Book Review: Essays and Essay Writing by William M. Tanner

Title: Essays and Essay Writing: Based on Atlantic Monthly Models

Editor: William M. Tanner

Published: Boston: The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1918. Pages-307.

This is embarrassing. I just recently bought this book at a used book store. I put it in my stack to read, my current stack to read that is. There have been many stacks that went unread and then eventually became assimilated into the ever-growing collection that is my home library. I had just finished reading one of the books in my “new” stack when I looked at this book and the spine. It seemed very familiar to me. Had I purchased this book before? Did another copy lurk on my shelves somewhere? I went exploring. Not only did I find another copy, I found two. I now have three copies of this book and I have never read it. Well, time to fix that! I will have to read it, see if it is any good, and then give a couple copies away to someone whom I think will enjoy it. That, my friends, is how this book came to be next in my review list.

What is an essay? Tanner explains it is difficult to understand historically what an essay is as it has been used to describe anything from a short paper to a multivolume discussion, prose to poetry, although the poetry does appear to be an outlier. So where did this all start? It started with Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) a French statesman and author who wrote a collection of thoughts and ponderings called the Essays of Montaigne. The word essay is derived from the French word that means a trial, attempt, or endeavor. After reading Montaigne I can completely understand that this is exactly what he meant by calling his works an essay. He attempts to explain certain phenomena and beliefs by his own personal observations and by what he has read. He is quite aware that he has in no way exhausted any subject he touches on. His Essays provide so many good anecdotes and stories that it would easily provide months, if not years, of conversation starters. Dr. Johnson (1709-1784) in his A Dictionary of the English Language, describes an essay as “A loose sally of the mind; an irregular, undigested piece; not a regular and orderly performance.” Tanner shows how this changes in his time with the (1916) version of the definition of an essay in the New English Dictionary, “a composition of moderate length on any particular subject; originally implying want of finish, “an irregular, undigested piece,” but now said of a composition more or less elaborate in style, though limited in range.” (At this point, I must admit how fascinated I am at how words change their meaning over time. I gobble this stuff up!) What Tanner does recognize is that “Throughout the entire history of the essay, personality has been a most important characteristic.” He explores various types of essays and decides there has been both a formal essay and an informal essay, or rather what he calls a familiar essay. It is to the latter that he will devote the rest of his book. Tanner quotes Arthur Christopher Benson (1862-1925), an Englishman, in his essay “On Essays at Large.”

“The true essay, then, is a tentative and personal treatment of a subject; it is a kind of improvisation on a delicate theme; a species of soliloquy, as if a man were to speak aloud the slender and whimsical thoughts that come into his mind when he is alone on a winter evening before a warm fire, and, closing his book, abandons himself to the luxury of genial reverie… The theme itself matters little – the art of it lies in the treatment. And the important thing is that the essay should possess what may be called atmosphere and personality; and thus it may be held to be of the essence of the matter that the result should appear to be natural, by whatever expenditure of toil that quality may need to be achieved…”[1]

Tanner classifies familiar essays into five general types.

Personal Experiences, Confessions, and Self-Analyses
Reflections and Comments on Life, Human Nature, Customs, and Experience
Observations and Discoveries in the Familiar and Commonplace
Nature Essays
General Observations, Comments, and Opinions of the Author.

He then gives a good piece of advice for essay writers.

“The beginning of an essay is, from the reader’s and from the writer’s point of view, very important. Unless the essay begins in an attractive fashion, few persons will be sufficiently interested to read beyond the first paragraph. Directness in beginning, clear, short, crisp sentences, a smooth, conversational style, and fair originality in thought… will do much to give the essay a favorable introduction to the reader.”

In other words, if you don’t hook the fish, how can you reel him in? Good advice. Tanner then gives eight rules of how to get the most out of reading an essay. These are pretty good, and you might know them already, but I thought them worth repeating.

Read the essay carefully and try to determine the thesis. Can you state it in one sentence?
What is the method the author used in developing and amplifying their central idea? Did they use concrete details, illustrations from personal experience and observations, or literary and historical allusions?
Is it a familiar essay? What makes it one? Is it purely expository, a narrative, or something in between?
Consider the subject matter, the writer’s personality, his mood. Is it interesting? What does the essay say about the author? Is the subject inherently interesting or is it the author’s presentation that makes it so?
Think of the author’s style, is it easy, flowing, rhythmic, melodious, graceful, picturesque, transparent, graphic, direct, forceful, clear, epigrammatic, intense, eloquent, polished, abrupt, rugged, cautious, tame, restrained, trite, flat, wordy? Read the essay out loud and test its naturalness of expression and the conversational quality of style.
Observe the structure of the paragraphs and sentences. What about the authors choice of words strikes you as distinctive?
Take the time to look up words and references you do not understand.
Read as widely as possible in standard literature.

There are 69 essays included in the book under the five classes I mentioned earlier. I find it particularly frustrating that the editor does not state who wrote the essays. They were all supposedly published over the years in the Atlantic Monthly Magazine. Many of them are very good and a modern reader will get more than just evaluating an essay out of reading them. Some of them are timeless, others you have to imagine yourself back in time to understand where the writer is coming from. Tanner gives a small blurb before each section which is an adequate introduction to each of his classifications. However, I felt that it would have been much better to have a critical analysis after each essay, even if that meant excluding several of the essays. I guess I have been spoiled by reading too many critical insights. It appears he is really relying on the initiative of the reader to forensically dissect each essay. Or it may be that it was meant as a text book and these would be done in class or as assignments. Tanner finishes the book with an appendix of 250 subjects that might spawn a creative idea for the student essayist.

Overall the book has some good ideas. I would recommend the introduction as a good standalone just by itself. The collection of essays is very good, but too numerous and diverse for me to comment on them, especially since that it not really the focus of the book. Each of them is only a few pages and some are actually quite profound. I would not be surprised to learn that some of these were written by persons of note from the late 19^th and early 20^th century.

[1] William M. Tanner, Essays and Essay Writing: Based on Atlantic Monthly Models, (Boston: The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1918). Introduction, Page xx.