In- Betweeness: The Burden of the Essay Introduction/ Summary G. Douglas Atkins embraces the very qualities that have moved others to accord the essay second-class citizenship in the world of letters and employs words like ‘embodied truth’, ‘incarnate form’ and ‘via media’ for essay. Drawing from the work of Montaigne and Bacon and recent practitioners such as E. B. White and Cynthia Ozick, Atkins shows what the essay means-and how it comes to mean. The essay, related to assaying (attempting), mines experience for meaning, which it then carefully weighs. It is a via media creature, says Atkins, bom of and embracing tension. It exists in places between experience and meaning, literature and philosophy, self and other, process and product, form and formlessness. Moreover, as a literary form the essay is inseparable from a way of life requiring wisdom, modesty. and honesty. "The essay was, historically," notes Atkins, "the first form to take the experience of the individual and make it the stuff of literature.” Along with the description of the essay as a second-class kind, Atkins often draws upon the formulation that essay ‘lies between’. As literature procures the experience, only the essay, says Atkins, gives us a reflection upon experience. That is where the title of the study — Through experience to truth — reveals its enigmatic character. Every time, argues Atkins, when a novel inclines to the didactic, it gets closer to the essay. While fiction tells the reader only what not should be done, the essays purpose is exhortative: what to do and to be. It lays only a step from the pure reflection that is to say on the classification area between literature and philosophy, It is commonly known that the object of philosophy is to find the reasons of the truth. The essay is not able to reflect upon pure concepts and ideas because “being, for the essay, is always incarnate’. Its rooted in the experience and — at the same time — it strives for the disembodied idols; the truth itself. Doughlas asserts that essay, in its self-effacing, modest, and humble way points to Ultimate Truth. Atkins has managed to prove that the modest distinction of essay as a form conceals the range of scientific questions which goes beyond literature researchComparison of Essay with other literary forms by means of two variables- experience and meaning: «© Fssay’s relation fo novel: via social criticism and treatment of manner, Example— Virginia Woolf's Between the Acts # Doghlas also mentions two periodicals = Zazler und Spectator (A little Buckgrouad- ‘The English periodical essay began its frst flowering in The Tatler, reaching its full bloom in the hands of Joseph Addison, Addison seems to have made his frst contribution to it in the 18th issue, ‘Two months after The Tailer ceased publication, he and Steele launched the brilliant periodical The Spectator.) «Essay and Lyric: Example ~ Pope's An Essay om Criticisin and an essay on Man « Difference between Essay and short story- in the essay the essayist voices his opinion based om experience . an essay offers a reliable narrator therefore essay is qualified as the embodied truth (incamate form), « Difference between essay and fiction- In essays, the speaker weighs and assesses his experience, pointing to the meaning of it; in fiction, the reader does much or even most of this interpretive work 1 Essay belongs tothe category of ‘non-fiction’ because we take the essayist and his narrator or persona to be one and the same. Doughilas’ views ou essay: + Donghlas deduces that assay occupies a middle ground and shares common attibutes of fiction and philosophy. For instance essay borrows themes. story. character and plot from fiction and analysis, reflection from philosophy. Example — Tom Jones by Henry Fielding, # Subject Matter of ess y is a combination of experience, the experiencing self und the iterpretive meaning and experience. « Essay is built from human experience as it shuns the literary reality and even notion of the ideas {abstract notions). Since an essayist presents an idea from the experience of world, people, books, events they experienced first-hand. .S.Eliot names this process as Incarnation,Introduction Essayist G. Doughlas Atkins presented his readers what has never been presented before: classifying the term “essay.” He exploits it to its core, covering every aspect possible. He starts with essay’s relation to the literary forms which are known, then proceeds to the unexplored areas of fiction and philosophy. He discusses the purpose of an essay, covering subjects as embodied truth, ultimate truth/concern, incarnation and morality. Key Word: imbodied truth, ultimate concern, incarnation, didactic, verse, transcendent, moral. In Betweeness: The Burden of Essay © Essay’s relation to other literary forms 1. ‘Definite’ Article: Professional or Scholarly writing According to 'William H. Gass “the essay’s relation to definite article is the opposite of the form "Montaigne bequeathed to us” 2. Novel + American novelist, short story writer, critic and essayist 2 French philosopher during the renaissance, known for popularizing essays asa literary genre. He hal a tendency of digressing his essays into anacdotes and personal considerations, making him different from others.The essay’s relation to novel is via social criticism and treatment of manners in “the Tatler and “the Spectator 3. Lyric As in versified form of Alexander Pope’s ‘Essay on Man’ and ‘Essay on Criticism’, William Wordsworth’s ‘Preface to the Lyrical Ballads’ and Virginia Woolf's ‘Between the Acts’ * Inability of anyone to consider essay’s relation to fiction and philosophy © Essay’s difference from short story 1. In the essay, meaning is extracted from experience of the writer. In fiction, meaning is extracted by reader. 