. A study in certain seventeenth century essays. iterature, biographiesof them sufficiently detailed to be useful in determining the origiiand growth of trie essay form were not to be had. Neither is it possible in a thesis of this length to con-sider minutely the essDyists of a period covering more than acentury. In every case thorough analysis of each writer has beenmanifestly impossible. What has been attempted is not such a de-tailed investigation - interesting as that would be -,but a generalstudy of the tendencies evident in the essay during the firsthundred years of its existence in Eng
. A study in certain seventeenth century essays. iterature, biographiesof them sufficiently detailed to be useful in determining the origiiand growth of trie essay form were not to be had. Neither is it possible in a thesis of this length to con-sider minutely the essDyists of a period covering more than acentury. In every case thorough analysis of each writer has beenmanifestly impossible. What has been attempted is not such a de-tailed investigation - interesting as that would be -,but a generalstudy of the tendencies evident in the essay during the firsthundred years of its existence in England, Doubtless a decided narrowing of the material would havebrought more definite results, results more valuable to the science- if there is a science - of literature. But to one trying togain a broadly sympathetic yet historical knowledge of the wholefield too nice limitation of subject matter is a great disadvan-tage. Hence I chose to cover a square mile of English literaturefairly superficially, rather than to limit my horizon by carefully. digging over one square inch. The following discussion, then, is a preliminary surveyof a whole field, here and there filled in with details, but ingeneral showing large tendencies and movements and outliningvarious hypotheses which may be fully verified - or perhaps com-pletely overthrown - only hy prolonged study impossible to acandidate for a masters degree. 3 Chapter 1, THE ESSAY AS A LITERARY studying the essay,the greatest obstacle arises from thedifficulty of defining the word itself. Though there are few lit-erary terms more generally employed, there is probably none usedmore vaguely than this same word essay. It seems almost as ifevery form of prose which cannot be readily fitted into any otherliterary name scheme is tossed at once into the essay group eitherby the authors themselves or by the critics. Even if there is no siit-division of the essay class with which the new arrival canit affiliateAmakes little difference
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Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectenglishliterature
