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1 - Ancient Influences on the Essay

from Part I - Forming the British Essay

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 October 2024

Denise Gigante
Affiliation:
Stanford University, California
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Summary

Although there is no equivalent term for ‘essay’ in either Greek or Latin, ancient literature was instrumental to the development of the English essay in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in three principal ways. First, some classical prose works provided stylistic models for early English essayists. Second, some ancient authors (Seneca in particular) processed information in a way that resonated with later essay writers; even if there were not ancient essayists, there were ancient ways of reading and writing that were fundamentally essayistic. And finally, the essay became one of the principal ways that readers gained access to ancient texts and ideas.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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