English 12 Wolno
The Art (Craft?) of the Essay
“The letters of the alphabet frighten me terribly. They are sly, shameless demons—and dangerous! You open the ink-well, release them: they run off—and how will you ever get control of them again! They come to life, join, separate, ignore your commands, arrange themselves as they like on the paper—black (blue?) with tails and horns. You scream at them and implore them in vain: they do as they please. Prancing, pairing up shamelessly before you, they deceitfully expose what you did not wish to reveal, and they refuse to give voice to what is struggling, deep within you…to come forth and speak to [hu]mankind.”
Nikos Kazantzakas
(world famous 20th c. author)
If the above is what a critically acclaimed, prize winning writer has to say about putting words on the page, of writing something as simple as a sentence, then imagine how much he would sympathize with anyone, at any stage of development, where it comes to producing an essay. The difficult sentences must group together to create paragraphs that have some sort of underlying reason for being self-contained. Then these paragraphs have to be sequenced and clustered in a way that results in an essay that take their ‘micro-themes’ and produces an overall focused and cohesive piece. However, with a little knowledge and, as is necessary with all language based skills, a lot f practice, effective essay writing can be accomplished.
As with virtually all writing, the essay—no matter what style—should have an overall focus and at least some point of view (even hard research papers, which are meant primarily to be expository, will have some author biases and to pretend it does not can be considered academically irresponsible). The focus is on a topic; the point of view is the angle from which you are going to discuss, argue, reflect upon this topic. As Phillip Lopate, author of The Art of the Personal Essay, writes: “the essay is a notoriously flexible and adaptable form.” (italics mine) Topic and point of view (which will include tone) are two essential components of essay and which provide each one with its own identity; they also provide to the essay writer a significant range of creative options. In spite of the fact that we tend to use the term “creative writing” to indicate fiction writing or verse, one could easily argue that ALL writing is, at some level, creative. (This point will be expanded upon below.)
Once one has decided what topic his/her essay will treat, or focus on, s/he must then decide on a point of view/tone in order to most effectively render their thoughts about it. The tone may be scientific and dry, the point of view largely anonymous, as if the writer is presuming expertise on the topic and wants his/her reader to accept his/her thoughts and conclusions as being factual. Alternatively the tone may be passionate, argumentative, ironic, confident, self-deprecating…the list could go on. In these essays there is more of a direct sense of the author’s identity, his/her humanness if you will, on display. This type of essay may be less interested in sharing “facts” and moreso focused on questions and reader reflection. The two types of essays described here could be described as formal and informal, respectively. Whatever the case, the style chosen should be appropriate to the topic selected and the author’s intentions regarding the reader’s response. Lopate writes:
The traditional division in the essay has been between formal and informal…
The formal essay is [usually] characterized by a [business-like] seriousness
of purpose and logical organization… The technique of the formal essay is
practically identical with all factual or theoretical prose writing in which lit-
erary effect is secondary to [the actual information]… The informal essay,
in contrast, is often characterized by…individual tastes and experiences, a
confidential manner, humour…more [expressive], anecdotal style…freedom
from stiffness…[which only] incompletely treats the topic… It often deals
with personal experiences, opinions, [biases and confusion], stressing the
varied aspects of everyday life.
In other words, in writing the formal essay one will often attempt to be objective in the way s/he approaches the chosen topic, while in the informal essay s/he will be more personal, or subjective in approach.
When writing, one should always consider his/her “audience”. However, in the case of amateur writers who may only be writing for the sake of exercise and sill-building, one might be asked to pretend there is a larger audience than there actually is likely to be. For example, if I as your English 12 teacher ask you to write a formal essay that analyzes literary techniques in a novel, your essay’s tone should not be one of a personal letter (from you to me, even if, in reality, I will be the only person who ever does read this essay). Instead, your tone, which will reflect your point of view along with some more formal analyses, should be written as if to a larger audience of, let’s say literary scholars(!), whose personal identities you are unfamiliar with. Also when writing to that individual teacher who has taken you through a unit of work which you are now being asked to reflect upon in the form of an essay, you should not take short cuts and assume that your “audience” is already familiar with the assignment’s instructions, or even all that familiar with the novel’s material. Another no-no when writing this type of an essay is to self-reference; that is, you should avoid using first-person pronoun of “I” or “we”. You want to see an English teacher cringe when s/he is marking an essay, start it with the following sentence: “In class we were talking about ___________________ and so in this essay I am going to talk about __________________...” UGH! Make your essay seem self-realized. It is coming out of the ether of your own thoughts and its tone should be one that is largely anonymous, though hopefully not too scientific and dry—this isn’t a report but a literary essay after all; imagine anyone in the world who can read English and has an interest in literary analysis picking it up and wanting to learn what you have to say about the given topic. One of the most respected English authors of the twentieth century, Virginia Woolf, wrote: “All essays are addressed to …a somewhat fuzzy figure who may or may not exist but has been…invited to partake.” A less formal piece of writing—a personal essay—can be very effective when you self-reference. Part and parcel of this more anecdotal style of essay writing is to immerse yourself directly into the task of personally reflecting upon your feelings and impressions of something before or instead of using a more logical approach to the same topic. In the cases of this type of essay it might seem perfectly appropriate to write it as if to yourself, even if you know that (an)other(s) will be eventually reading it. Or, you may want to write as if to a particular community, or publication’s readership (think “letters to the editor of say The Chronicle Herald or The Coast).
