| CODE | ENG1278 | ||||||||
| TITLE | The Art of the Essay | ||||||||
| UM LEVEL | 01 - Year 1 in Modular Undergraduate Course | ||||||||
| MQF LEVEL | 5 | ||||||||
| ECTS CREDITS | 2 | ||||||||
| DEPARTMENT | English | ||||||||
| DESCRIPTION | This study-unit aims at introducing students to the essay as a genre and to several key moments and names in its illustrious history. While contemporary definitions of the term, ‘essay’, allow us to sketch a prehistory of the genre in the writing of classical writers like Cicero, Plutarch and Seneca, the first author to use the term ‘essay’ for his writing was Montaigne, who conceived of his ‘essais’ as ‘attempts’ or ‘trials’ through which he could explore thoughts and ideas in a relatively new form of writing. The essay genre includes a wide variety of subgenres, such as literary criticism, political manifestos, polemics, observations of daily life, recollections and reflections. Essays may be personal, lyric, persuasive or opinion based. However, what unites this range of texts is that the essay is non-fictional but subjective at the same time. The essay allows writers to pose questions and explore possible answers, using a wide range of writing and reflective strategies that make the genre flexible enough to accommodate writers with very different interests and temperaments. Essayists may use the form to explore personal experience or to make political or social observations. They may use it to document society or the world around them or to reflect about universal human issues. While the genre does not originate in England or America, the essay in English, which is the primary focus of this study-unit, has been flourishing consistently since the 17th century. The essayists to be discussed during the lectures may include Addison, Bacon, Chesterton, Eliot, Hazlitt, Huxley, Johnson, Lamb, Orwell, Shaw, Steele, Swift, and Woolf. The study-unit will combine an overview of the main historical milestones of the genre with the close reading and analysis of exemplary essays taken from different authors and times. Students will be expected to read essays on a weekly basis and will be guided in developing an appreciative attitude towards the form and all the writing possibilities it offers. Study-unit Aims: - To make students aware of the art of the essay as a genre with a well-established tradition; - To highlight the key milestones in the history of the essay; - To analyse and appreciate a number of carefully selected exemplary essays written over the genre's 400 year history; - To explore the main theoretical literature around the essay form; - To foster an appreciation for the artistic use of English in non-fictional contexts. Learning Outcomes: 1. Knowledge & Understanding: By the end of the study-unit the student will be: - Able to provide an analysis of the art and craft of essay writing through close examination of a number of examples of the genre; - Able to describe some of the main writing strategies that essayists may sue in their work; - Able to compare the essay writing of a number of major essayists; - Aware of the main milestones in the development of the essay genre; - Able to appreciate the use of linguistic and literary devices in essays; - Able to write an essay which critically discusses the main characteristics of given essays or excerpts from essays. 2. Skills: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - Apply critical thinking skills in the analysis of essay writing; - Write about the ways in which various language strategies contribute to the writing of memorable and effective essays; - Use essay writing strategies discussed in the study-unit in their own writing; - Evaluate and appreciate renowned examples of essay writing; - Analyse the role of structure, development, use of language, rhetorical devices and literary devices in the essay genre. Main Text/s and any supplementary readings: The students will be provided with and asked to read selected essays from a range of essayists, whose work is reproduced in different collections of essays. Most of the essays selected are in the public domain due to the expiration of copyright. The following texts are indicative of the reading to be done: - A J Butryn, Essays on the Essay: Redefining the Genre (University of Georgia Press, 1989). - Carl H Klaus, Essayists on the Essay: Montaigne to Our Time (University of Iowa Press, 2012). - John Gross, The Oxford Book of Essays (Oxford Books of Prose and Verse, 2008). - John Robert Moore (ed.), Representative Essays: English and American (Literary Licensing, 2012). |
||||||||
| STUDY-UNIT TYPE | Lecture | ||||||||
| METHOD OF ASSESSMENT |
|
||||||||
| LECTURER/S | Mario Aquilina |
||||||||
|
The University makes every effort to ensure that the published Courses Plans, Programmes of Study and Study-Unit information are complete and up-to-date at the time of publication. The University reserves the right to make changes in case errors are detected after publication.
The availability of optional units may be subject to timetabling constraints. Units not attracting a sufficient number of registrations may be withdrawn without notice. It should be noted that all the information in the description above applies to study-units available during the academic year 2023/4. It may be subject to change in subsequent years. |
|||||||||