Editing Essay (section)

==History==
{{globalize|date=January 2011}}

===Montaigne===
Montaigne's "attempts" grew out of his [[commonplacing]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/webexhibits/bookusebooktheory/commonplacethinking.html |title=Book Use Book Theory: 1500–1700: Commonplace Thinking |publisher=Lib.uchicago.edu |access-date=2013-08-10 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130801200451/http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/webexhibits/bookusebooktheory/commonplacethinking.html |archive-date=2013-08-01 }}</ref>  Inspired in particular by the works of [[Plutarch]], a translation of whose ''Œuvres Morales'' (''Moral works'') into French had just been published by [[Jacques Amyot]], Montaigne began to compose his essays in 1572; the first edition, entitled ''[[Essays (Montaigne)|Essais]]'', was published in two volumes in 1580.<ref>{{Cite book  |year=1580 |last=    Montaigne |first=Michel de  |title=    Essais de messire Michel de Montaigne,... livre premier et second   |publisher=    impr. de S. Millanges (Bourdeaus)   |edition=I  |url=http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8609579f/f5.image|access-date=22 November 2019|via= Gallica}}</ref>  For the rest of his life, he continued revising previously published essays and composing new ones. A third volume was published posthumously; together, their over 100 examples are widely regarded as the predecessor of the modern essay.

===Europe===
While Montaigne's philosophy was admired and copied in France, none of his most immediate disciples tried to write essays. But Montaigne, who liked to fancy that his family (the Eyquem line) was of English extraction, had spoken of the English people as his "cousins", and he was early read in England, notably by [[Francis Bacon]].{{sfn|Gosse|1911|p=777}}

Bacon's [[Essays (Francis Bacon)|essays]], published in book form in 1597 (only five years after the death of Montaigne, containing the first ten of his essays),{{sfn|Gosse|1911|p=777}} 1612, and 1625, were the first works in English that described themselves as ''essays''. [[Ben Jonson]] first used the word ''essayist'' in 1609, according to the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]''.
Other English essayists included [[William Cornwallis (died 1614)|Sir William Cornwallis]], who published essays in 1600 and 1617 that were popular at the time,{{sfn|Gosse|1911|p=777}} [[Robert Burton (scholar)|Robert Burton]] (1577–1641) and [[Sir Thomas Browne]] (1605–1682). In Italy, [[Baldassare Castiglione]] wrote about courtly manners in his essay ''Il Cortigiano''. In the 17th century, the Spanish [[Jesuit]] [[Baltasar Gracián]] wrote about the theme of wisdom.<ref name="britannica1">[https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/192869/essay Essay (literature) – Britannica Online Encyclopedia] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091204053246/https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/192869/essay |date=2009-12-04 }}. Britannica.com. Retrieved March 22, 2011.</ref>

In England, during the [[Age of Enlightenment]], essays were a favored tool of polemicists who aimed at convincing readers of their position; they also featured heavily in the rise of [[periodical literature]], as seen in the works of [[Joseph Addison]], [[Richard Steele]] and [[Samuel Johnson]]. Addison and Steele used the journal ''[[Tatler (1709 journal)|Tatler]]'' (founded in 1709 by Steele) and its successors as storehouses of their work, and they became the most celebrated eighteenth-century essayists in England. Johnson's essays appear during the 1750s in various similar publications.{{sfn|Gosse|1911|p=777}} As a result of the focus on journals, the term also acquired a meaning synonymous with "[[Article (publishing)|article]]", although the content may not the strict definition. On the other hand, Locke's ''An Essay Concerning Human Understanding'' is not an essay at all, or cluster of essays, in the technical sense, but still it refers to the experimental and tentative nature of the inquiry which the philosopher was undertaking.{{sfn|Gosse|1911|p=777}}

In the 18th and 19th centuries, [[Edmund Burke]] and [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]] wrote essays for the general public. The early 19th century, in particular, saw a proliferation of great essayists in English—[[William Hazlitt]], [[Charles Lamb]], [[Leigh Hunt]] and [[Thomas De Quincey]] all penned numerous essays on diverse subjects, reviving the earlier graceful style. [[Thomas Carlyle]]'s essays were highly influential, and one of his readers, [[Ralph Waldo Emerson]], became a prominent essayist himself. Later in the century, [[Robert Louis Stevenson]] also raised the form's literary level.{{sfn|Gosse|1911|p=778}} In the 20th century, a number of essayists, such as [[T.S. Eliot]], tried to explain the new movements in art and culture by using essays. [[Virginia Woolf]], [[Edmund Wilson]], and [[Charles du Bos]] wrote literary criticism essays.<ref name="britannica1"/>

In France, several writers produced longer works with the title of {{lang|fr|essai}} that were not true examples of the form. However, by the mid-19th century, the ''Causeries du lundi'', newspaper columns by the critic [[Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve|Sainte-Beuve]], are literary essays in the original sense. Other French writers followed suit, including [[Théophile Gautier]], [[Anatole France]], [[Jules Lemaître]] and [[Émile Faguet]].{{sfn|Gosse|1911|p=778}}

===Japan===
{{main|Zuihitsu}}
As with the [[novel]], essays existed in Japan several centuries before they developed in Europe with a genre of essays known as ''zuihitsu''—loosely connected essays and fragmented ideas. Zuihitsu have existed since almost the beginnings of Japanese literature. Many of the most noted early works of Japanese literature are in this genre. Notable examples include ''[[The Pillow Book]]'' (c. 1000), by court lady [[Sei Shōnagon]], and ''[[Tsurezuregusa]]'' (1330), by particularly renowned Japanese Buddhist monk [[Yoshida Kenkō]]. Kenkō described his short writings similarly to Montaigne, referring to them as "nonsensical thoughts" written in "idle hours". Another noteworthy difference from Europe is that women have traditionally written in Japan, though the more formal, Chinese-influenced writings of male writers were more prized at the time.

=== China ===
The '''[[eight-legged essay]]''' ([[Traditional Chinese characters|Chinese]]: 八股文; [[pinyin]]: ''bāgǔwén''; <small>[[Literal translation|lit.]]</small> 'eight bone text') was a style of essay in [[imperial examination]]s during the [[Ming Dynasty|Ming]] and [[Qing Dynasty|Qing]] dynasties in China. The eight-legged essay was needed for those test takers in these civil service tests to show their merits for government service, often focusing on [[Confucian]] thought and knowledge of the [[Four Books and Five Classics]], in relation to governmental ideals. Test takers could not write in innovative or creative ways, but needed to conform to the standards of the eight-legged essay. Various skills were examined, including the ability to write coherently and to display basic logic. In certain times, the candidates were expected to spontaneously compose poetry upon a set theme, whose value was also sometimes questioned, or eliminated as part of the test material. This was a major argument in favor of the eight-legged essay, arguing that it were better to eliminate creative art in favor of prosaic literacy. In the history of Chinese literature, the eight-legged essay is often said to have caused China's "cultural stagnation and economic backwardness" in the 19th century.<ref>Elman, Benjamin A. (2009). "Eight-Legged Essay" (PDF). In Cheng, Linsun (ed.). ''Berkshire Encyclopedia of China''. Berkshire Publishing Group. pp. 695–989. {{ISBN|9780190622671}}.</ref>