The Edinburgh Companion to the Essay - (Edinburgh Companions to Literature and the Humanities)

About the Book

Provides a comprehensive overview of the essay, with a focus on current debates about the form.

Book Synopsis

The Edinburgh Companion to the Essay distinguishes itself by the wide range and scope of its themes, voices and approaches. Thirty-five leading essayists, literary critics and writing instructors explore the essay from multiple perspectives, including its theories, forms and histories as well as its cultural, political and pedagogical contexts. In particular, the volume extends the theory of the essay by addressing topics such as the construction of an essayistic self and the political dimensions of essaying. It further explores the relationship between the essay and other forms, such as philosophical writing, the column, science writing, the novel, the lyric and the advert as well as the essay in digital spaces.

From the Back Cover

Provides a comprehensive overview of the essay, with a focus on current debates about the form The Edinburgh Companion to the Essay distinguishes itself by the wide range and scope of its themes, voices and approaches. Thirty-five leading essayists, literary critics and writing instructors explore the essay from multiple perspectives, including its theories, forms and histories as well as its cultural, political and pedagogical contexts. In particular, the volume extends the theory of the essay by addressing topics such as the construction of an essayistic self and the political dimensions of essaying. It further explores the relationship between the essay and other forms, such as philosophical writing, the column, science writing, the novel, the lyric and the advert as well as the essay in digital spaces. The book includes interviews with eight renowned contemporary writers (Robert Atwan, Brian Dillon, Kaitlyn Greenidge, Leslie Jamison, Jamaica Kincaid, Claudia Rankine, David Shields and Rebecca Solnit) who offer insights into their own essays as well as their views on the contemporary essay. The Editors Mario Aquilina is Senior Lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Malta, where he teaches and researches the essay, literary theory, Shakespeare and modernist literature. He has edited The Essay at the Limits: Poetics, Politics and Form (2021) and authored The Event of Style in Literature (2014). Bob Cowser Jr is Professor of English at St. Lawrence University in Canton, NY. He is the author of three nonfiction books, most recently Green Fields, Crime Punishment and a Boyhood Between (2010) and is also the editor of Why We're Here: Essayists on Living Upstate (2010). Nicole B. Wallack is the Director of the Undergraduate Writing Program and Senior Lecturer in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York. She is the author of Crafting Presence: The American Essay and the Future of Writing Studies (2017).

Review Quotes

This admirable entry in the wide-ranging series "Edinburgh Companions to Literature and the Arts" is a must-read for anyone interested in the art of the essay. [...] Summing Up: Essential.--D. M. Moore, University of Iowa "CHOICE"

To appreciate the full breadth and depth of the essay, you need a diverse array of guides and that is what you will find in this volume, where scholars, teachers and writers combine to reveal the pleasures and powers of this versatile literary form and its relevance to the issues of our day.--Scott Russell Sanders, Author of The Way of Imagination and Earth Works: Selected Essays

Underlying the chapters--and adding significantly to their effectiveness--is a sense that the contributors enjoy the form they're writing about. Their grasp of essayistic literature, particularly in its contemporary manifestations, is impressive. This means that their analyses are supported by a persuasive range of example and reference. The Edinburgh Companion to the Essay offers a wide-ranging, multifaceted, and engaging examination of this hard-to-pin-down genre. It will be an invaluable guide both for those approaching the essay for the first time and those already well versed in it who wish to further their understanding of its mercurial nature and seemingly endless possibilities.--Chris Arthur "World Literature Today"

While the essay as a form might embrace ambiguity and uncertainty, the expert essays compiled herein are clear and authoritative in their historical and formal sweep. This volume is serious-minded and impressive in its scope, but never boring. It's high time for such a necessary examination of this vital and ever-evolving form.--Robin Hemley, Author of Borderline Citizen, Dispatches from the Outskirts of Nationhood and Founder, NonfictioNow

About the Author

Mario Aquilina is Senior Lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Malta, where he teaches and researches the essay, literary theory, Shakespeare and modernist literature. He has edited The Essay at the Limits: Poetics, Politics and Form (Bloomsbury Academic, 2021) and authored The Event of Style in Literature (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). Aquilina has published widely on literature, literary theory and the essay in book chapters and in journals such as Oxford Literary Review, Cahiers Elisabethains, CounterText, Interdisciplinary Literary Studies and electronicbookreview.

Nicole B. Wallack is the Director of the Undergraduate Writing Program and Senior Lecturer in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York. She is the author of Crafting Presence: The American Essay and the Future of Writing Studies (Utah State UP, 2017). She is also a senior faculty associate of the Institute for Writing and Thinking at Bard College where she designs and leads professional development workshops and seminars for educators across disciplines and educational contexts. Wallack publishes and teaches in the fields of essay studies, writing studies, English education, and educational history.

Bob Cowser Jr. is Professor of English at St. Lawrence University in Canton, NY, where he has taught courses in nonfiction writing, film and American literature since 1998. He is the author of three nonfiction books and editor of a fourth, most recently Green Fields, Crime Punishment and a Boyhood Between (UNO Press 2010), which won "Best Memoir 2010" from the Adirondack Center for Writers and was cited in Best American Essays. Cowser is also the editor of Why We're Here: Essayists on Living Upstate (Colgate UP 2010) and serves as advisory editor to the online journal ASSAY: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies.