to write in support of pleasure and an integration of mind and body. Alongside an increase in classical learning and scientific knowledge, new worlds were literally being discovered. Explorers brought back reports of exotic native customs from the Americas and the Pacific, which fueled Montaigne’s relativistic bent.
—ibid., 44
While Montaigne deserves credit for inventing the form, I have to say I don’t care for his writing. He takes paragraphs to say what might be said in a few sentences. And although many seem to think the uncertainty and changeability is a virtue, or at least a characteristic of the new form, I find it a bit irritating. There is something to be said for emphasizing that an important aspect of the personal essay has to do with how the author approaches the topic, but Montaigne not only disclaims expertise, which is fair, but seems to shirk any responsibility for accuracy or accountability.
Having written the above, after reading a few of his essays, I do have to say that I appreciate his tolerant and even compassionate approach.
Of Books, Michel de Montaigne
The first two pages are mostly disclaimer. He portrays himself as unlearned (which does not seem accurate), and uninterested in grappling with difficult books or study—he just wants to enjoy himself.
- “Let attention not be paid to the matter, but to the shape I give it.”
- “I want them to give Plutarch a fillip on my nose and get burned insulting Seneca in me.”
After this he comments on books he likes (and some he does not), beginning with entertaining books, fables, poetry. He also likes Seneca, Plutarch, and Cicero.
Of a Monstrous Child, Michel de Montaigne
M describes a child who is a partial Siamese twin, with a headless body joined to his abdomen. He comments that this might be seen as an omen, but it is better not to: “there is nothing like divining about things past. ‘So that when things happen, by some interpretation they are found to have been prophesied.‘ [Cicero]”
M is compassionate, and argues against revulsion. “We call contrary to nature what happens contrary to custom; nothing is anything but according to nature, whatever it may be. Let this universal and natural reason drive out of us the error and astonishment that novelty brings us.“
… reading break …
On Some Verses of Virgil
This essay exhibits a candid, cheerful acceptance of the body and its pleasures — especially sexual pleasure — as a defense against the gloom of old age. A minor theme is a defense of writing about oneself without shame or euphemism.
On Aging
Written as M was aging and ailing, he refers to his own bodily decline and refuses a “melancholic and dull tranquillity,” instead cultivating cheerfulness.
Let childhood look ahead, old age backward: was not this the meaning of the double face of Janus? Let the years drag me along if they will, but backward. As long as my eyes can discern that lovely season now expired, I turn them in that direction at intervals. If youth is escaping from my blood and my veins, at least I want not to uproot the picture of it from my memory.
— Michel Montaigne, p 59 [in Lopate]
On Candid Self-disclosure
M defends writing frankly; not surprising since his project is to write about himself, and how he sees things. With regard to sex he notes the hypocrisy that we all have sex yet are ashamed to talk about it because of convention. Complete self-portraiture requires not exempting the body, and indeed he refers to his various ailments and alludes to his own sexual inadequacy.
On Love vs. Marriage
“Love and marriage are two intentions that go by separate and distinct roads. “
Erotic love and marriage run on different principles. Marriage is a rational, social, durable bond; sexual passion is volatile and belongs elsewhere. Passionate love inside marriage is unstable, even dangerous.
Men and Women
“Women are not wrong at all when they reject the rules of life that have been introduced into the world, inasmuch as it is the men who have made these without them. “
M argues that men and women are not fundamentally different vis a vis sexual appetite. The demands of chastity and constancy are imposed by men and culturally arbitrary; women are judged unfairly. (But there is also misogyny common to those times — women are beguiling, inconstant, vicious — the essay is not proto-feminist, though it does repeatedly undercut male self-flattery.)
I say that males and females are cast in the same mold; except for education and custom, the difference is not great. Plato invites both without discrimination to the fellowship of all studies, exercises, functions, warlike and peaceful occupations, in his commonwealth. And the philosopher Antisthenes eliminated any distinction between their virtue and ours.
Other matters
- Jealousy: Reflections on how sexual and marital customs vary across cultures — reinforcing that our norms are contingent.
- Impotence: his own, and the undesirability of old men in general
- On writing: “Any topic is equally fertile to me. A fly will serve my purpose.” “I owe a complete portrait of myself to the public.”
- On his conduct of affairs: he presents himself as fair to a fault.
The Rise of the English /essay
Abraham Crowley
Of Greatness
“I confess I love littleness in all things. A little convenient estate, a little cheerful house, a little company, and a very little feast…“
The essay argues that greatness is not desirable. It is better to be comfortable than wealthy, because wealth and fame come with inconveniences (servitude, disquiet, danger, guilt), and they also incline one to always want more than one has.
…this whole globe of earth, which we account so immense a body, is but one point or atom in relation to those numberless worlds that are scattered up and down in the infinite space of the sky which we behold.
Abraham Crowley, Of Greatness [ibid., p 121]
Addison and Steele
Nicolini and the Lions, by Joseph Addison,
Nicolini and the Lions, by Joseph Addison, is not an allegory (as I initially wondered), though neither it is a review of the opera.
The piece is more of a parody of political factionalism and rumor mongering of the time, as the references to “the whole session,” the mention of the refined politicians in the audience, and the mention friendship among ostensibly opposed parties (“this is what is practiced every day in Westminster Hall.”)
