The art of the personal essay - Phillip Lopate

For more than four hundred years, the personalessay has been one of the richest and most vibrantof all literary forms. Distinguished from thedetached formal essay by its friendly, conversationaltone, its loose structure, and its drive towardcandor and self-disclosure, the personal essayseizes on the minutiae of daily life-vanities,fashions, foibles, oddballs, seasonal rituals, love anddisappointment, the pleasures of solitude,reading, taking a walk -- to offer insight into thehuman condition and the great social and politicalissues of the day. The Art of the Personal Essay isthe first anthology to celebrate this fertilegenre. By presenting more than seventy-five personalessays, including influential forerunners fromancient Greece, Rome, and the Far East,masterpieces from the dawn of the personal essay in thesixteenth century, and a wealth of the finestpersonal essays from the last four centuries, editorPhillip Lopate, himself an acclaimed essayist,displays the tradition of the personal essay in allits historical grandeur, depth, anddiversity.