Writing and Reading the Essay

Image of Creston Clarke writing with quill pen.

Creston Clarke. Writing with quill pen, as a character in a play. Ca. 1890. (Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [reproduction number, LC-USZ62-128868 (b&w film copy neg.)])

Instructor(s)

MIT Course Number

21W.735

As Taught In

Fall 2004

Level

Undergraduate

Cite This Course

Course Description

Course Features

Course Description

As the course title suggests, this class is meant to acquaint you with the literary and rhetorical tradition of the essay, a genre which has been described by one scholar as "the meeting ground between art and philosophy," and by another as "the place where the self finds a pattern in the world, and the world finds a pattern in the self". Though the essay is part of a tradition of prose which stretches back to antiquity, it is also a thoroughly modern and popular form of writing, found in print media and on the web.

Related Content

Anthony Lioi. 21W.735 Writing and Reading the Essay. Fall 2004. Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare, https://ocw.mit.edu. License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA.


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