It is also self-parody, in that the author’s ‘investigation’ is careless and credulous, though his report is presented as though important and official. Perhaps it is a dif at Italian opera as well: “…our present grievance is not the want of a good taste, but of common sense.”
I did not enjoy this essay. It felt a bit stilted, and, for me, parody does not age well.
An Hour or Two Sacred To Sorrow, Richard Steele
The essay begins by distinguishing two types of people: those who wish everyone to know of doings; and those who wish to be unobserved. A nice distinction, but I cannot relate it to the rest of the essay.
The essay observes that some people like to make a practice of withdrawing temporarily from the world to think about friends who have passed away. And Steele (or at least the narrator) resolves to do this. However, he quickly discovers that though the passings of those he recalls gave him great sorrow when they occurred, with the passage of time his feelings have lessened, and he is able to reflect on his late friends with pleasure.
He begins by remembering the death of his father, when he was five. He did not grasp what happened, really, but experienced it through the grief of his mother. He comments on how impressionable children are, and suggests that this early experience with grief imprinted itself on him and made him unduly prone to commiseration, remorse, and “unmanly gentleness of mind, which has since ensnared me into ten thousand calamities….”
He then speaks more generally, remarking that those who are very old remember the companions of their youth better than recent events, and that untimely tragic deaths are what are most lamented, and most remembered. He speaks of those who died in wars, and how they evoke veneration, but at the same time pity wells up when considering the havoc that war wrecks.
He then mentions a woman he loved — whom he depicts as beautiful, ignorant and careless — who died young. “In the same week, I saw her dressed for a ball, and in a shroud.” More sad events rise up in his mind, but then a servant knocks and delivers a letter and a hamper of wine. He decides to send for his friends, and they stay up til 2 drinking and talking (recollecting?) cheerfully.
Twenty-four Hours in London, Richard Steele
“It is an inexpressible pleasure to know a little of the world, and be of no character or significancy in it.” Thus begins this essay, the narrator taking on the character of a curious flaneur, who decides that he is going to spend a full 24 hours roving around London to see what he may see.
He says: “The hours of the Day and Night are taken up in the Cities of London and Westminster by Peoples as different from each other as those who are Born in different Centuries.” The essay then unfolds as he first takes a boat into the City, starting a 4am, visits the markets, engages in a flirtatious pursuit-by-cab of a coy woman, and has other adventures that include a beggar, traders, and coffee house habituees. I liked the conceit of this essay, although it was difficult to follow the references to 18th C professions, activities, and places.
Claude.ai generated the following outline of his tour, which I have pared down to this:
- a dawn boat-journey downriver to market, with a fleet of gardeners’ boats. Ruddy virgins served as supercargoes, and purveyors sold to the merchants in the market
- a stroll through the gay Convent Garden fruit/vegetable/flower market, and observing “fruit wenches” and chimney sweeps flirting (contrasted with the more sober Stocks Market)
- A mock cab-chase of a coquette; the cabbies exchange hand signals about fares and destinations, and engage in mock jostling in the streets.
- Now the people of fashion come out. At the corner of Warwick Street, street performers sing ballads and the narrator is accosted by a sturdy beggar, but is able to escape when the crowd begins making fun of the beggar
- He moves into the center of the city and comes to The Royal Exchange with merchants and high class shops and prosperous people.
- Then it is on to Robbins (“Robin’s Coffee-house in Exchange Alley, a hub for stock-jobbing and finance), where men “give bills for the value of large estates.”
- And then to Will’s (Will’s Coffee-house in Covent Garden, the famous literary/wits’ haunt), where he hears talk of “cards, dice, love, learning, and politics.”
- The day ends with the bellman calling the hour, and him finding a link-boy to light his way home.
Love-Letters, Richard Steele
A short piece on love letters, which argues that the best way to write a love letter as though you are speaking to the person. With that said, he claims that it is better for the man to cast himself as a pleasant and entertaining fellow, than a forlorn lover whose happiness is fully dependent on her. To wit: “If possible therefore divert your mistress, rather than sigh to her. The pleasant Man she will desire for her own Sake; but the languishing Lover has nothing to hope from her but her Pity.”
Epigraphs
Let childhood look ahead, old age backward: was not this the meaning of the double face of Janus? Let the years drag me along if they will, but backward. As long as my eyes can discern that lovely season now expired, I turn them in that direction at intervals. If youth is escaping from my blood and my veins, at least I want not to uproot the picture of it from my memory.
Praise a hunchback for his handsome figure and he is bound to take it as an insult.
“Love and marriage are two intentions that go by separate and distinct roads. “
It is no longer time to kick when we have let ourselves be hobbled.
“Women are not wrong at all when they reject the rules of life that have been introduced into the world, inasmuch as it is the men who have made these without them. “
“Any topic is equally fertile to me. A fly will serve my purpose.”
Everyone shuns to see a man born, everyone runs to see him die.
Things least feared are least guarded against and observed.
Certainly Love’s conduct has much more style when mingled with heedlessness and confusion; mistakes and misadventures give it style and grace. Provided it is sharp and hungry , it matters little whether it is prudent.
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