learning journal 16: the inferiority complex

...and why essayists might be inflicted with it. As I was writing my literature review, I remembered a conversation I had in my Creative Writing Theory class last week. One of my classmates and fellow grad student studier of the personal essay was presenting on Phillip Lopate's Introduction to Art of the Personal Essay and our class got caught discussing one quote from Lopate:

"Though long spoken of as a subcategory of the essay, the personal essay has rarely been isolated and studied as such. It should certainly be celebrated, because it is one of the most approachable and diverting types of literature we possess."

My professor, Steve Tuttle, made a comment about the seeming "essayist inferiority complex," and questioned why essayists feel the need to defend their genre so vehemently. It's true, though--you don't see poets defending poetry as a legitimate genre of study, nor fictionists nor dramatists. So why is it that essayists feel the need to defend their genre? As I thought of this, I thought of another simple question: why do I have such a hard time describing and defining my genre? My immediate answer is that no one is going to ask a poet, "well, what exactly is a poem?" Meaning this: people know what poetry is; they recognize it. They know what fiction is, and of course drama is easily identifiable. For essayists, personal essays are also easily identifiable, but that's because we have studied essays. When I say I write personal essays, people say so... what exactly is that? and I have to come up with a half-baked answer that is supposed to "sum up" the essence of what an essayist is/does. Steve Tuttle has also said that we, as Creative Writing MFA students, have to be able to define what we do, so that, I feel, is one of my goals in this field study. I know what an essay is; I know what it looks like, but the more I study essays, and essayists, the more readily I will be able to define what I do (and know how to do it). And thus defend it. 

So that brings me back to my original question: why do essayists feel the need to defend their genre? I believe that essayists feel the need to defend because people need to know what personal essays are. They should be studied as much as any other genre--I don't know that too many would disagree, but being informed is the trick. Essays need to be much more than just the "fourth genre," to take the name from a current literary journal. So that's why I feel the need to, as an essayist, defend my genre. 

This idea has been informing much of what I'm doing right now: my field study (and within that, my literature review), my project, my thesis, my thoughts. It's a good thing I enjoy it enough to be thinking about it this much!

why am i doing this?

That's a good question. When I question my motivation for participating in a field study, I can trace my train of thought back to the moment I received the email from Dave Schuller encouraging former study abroad students to participate in field studies. First, I jumped at the chance to go back to London--I love London, and I haven't stopped thinking about going back since the study abroad I went on in 2010. I realized, as I learned more about field studies, that it was an independent, almost completely autonomous experience where I can study what is most relevant to what I want and need. This was an important turn of mind for me; I realized that I could make this field study entirely relevant to my studies in a creative writing master's program.

First, the classical British essay is fundamentally important to my studies in the genre. Essayists like Charles Lamb, William Hazlitt, GK Chesterton, and Virginia Woolf all published in London and interacted with the city and culture. What better way to gain an experience in the classical essay than to study in the place where many of the canonical personal essays were created? London is also hub to so many of the subjects and topics that interest me--food, travel, family history, to name a few--and exploring these subjects in the context of learning about the classical British essay is nothing short of a magical possibility to me.

I don't know if this is completely answering the prompt, but to zoom out to a more general motivation, I want to participate in this field study because I want to learn from the culture of London, of England, and I want to gain experience through receiving insight into different viewpoints and perspectives. I admit, when I did the study abroad to London, I was more concerned with seeing London than I was with much else. There is, indeed, much to see. But this time I hope to not only see, but learn from London and to make it a part of myself.

And that's why I'm going.