2, In essay, the narrator is (usually) reliable, Whereas, in fiction, they are not. 3. Essay is labelled as non-fiction. « Subject Matter — It is not merely the experience or the meaning understood from the experience. Rather everything that has happen: combination of experience, self and the meaning and significance derived and passed along. © Position of the Essay with respect to Fiction and Philosophy It occupies a middle position like: 2 British Literary and society joumal by Richard Steele (1709) “Journal by Richard Steele and Joseph Addison (1711)fiction essay philosophy « Essay has common features with both fiction and philosophy. Fiction — Is like it because it has the appearance of plot and characters. Philosophy — Borrows reflection, analysis and judgments from it. Eg. of 5Tom Jones, “Moby Dick and 7Adam Bede; all three of them are fictions with philosophy incorporated as essay about the art of living life. Essays are reflection upon experience, and if the reflection is related to philosophy, experience is that of fiction. Therefore, fiction essay philosophy experience reflection upon experience reflection * Philosophy derives meaning from reflection, whereas fiction derives meaning from experience. Philosophy presented as fiction — eg. of Thomas Carlyle’s “Sartor Resartus” Essay draws freely from literature, An essayist presents an idea from the experience of world, people, books, events they experienced firsthand. T.S. Eliot names this process as Incarnation. © Everything an essayist presents is via Sposteriori, which happens to be their great ability: of being clear sighted, Eg. of American essayist Wendell Berry’s * English novel by Henry Fielding (1749) American novel by Herman Melville (1853) > English novel by George Eliot (1859) * Latin for "Knowledge by experience”“The Art of the Commonplace”, a book with 21 essays where he makes art out of the everyday things we might not pay attention to, Essays foreground meaning along with represented experience. So it becomes the balanced creature, fiction essay philosophy experience meaning word/flesh spirit immanence transcendence what not to do what to do and be what to be/not to be When a novel shifts to didactic or hortatory, it verges on the essay. For eg. Herman Hesse’s “Siddharta” Fiction’s aim: To tell us how not to live our lives rather than how to, what mistakes one should avoid. Difference between Fiction and Philosophy 1. Fiction shows us “how it is” rather than “how it ought to be.” Philosophy shows us “what to be and not to be.” 2, Fiction depends on some material. Whereas, philosophy depends on transcendental ideas 3. Fiction represents embodied ideas through characters and events. Philosophy represents disembodied ideas.© Between fiction and philosophy, essay directly reflects on “what to do.” They are didactic and encouraging than fiction. So, essay acts like a sermon. Essay aims to direct its readers not just toward what to do but also how to be ¢ Essay is less grand than fiction, more skeptical than philosophy. Nevertheless, it points to the Ultimate Truth. * Alexander Pope- Essays Renaissance basis The essayist appreciates Pope’s “An Essay on Man” because his style and idea is similar to that of Montaigne: To look into man and leave alone those matters that really are no concern to him in his everyday existence. The essay mines its meaning from experience. In doing so, it participates in the universal pattern of Incarnation, the epitome of which is Christ’s embodying of God. © Cynthia Ozick- The Jew Essayist In her essay “The Riddle of the Ordinary”, she defines ordinariness as a breathing space: between getting born and dying, between rapture and rupture or between one disaster and the next. In short, it is everything that we do in our lives. As a Jewish, for her, the act of worshipping is something which comes between ourselves and the god. She says, “The creator is not contained in his own creation; the creator is incarnate in nothing, and is free of any image or imagining.”She evokes a thought in essayist’s mind from the question: How do we get from the Ordinary to the extraordinary? In the pattern the essay enacts, the essayist has claimed, meaning plays transcendent to experience’s immanent, but that is only a_ structural participation in that pattern, short of its content, which is religious and consumes of the extraordinary. In Ozick’s terms, The Extraordinary appears in the person of Jesus Christ, God becomes man. Essays derive meaning, which that remains on the level of ordinary and so does not attain the transcendent level, in other words, does not transcend the ordinary. In such cases, the meaning misses the bull’s eye. Exceptions — Alexander Pope’s essays as they are in verse, so they usually aren’t considered to be essays. Nevertheless, those poems mark their familiarity with essays: they are modest, dogmatic, conversational in tone and address, intensely moral, etc. The concern of those poems is with man in his relations with the world, other men and with himself. They include the Ultimate, for if the proper study of the mankind is man. Judgement is made via their everyday conduct. Pope makes it clear that we should be led upward to God.Doghilas’ views on Cynthia Ozick’s “The Riddle of the Ordin: # Inher essay The Riddle of the Ordinary Ozick defines ordinariness as a breathing space: between getting born and dying, between rapture and rupture or between one disaster and the next. « She states for her as a Jew, the act of worshipping creation is idolatry. She expresses her views and states, “The creator is not contained in his own creation: the creator is incarnate in nothing, and is free of any image or imagining.” But on this point Doughlas differs in his opinion as he believes in truth to be incarnate and also in the Incarnation. Yet she evokes a thought in essayist’s mind from the question: How do we get from the Ordinary to the extraordinary’? Doughlas states that although he had claimed, meaning plays transcendent to experience’s immanent, but it is only a structural participation. + Doughlas states that instance of extraordinary in Ozick’s terms would be incarnation of Jesus Chiist as a man, However Doughlas concludes by stating that essays derive meaning, which remains on the level of ordinary and so does not attain the transcendent level, in other words, meaning falls short of potential and is thus reduced.