What is an Essay? Did you Know the Importance of it?

What is an Essay? 

Dr. Johnson defines an essay as “a loose sally of the mind.' an irregular, indigested piece, not a regular and orderly” and the information supplied by the Concise Oxford Dictionary is that an essay is “a literary composition on any subject, usually in prose, and short”.

But it is really a written attempt, within certain limits of time .and space to describe, or to arrive at the truth concerning the person, thing or fact, referred to in the subject of the essay. The school essay is an exercise in original composition. It may be narrative, or descriptive, or a blend of these, and it may deals with almost endless variety of subjects. “Anything will serve the essayist, from the death of great general or a great author to a chalk-mark on the door.” He can take up any subject he likes “from the stars to dust heaps and from the amoeba to man,” or as Lynd puts it, “anything from the Day of Judgment to a pair of scissors.” Even a pin lying on the road may set him a musing,  or  he may  write an  essay  on  “Nothing”.  Therefore, according  to  Mr.  Benson,  “the essential point about an essay is not the subject but the charm of personality” which pervades the entire essay. The subject does not matter: what matters are “that the thing or the thought should be vividly apprehended, enjoyed, felt to be beautiful and expressed with a certain gusto.” 

You cannot make an essay attractive, if you do not give it lightness, grace and ease: nor can you make it interesting unless you show, that you are yourself interested in what you are saying. Behind the essay is the man who wrote it. Therefore, if the essay does not convey the impression of the writer’s personality, it loses much of its charm as a work of art.