By now the reader of this essay will have become aware that I, its author, have been ambivalent about whether or not to label the essay as either an art or a craft. The distinction between art and craft can be a very fine one. In the world of acting for example, we have hugely successful and veteran actors describe their work in similar, but ultimately very different terms. Harrison Ford describes acting as a craft involving learned skills while Al Pacino insists that it is an art requiring talent mined from deep within one’s own being. Many people refuse to consider photography an art because it can involve little effort to produce; this is in spite of the fact that many photographs are undeniably beautiful, more beautiful perhaps than an oil painting, with all the effort that went into producing it, which depicts the same image. Is making pottery art or craftwork? Is the pottery itself—dishes, plates, bowls and mugs—an art object? The debate can go on and on. One thing however that seems to be universally accepted* is that art is more highly appreciated and valued than the products of craftwork. It is difficult to say why exactly. It’s not necessarily as if producing art requires any less effort or concentration than that which goes into excellent craftsmanship. Phillip Lopate’s book, The Art of the Personal Essay, by its very title implies that the more “literary style” employed in the informal essay makes it more artistic than the drier, more “logical” formal essay. Lopate claims that that the conventions of formal essay writing require solid linguistic craftsmanship, but should not be clouded by literary—that is, artistic—flair.
Finally, as mentioned already above, some argue that all writing, no matter what the format or purpose or topic or point of view, is intrinsically creative. After all, putting letters (or “demons”) down to form words, which string together to form sentences, then paragraphs, and so on, creates meaning. One must use creative powers to communicate; and this could seem to some as if all writing is, essentially, artistic. English Language Arts teachers in this province have generally concurred that solid writing, no matter what the form, involves both more quantitative abilities as those which involve correct grammar, syntax, paragraph sequencing and transitions, and so on, as well as more qualitative ones such as insightfulness, analytical depth, figurative phrasing, etc. When we as a class begin to look at provincial marking rubrics you will hopefully understand and appreciate with attempts that have been made to value writing skills in a way that balances the quantitative with the qualitative.
*If I haven’t explained already, ask me why I have inserted an asterisk where I have.
(Continue to next page for questions…)
Questions based on the essay The Art (Craft?) of the Essay
Answer the following in full paragraphs. This will be assessed as part of your ‘Assignments/Essay’ mark (see course outline under the heading “Writing and Other Ways of Representing”, where assessment balances are shown).
This assignment will be assessed according to the following criteria: i) analytical depth and precision; ii) insightfulness; iii) linguistic expression (style, etc.); iv) overall effort and thoughtfulness.
1.a) In your own words, summarize the extended metaphor that Nikos Kazantzakas is using in the essay’s opening paragraph.
b) Do you think that he is being in any way literal when he refers to the letters on the page as “black (blue?) with tails and horns”? Explain.
2. In paragraph 2 it is postulated that, no matter what the stage of a person’s overall development in this area, language based skills can only ever improved by doing what?
3.a) In your own words, explain the basic differences between the so-called “formal” and “informal” essay types.
b) Can you understand why, based on claims made in this essay, the “informal essay” is often referred to as a “personal essay”? Explain.
4. Counting Kazantsakas’s quote as the essay’s paragraph 1, go to paragraph 6…
a) What pronoun change is made near its beginning?
b) Speculate on why I, as the essay’s author, made this change and share what you
come up with.
5. Based on claims made from within itself, is this essay written in a formal or
informal style? Explain.
6. In your own words, explain the difference between something that can be assessed
quantitatively versus qualitatively. (See Paragraph 8 for relevance.)
7. Give an example of something—it does not have to be a form of writing—that you
deem to be art, and another of something you consider to be the product of craft work.