« An essayist does not make an immediate shift between ideal or phenomenal (concrete materialistic things) # Essays foreground meaning along with represented experience. Let the latter overwhelm, and the essay becomes fiction or memoir or autobiography; conversely, let meaning dominate and the essay tums into philosophy or perhaps theology. © When a novel shifts into the didactic or hortatory, it verges on the essay: Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha, for instance, in which experience serves mainly as a backdrop and occasion for analysis, reflection, and discrimination of meaning. « Essays reflect, more or less directly, on what to do, © The essay has been linked to the sermon; it aims to direct its readers not just toward what to do but also, thereby, how to be. « Essay in its self-effacing, modest, and humble way, points to Ultimate Truth.Doughlas’ views on John Dryden’s “Religio Laici + Religio Laici embodies the range ofthe form's possibilities reveals how the essay can aspire to, reach, and reflect on ultimate concems. « Dryden represents man’s ecclesiastical choice in moral terms, much like the lates Pope—the preferred way hore, however, is explicitly moderate, a holy compromise berwoon competing extremes, + Dryden would have the laymuaa restrict hinself tothe realm of comuion concents and seus, leavi abstruse theological questions to churchinen, ‘The public takes precedence over the private the individual needing to subordinate himself tothe ‘whole, Tae issue is stubbomly moral: Dryden represents religions choices as retlecive of the ‘kind of person one is, Doghlas quotes certain lines to substantiate his argument {til eur Reason mins another way, Thar private Renson “ie mere Sus ta cur, Than by Dispaies the pubic Peace ahsmrb. For poms obscure are of small set learn But Connon quiet is Mankind’s concern Sohn Dryden, Religio Latch, tines 446-450 {Dryden concludes the poem with a ples for moderation in all things including religious debate. On this subject, more than all others. it behoyes each citizen to ‘carb’ their ‘private Reason’ (or opinions) rather thaa disturb ‘the public Peace’) + Dryden's contribution, including tote essay is this: ne makes the issues at band a matter of character, and thea be draws out the political and religious implications ofthe moral stance one bodies forth. {By stating these numerous views Doughlas succeeds in his aim to assent Dryden's work fit in various aspects such as embodied truth, moral focus an inumanent form.) Conclusion G. Douglas Atkins ends his discussion on ‘in-henweeness of essay’ by substantiating it with ample examples from Pope's An Essay om Maw al Tokay Dryden's Rellgio Late. Botl these "Works are quintessential of ‘via media’ and incorporate rath in incarnate form* John Dryden — Just like Pope, Dryden too wrote an essay in verse form, titled “Religio Laici or A Layman’s Faith.” In the work Dryden represents man's choice in moral terms. © Dryden’s issue is of the moral. He draws out the religious and political implications (Eg. of the stanza at Pg 159) * Ideas represented by Dryden are not abstract, rather they are embodied in people. From the priest who “occasioned” his poem to the poet himself. His issue is of how on conducts himself in relation to the holy scripture ¢ Apart from the question of the character, discussion of public, political and religious questions are important subject of the poem. How one treats god reveals their character. * To conclude the essay, G Doughlas Atkins states that Dryden’s essay fits in with all the previously mentioned respects: immanent form, embodied truth, moral focus and the ultimate concern Work Cit Atkins, G Doughlas. “In Betweeness: The Burden of Essay”, Tracing the Essay: From Experience to Truth, Athens and London: The University of Georgia Press, 2005. Pp 145-162Doghilas’ views on Cynthia Ozick’s “The Riddle of the Ordin: # Inher essay The Riddle of the Ordinary Ozick defines ordinariness as a breathing space: between getting born and dying, between rapture and rupture or between one disaster and the next. « She states for her as a Jew, the act of worshipping creation is idolatry. She expresses her views and states, “The creator is not contained in his own creation: the creator is incarnate in nothing, and is free of any image or imagining.” But on this point Doughlas differs in his opinion as he believes in truth to be incarnate and also in the Incarnation. Yet she evokes a thought in essayist’s mind from the question: How do we get from the Ordinary to the extraordinary’? Doughlas states that although he had claimed, meaning plays transcendent to experience’s immanent, but it is only a structural participation. + Doughlas states that instance of extraordinary in Ozick’s terms would be incarnation of Jesus Chiist as a man, However Doughlas concludes by stating that essays derive meaning, which remains on the level of ordinary and so does not attain the transcendent level, in other words, meaning falls short of potential and is thus reduced.