The Art of the Personal Essay

About this book

For more than four hundred years the personal essay has been one of the richest and most vibrant of all literary forms. Distinguished from the detached formal essay by its friendly conversational tone its loose structure and its drive toward candor and self-disclosure the personal essay seizes on the minutiae of daily life-vanities fashions foibles oddballs seasonal rituals love and disappointment the pleasures of solitude reading taking a walk -- to offer insight into the human condition and the great social and political issues of the day. The Art of the Personal Essay is the first anthology to celebrate this fertile genre. By presenting more than seventy-five personal essays including influential forerunners from ancient Greece Rome and the Far East masterpieces from the dawn of the personal essay in the sixteenth century and a wealth of the finest personal essays from the last four centuries editor Phillip Lopate himself an acclaimed essayist displays the tradition of the personal essay in all its historical grandeur depth and diversity.