Literary Nonfiction: The Art of the Essay (WRI 212) is being taught by Professor Anne Boyle in Fall 2015 at Wake Forest University. The writing that appears on this site is the fruit of a semester’s labor.
The essay, within the province of SAT preparation and the common core (and even within the College), has been narrowed to mean: an exercise of summary and argument that is required of students in order to prove their proficiency in a subject and in analysis and logic. This is not necessarily sinful; but, the essay has meant, in its relatively short history as a genre, something more immediate and lively too. This class is about the essay that is an action of the individual mind on the world as it seeks to understand it. Essay means: A trial. It is how we test things out. It is an experiment of experience. It is essentially Romantic. It is the internal understood through the external. It is the transparent eyeball.
We will survey the history of the personal essay from Seneca through Eula Biss; from Sei Shonagon to David Foster Wallace; from Montaigne to Jenny Boully. We will imitate the styles and methods of these authors throughout the course. The focus will not be on critical writing and research, but on making new knowledge through your own, direct experience. Frequent writing, reading, peer review and conferencing will be the central work of the course. By the end of the course, students should have a better theoretical and practical understanding of the history of the essay; its contemporary modes; and how to write the genre of the personal, meditative essay.