What is a literary ESSAY: characteristics and examples

It may be obvious that write well and neat it could be considered an art that not all of us are capable of mastering. And it is that even the writing itself has its stylistic and compositional guidelines that help the editor to organize ideas in a coherent and cohesive way. It is, above all, a result of what we know as literary genres, which differentiate the art of literary writing in its various forms, depending on its purpose and features.

Among them we find poetry, dramaturgy or narrative, for example. However, there is also another literary genre that we know as essay, and that is composed of its own guidelines and characteristics. However, in a teacher we have encouraged ourselves to explain what is a literary essay with characteristics and examples. Interesting, right?

Index

1. What is a literary essay
2. Characteristics of a literary essay and its types
3. Parts of a literary essay
4. Examples of literary essays

A test, as we said, is a literary genre characterized by being written in prose and have as objective the development of a text on a specific topic.

This theme that is taken as the cornerstone of the essay is analyzed and explained throughout the text and is usually accompanied by the author's own opinion subjectively.

Regarding its extension, altogether they are not usually too long, although there are always exceptions. The important thing is to take enough time and space to develop and comment on the proposed topic without falling short or, of course, overdoing it.

We are going to know the characteristics of a literary essay and it is that, depending on the structure and order that is used for the development of the author's ideas regarding the chosen topic, we can find three main types of essay, which would be the following:

• Deductive or analytical: In this type of essay, the starting point is the same thesis or main argument that, later, is shelled in the different ideas that compose it in a way, as its name indicates, analytical. That is to say, it works entirely to the parts or, what is the same, from the main to the secondary.
• Inductive or synthesizing: Quite the opposite to what was explained in the previous point, the inductive structure works from the parts to the whole. That is, we begin by developing the different ideas that make up the topic to finally reach or conclude with the thesis or main idea of ​​the essay.
• Framed: On this occasion, as its name suggests, we take a slightly more compact and square structure, as if it were a capicúa. And it is that, in this type of essay, the subject or thesis of the same begins, going on to treat the points and arguments that the author wants to develop on the main premise of the text. Finally, the initial thesis is addressed again to conclude and wrap the essay, in addition to relating what has been learned throughout the text with the main topic. However, and in summary, in this type of essay the main thesis is developed both at the beginning (by way of introduction) and at the end (as a conclusion), leaving the arguments and opinions for the central body of the text.

Literary essays, on many occasions, play with a free structuring in terms of the use of paragraphs, parts that compose it, etc. But nevertheless, they do exist three main parts that are usually in them, that are quite similar to those of the narrative texts and that are the following:

• Introduction: As its name indicates, in this part we take care of introducing the topic that we are going to deal with (the way in which we do it depends on the type of essay that we are going to develop). Above all, the main thing is to put the reader in context of what is going to be found throughout the text. It is up to the writer to take into account what structure he intends to adopt and, consequently, how he will (or will not) treat the main thesis in this introduction.
• Development: Normally, the most common thing in this second part of the essay is to develop the arguments that surround the main thesis, in an analytical way or, by the on the contrary, synthetic (that is, with the aim of developing the arguments around a specific idea or, on the other hand, leading by means of these arguments towards the idea). Therefore, it is here where we find the opinions and arguments of the author, as well as the most important information from the essay itself. The development is the bulk of the essay, so it is usually the longest part and where the most care is usually used.
• conclusion: As in the introduction, depending on the structure used for the development of the essay, we will find in this last point the treatment of the main thesis or not. In any case, the important thing at this point is to wrap all the ideas presented throughout the text and give them coherence and cohesion as a whole. Consequently, it is common to briefly review everything that has been argued in development and, depending on the type of chosen essay, the thesis is treated in one way or another in a conclusive way and encompassed together with its arguments adjoining.

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We conclude this lesson with examples of literary essays that will help you to finish understanding what we have exposed.

José Ortega y Gasset. Fragment of Andalusian theory:

If we travel through Castile we do not find anything other than peasants working their meadows, obliquely on the furrow, preceded by the yoke, which on the horizon line acquires proportions monstrous. However, the current Castilian culture is not a peasant culture: it is simply agriculture, what remains whenever the true culture disappears. The culture of Castile was warlike. The warrior lives in the field, but he does not live in the field - neither materially nor spiritually.

José Ingenieros. Introductory excerpt from The moral of genius:

Genius is excellent because of his morals, or he is not genius. But his morality cannot be measured by current precepts in catechisms; no one would measure the height of the Himalayas with pocket tape measures. The behavior of the genius is inflexible with respect to his ideals. If you seek Truth, you sacrifice everything to it. If Beauty, nothing deviates you. If the Good, he goes straight and sure over all the temptations. And if he is a universal, polyhedral genius, the true, the beautiful and the good are unified in his exemplary ethics, which is a simultaneous cult for all the excellences, for all the idealities. As it was in Leonardo and Goethe.

If you want to read more articles similar to Literary essay: characteristics and examples, we recommend that you enter our category of Literary concepts.

• "Literary essay". Author: Editorial team, Etecé. From Argentina. For: Concept of. Last edited: August 5, 2021.
• Engineers, J. (1926). The mediocre man. Buenos Aires: Argentine Graphics.
• Ortega y Gasset, J. (1942). Theory of Andalusia and other essays. Western magazine.
• Ortografía.com (September 11, 2017). 10 examples of short literary essays.